What’s Your Social Credit Score?
Dispelling some myths
I’ve asked many people, usually with a smile, what’s your social credit score? Ní de shèhuì xìnyòng píngfēn shì duōshǎo?
The answer 100% of the time I’ve asked this question has been words to the effect of: “what are you talking about”? Not one person of the hundreds I’ve asked has ever had an answer for me or even knows what this means.
China has several systems which are lumped together by western media as a “social credit score” one of them is exactly as the west have, a credit rating, if you want to borrow money, rent an apartment/house even get some jobs, you need to prove you’re able to repay or that you don’t have a history of debt and default. That exists in China too.
Another is an app for parents of middle school kids called 学习强国 (Xue xi qian guo) which literally means “Learning to Strengthen the Country”.
I know a little about this because I helped (as a volunteer) to promote the App for my own city, Zhongshan by making a video encouraging people to use it.
The App is about what the kids do in school and helps educate parents so they can have meaningful discussions with their kids and their kid’s teachers about what’s happening in their school life — this is particularly useful in China as many kids live in school Monday to Friday. Of course, like all things related to education it’s positive about China and some foreign readers would, without any sense of irony call it propaganda because it updates parents and students on the good things the country is doing for them — In the west we call that a party-political broadcast, in China, they call it news, in Western media they call it propaganda — we, critical readers and viewers can see it for what it is, an information stream.
Parents get points for the amount of time they put into this and there’s an informal competition among parents to be top of their kid’s class in how much attention they pay to their education. As far as I know there are no rewards for those points but there are definitely no punishments for not achieving them either; I guess parents would feel bad if they didn’t go online because the class teacher interacts with them there and they get to know what’s going on.
Another one I know of, again because I’m a volunteer in a local charity is an App where, when people volunteer to help the community.
Participants can collect points but there’s no compunction on anyone to volunteer at all and no punishment for not being part of this but there are rewards offered by the city. When the city has promotions or events, you may get preferential prices or even free offers to do things, the more you give to society, the more you get back from it. Even to the point where you might be able to choose a better school for your child than they might normally go to because of your geographical location — if the better school is outside your area and your child is smart, you have many points because you’ve done good things for the community, you might get the benefit of that. This one is all about benefit and has nothing negative about it at all.
And here’s a great thing: this App can be used to negate negative points you’ve received for breaking the law which is what we’re coming to now.
In terms of punishments, as I’ve mentioned, there are no punishments in either of the two “social credit score Apps”. They are totally voluntary and beneficial to the users, not the government.
China, just like every other country I’m aware of, has a system of vehicle ID. If a person commits an offence in their car (I’ve never heard of this being used for anything other than registered vehicles) they get a fine and points on their license — same as you do. Phones are registered to people here too, you can’t buy a SIM card without an ID so, when a car gets a penalty, their phone, car and ID are linked together so they get a text message of how much the fine will be and when to pay it. If they aren’t driving the car, they can just send a message to the system with the name of the driver and the penalty is transferred to them (I do know of people who use this system when they are near the point of losing their licence, they make an arrangement with someone who has no points and pay them to take the penalty, usually their wife, family member or a good friend, as far as I know, it isn’t a business that exists but it could be as it would be a lucrative business, the only problem being it would be illegal and, it would need to be done on the phone so people would get caught doing it).
If an offender fails to pay the fine, they can be blacklisted and this, the dreaded word that western media claims, is the huge problem for Chinese people.
It’s not, but it is an inconvenience. Remember this is only when debts are overdue and outstanding
Since we all use WeChat wallet to access our bank accounts this may cause real inconvenience. They need to go to the place where the fine was issued, take the money, pay it and then their account is unlocked. That’s not so draconian, is it?
And, the great thing is, there’s not a person in China in prison because they didn’t pay a debt — I know which system I prefer.
One last item I also approve of, if you are on bail awaiting trial, if you have a large court case outstanding related to a debt you owe, if you have been convicted of assault, damage or other nuisance on a train, plane or other public transport, then you may be blocked from traveling on public transport for a period of time. For serious matters this can be extended to hotel accommodation too.
Again, we live on our phones, book everything, pay for everything too so, it literally means, unless you drive and stay in private residences, you can’t go to another city in China, nor can you leave China until the matter is resolved — once resolved, all restrictions are lifted. Some in the west would say, just get a new phone, but you can’t, the phone needs to be registered with your ID. A way around this might be to get a family member to get a new phone — I don’t know if that would work as I don’t move in these kinds of circles, sorry.
As far as I’m aware, these are the only aspects and, to be honest, they aren’t much different to the system most westerners live under and, if you’re a normal person going about your normal life, none of this affects you anyway.
The myths about getting points deducted for buying foreign goods, needing a good score to get married all those things are made up to make China look bad. My wife is always buying foreign good online, she and I are often volunteers in the disabled community, we could but don’t use the Apps at all, we don’t have school age kids and we’re not lawbreakers so there’s no benefit no gain and absolutely no punishment unless we do break the law and that, is no different to where you are in the world — is it?
