Cross-posted from: https://beehaw.org/post/10848936
The new law follows past efforts, such as smartphone apps for people to “learn about new socialist thought” - including a lesson on how “Grandpa Xi led us into the new era” - and for adults to read up and take quizzes on Xi’s latest theories.
The latter was deemed a success in terms of downloads – as all 90 million Communist Party members were ordered to use it alongside many employees of state-owned enterprises.
China has other legislation aimed at stamping out unpatriotic behavior, such as banning the desecration of national flags and insults to soldiers. And under Xi in recent years, any dissent in China – even in the form of online comments that don’t toe the party line – is enough to land people in trouble with authorities.
But the latest law appears to hint at the introduction of penalties for acts not already punishable under existing laws, according to Ye Ruiping, senior law lecturer from Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand.
For example, it states that behaviors “advocating, glorifying and denying acts of invasion, wars and massacres” and “damaging patriotic education facilities” could be subject to punishments, she said.
So, it’s worth clarifying the nature of the this kind of “law” passed in Beijing. Which this article fails to do and comes across to me partially as fear mongering because of it.
Generally speaking when Beijing passes a law like this, they are not passing a law as we know it, it is a set of guide lines for the leaders of local provinces to implement their own policies and laws based on what they think will accomplish the goals set out from Beijing. Then Beijing observes what they come up with and if they like the outcomes of one, they implement it country wide.
For instance when everyone was hyper ventilating about “ ALL OF CHINA IS LITERALLY 1984 BECAUSE OF THE NEW SOCIAL CREDIT SYSTEM” in reality, Beijing had just essentially just asked the provinces to create their own systems that fallowed a vague guideline. And the provinces did, some provinces set up systems that would give people fines for saying mean things, some just set up an American style credit score system. In the end Beijing didn’t really find that any of them lived up to what they were asking for and all of the programs were quietly spun down.
It’s likely this will end in a similar manor.
Regarding the ‘1984 social credit system’ there are a lot of good resources which tell a story far diffrrent from yours. One recent example is tbe documentary ‘Total Trust’ by Chinese film maker Zhang Jialing. The film’s introduction says:
Watch the film. There are many reviews about it (and other sources about surveillance in China). It’s really easy to find on the web.
I think this law has similar intentions.
Addition: @megopie it would be great if you could post a source of what you say. Thanks in advance.
megopie’s claims seem to be consistent with the Wikipedia article (which mostly cites this Singaporean book), and my experience of it wasn’t directly state-run either; we used the one from Alipay, and it was mainly about availability of and restriction against services.
While the website for that docu seems to be a bit too alarmist for my red flags, the trailer looks pretty good, so I think I’ll give it a try sometimes. Note that my family has no dealings with human rights, so my account may not be accurate.
That’s not about the social credit system though, that’s about the general censorship and surveillance apparatus. Which although robust and invasive is quite fragmented, there is no central database. local branches of law enforcement or internal intelligence or a million other parts of china’s own alphabet soup, manage, collect and use surveillance data, some terrifyingly effectively, some pathetically. Some not at all.
China is a big country with a lot of tasks being delegated to lower authorities, (and delegated from them to even lower authorities). Anytime I see someone talk as if the Chinese government is a monolithic entity it makes me want to pull my hair out. 90% of the time when someone talks about some new law in Beijing being created, they’re misrepresenting the reality, which is generally that the central government has directed provincial and local governments to pass their own laws and implement their own policies to address what ever Beijing has talked about.
For references about social credit in particular here you go:
https://jamestown.org/program/far-from-a-panopticon-social-credit-focuses-on-legal-violations/
https://logicmag.io/china/the-messy-truth-about-social-credit/