Is the West justified in its criticism of China's social credit system?

flickr: Konrad Lembcke

Since the advent of China's social credit system (SCS), the Western media has been prolific in its unadulterated criticism of the program. Yet, this essay questions whether the West can hold a moral high ground and insinuate that this sort of intense monitoring is not occurring in its own region. This line of argument will be explored through first outlining the controversies of China's plans for its social credit system. Then, the essay will turn towards the ways in which reporting on the program differs in the West and in China. Finally, the essay will analysis whether similar practices are occurring in the West, and if this serves to weaken their leverage against criticising China.

China has been effectively a one-party state since 1949, with the intensity of control over citizens fluctuating over time. However, with the accession of Premier Xi Jinping, the CCP's grip over its people has significantly strengthened under his policy that the party will "lead everything" (Gao 2017). When Xi means everything, he means everything; from social media censorship to curriculums in classrooms. The next step, according to Chinese governmental plans, is to address the morality of its citizens and ensure that a cohesive society is in operation by creating a system to track behaviour. The development of such a system was first announced in 2014 and aimed to be in motion across China from 2020. With this system, the surveillance ability of the Chinese state will be greatly enhanced, as information can be accumulated and organised in a much more effective manner in comparison to before. Around 6% of China are already participating in government-led pilot programs across the country, with points connected to a person's identification card number (Leigh and Li 2018). There are numerous other private credit systems that are in place, such as Sesame Credit by Alibaba, though they all give their information to and work closely with the government.

The social credit systems operate by giving rewards to those who have acted correctly and punishes those who go against their word or the law. For example, points are gained by a wide variety of actions; from giving blood to paying bills on time (Hockett 2019). Points are lost through actions such as fraud, refusing military service and jaywalking (Ma 2018). These actions add or subtract points from a set amount given to all people, and dependent on their score, can lead to benefits like deposits being waivered on apartments and hotels, to disadvantages ranging from restricted travel and public shaming. Blacklists name those individuals and companies who have grossly wronged, such as one blacklist ranking which companies are the worst pollutants and which companies overload their trucks - a practice that is known to cause many accidents in China. Highly advanced technology aids the gathering of this information, including facial recognition software, alongside data from banks, restaurants, hospitals and so on. As a result, China’s plan is to enact a mass amalgamation of data to aid the ranking of citizens by using computer-performed algorithms.

Many in the West are vocal of their concern and even contempt for the SCS that China is implementing. Most of the coverage over the system have decried it as an Orwellian nightmare and evocative of the dystopian television show Black Mirror. Worries centre around what the Chinese government plan to do with such a vast amount of information, and the level of intrusion the CCP will gain into ordinary citizen's private lives. Examples of articles sceptical of China's motives include Wired claiming the program is 'Big data meets Big Brother', New York Post's claiming it to be a "nightmare" and The Guardian labelling it as "unsettling" (Botsman 2017; Palin 2018; Naughton 2018). Having every action ranked, having every step followed, having every transaction traced, for the West, appears to suck the true meaning out of actions and turn them simply into mere tokens of currency; a new form of monetary exchange. Furthermore, the invasion of privacy is too much for the West, who prefer to keep public and private rigidly separated from one another. Indeed, the political implications are viewed as to keep minority groups in check, tighten grip on political dissent, and threaten freedom of speech as a result of having a political eye constantly watching over citizen's personal lives. For example, the SCS will give the state ability to closely scrutinise and monitor the actions of the Uighur minority in Xinjiang, who are already under heightened surveillance due to protesting the CCP. In these reports, the Chinese are treated as if they are voiceless, and powerless to the overbearing power of the CCP.

Yet, such analysis fail to recognise the popularity of the SCS amongst Chinese people. Numerous surveys attest to Chinese people’s positive view of the effects the program has on society. It ensures order is retained and prevents crooks from swindling the innocent as their ranking alerts others to their criminal ways. According to one study on 2,209 citizens in 2018, 48.9% of participants strongly approved of SCS, and 31.1% somewhat approved, showing the system's high levels of acceptance within Chinese society (Kostka 2018: 12). This differs significantly from the Western view of its stifling nature, as it is seen with having potential to ease people's lives for the better. Some suggest that the difference in understanding is down to cultural differences. It is claimed that Chinese culture throughout history has stressed the joining of governance and morality, following the structural moral outlines of Confucianism. On the other hand, Western culture views the separation of governance and morality as paramount (even if it is only de jure and not always practiced as such, like the unspoken rule that all American Presidents must adhere to the Christian faith). Maybe with the application of cultural relativity, the SCS can be justified in the Chinese context.

Furthermore, the West also has numerous nascent credit systems under development, and its accumulation of unprecedented amounts of data with little promise to honour social responsibility puts them in similar shoes to China. Fiske’s account of America and its mass surveillance of the black community in 1998 shows how this level of monitoring (which he correctly predicted would evolve into video camera usage) was and still is being racialised in cities to continue the scrutiny and tracking of black men (Fiske 1998: 68, 69). He labelled this system of the state closely watching its citizens in Western nations as “democratic totalitarianism”, with Davis claiming that the result was a technologised “scanscape”, in which video cameras, computers and other forms of monitoring follow every citizen’s practices and invade all spaces of public life, leading to an increasingly shrinking public terrain (Hayward 2004: 120).

Davis also foresaw the rise of “electric guardian angels” that would again reduce private arenas (Hayward 2004: 120). He believed these electronic devices would be marketed as seamless gadgets that eased everyday life, which is exactly the task Amazon’s Echo claims to do. Echo operates as a spoken-to ‘switch’; it turns on the radio, tells you the weather, plays music for you and performs other basic tasks. Yet, many questions are being raised about the ethical issues that may ensue from there being a microphone within the private arena of one’s home that is on every minute of the day. Amazon has not disclosed what it plans to do with such a huge amalgamation of information; whether it is selling off personal information to companies, if the information is being used to target consumers with precise content directly aimed for them, or other possible uses. Nevertheless, Amazon is vocal about remaining “open” to the idea that they’ll share voice recordings to developers in the future (Estes 2017).

Not only in the West is a great amount of data being farmed by private companies, but also being accumulated by the government. The famous revelations made by Edward Snowdon in 2015 sounded like a real-life conspiracy theory; the US government orchestrating a “sweeping surveillance infrastructure”, including “routinely scooping up Americans’ phone records, emails, and text messages”, unbeknownst to the general populace (Foreign Policy : 65). Due to his unveiling of such sensitive National Security Agency information, Snowdon remains in asylum in an undisclosed location. Meanwhile, in Europe, the British government’s 'Investigatory Power’s Act’ of 2016, known as the ‘snoopers charter’ was declared unlawful by appeal court judges for the immense power it gave the government into accessing without adequate oversight personal information of all citizens (Travis 2018). In France the government declared the establishment of ‘Secure Electronic Documents’; a single centralised database that would hold personal information (including fingerprints) of 60 million citizens (in French: Corre 2016). However, the West has not yet created a point-based system that would govern even the smallest of actions and has instead chosen to be discreet in placing a watchful eye over its subjects. This suggests that unlike China’s overt watching of all citizens, the West has opted for a more hidden, secretive form of monitoring.

Overall, despite the West’s own flawed credentials in respecting people’s right to privacy, they do have the right to criticise China, just as China has the right to criticise the West even if it too is surpassing the boundary between public and private. Nations should be able to speak out against injustices they believe are being committed by other nations, as it is the only way to learn from one another and maintain the right to freedom of expression in an age where the government has unprecedented access and control over lives.

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