China Imposes Digital Dictatorship, Spreads Surveillance Tech

Item: The Chinese government has released a “Planning Outline for the Construction of a Social Credit System (2014-2020).” The blueprint, still online, was first posted in 2014 and updated subsequently; several pilot programs have begun. The Chinese Communist Party says it will be fully operational by 2020. When in place nationwide, according to a Party document, it will “allow the trustworthy to roam freely under heaven while making it hard for the discredited to take a single step.” The government document maintains that the system will “‘commend sincerity and punish insincerity’ as put forward by the 3rd Plenum of the 18th Party Congress. 

Item: “In the Western imagination,” according to a piece in the MIT Technology Review for February 26, 2019, China’s “social credit system is an AI-[artificial intelligence] powered surveillance regime that violates human rights.” The article (entitled “Is China’s social credit system as Orwellian as it sounds?”) offers another “narrative” — in which the system “is a governance mechanism welcomed by many citizens.” Other scholars, we are told, contend that the system “is simply an extension of Chinese culture’s long tradition of promoting good moral behavior and that Chinese citizens have a completely different perspective on privacy and freedom.”

Item: Bloomberg for January 24 also carries a rosy-glasses account, entitled “Why Big Brother Doesn’t Bother Most Chinese.” “For now at least,” assures the subtitle, “citizens are embracing social-credit systems that can establish greater trust between people and businesses.” For proof, we read: “On social media, at least, China revels in seeing individuals land on social credit-related blacklists. 

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