China’s social credit system, which was officially announced seven years ago, including a citizen rating in the form of a “Citizen Score”, has been delayed. According to the plan of the central government in Beijing, the “Schufa on anabolic steroids”, which in the West is an essential piece of the puzzle in the Chinese surveillance network, should be nationwide 2020. But nothing came of that, so far there have been a number of distributed pilot projects in different cities and regions that are not interoperable.

Reduce social conflicts 2012 the communist government based its initiative for a comprehensive social credit system of scoring procedures of the financial industry for credit checks officially. It is supposed to strengthen social integrity, promote “mutual trust” and reduce social conflicts. The Chinese government regards the project as an “urgent prerequisite for building a harmonious socialist society”.

The history of the major project extends to 1999, Qian Sun describes the status quo for the non-profit organization AlgorithmWatch. One of the most important minds behind the system, Lin Junyue, should demand and plan the system over 20 years ago to fight against fraud and counterfeiting in the Chinese market. At that time it was mainly aimed at the financial sector in order to assess the creditworthiness of buyers and to punish breaches of contractual obligations.

2012 China’s powerful National Development and Reform Commission expanded the concept to include an automated assessment process for social integrity. The e-commerce giant Alibaba via its subsidiary Ant Financial Services with “Sesame Credit” and Tencent with the app system WeChat provided blueprints for the “Citizen Score” in the finance sector. The central bank refused 2018 nine relevant credit bureaus, including Ant Financial, led by Jack Ma, to license to participate in the planned national social credit system.

Point deductions for undesirable behavior Previously, the Central Bank and the Reform Commission 2015 and 2016 in total 43 Pilot projects in regions and cities envisaged. For specific tests, they ultimately selected 27, which include metropolises such as Shanghai and Suzhou. Deductions of points and penalties such as bans on express trains, flights, luxury hotels or fast internet have to be expected there for those who spend too much time playing computer games, go through the red lights, do not stop in front of pedestrian crossings or do not take a taxi.

According to the latest available figures, dishes until middle 2019 had only 27 Millions of citizens put on the “No Fly” list. 14 Millions are denied the credit rating. Since last year, the health data that the systems include also include the results of tests for the novel coronavirus.

A representative survey by the Institute for Chinese Studies at the Free University of Berlin by 2018 showed that 70 percent of Chinese online users are in favor of the project. Many people there felt that such a system was important to “close institutional and regulatory gaps”. But the attitude towards it has changed. According to the state news agency Xinhua, in a survey in July 70 percent of the participants were concerned about possible abuse of the evaluation process.

More and more skepticism The competition between various state commissions and local authorities has led to the definition of “credit” being overstretched , makes AlgorithmWatch one of the reasons for the increasing skepticism in the population. At the end 2019 the National Health Commission asked for blood donations to be included. Although cities like Suzhou had already considered such activities, “the move sparked heated discussions within China.” Wang Lu, an ex-manager of the central bank, warned that almost all social problems would be thrown into the “basket” of social credit.

Critics also describe the system as too chaotic. There is no central coordination and no basic legal framework. In December the government published guidelines for corrections. Local authorities have misunderstood the definition of “bad behavior”, it says. Spitting in public and fare dodging, for example, should not be included in the evaluation. The announced national law for the expansion and standardization of the system is still a long way off.

According to Jeremy Daum, researcher at the Paul Tsai China Center at Yale Law School, Beijing is in the Propaganda anyway. Citizens should be taught to be honest. The talk of the “Citizen Score” has above all an educational character.

(mho)