Watch the documentary. Each individual gets a score, and this score changes depending on your behaviour and the everyday decision you make - what you drink you buy, what food you eat. Whatever the party deems as desired or undesired behaviour, the score is increased or decreased.
Hotznplotzn
joined 1 year ago
It depends how people are asked imo. Most such surveys are done on Chinese social media or in similar surveys where individual answers can be tracked. According to polls done in China, the vast majority of citizens also agree that China is a good democracy and that they trust their government.
But what else would people say? Openly disagreeing with the government can put you in big trouble in China. It's basically a choice between being supportive of what the government does or risking to simply disappear.
the social credit score as it is imagined by westerners with AIs tracking your every move to make a number go up or down that determines your standing in society is fiction.
No, it isn't fiction. It is real.
Every Chinese citizen gets a score, to which points are added or deducted depending on individual everyday actions.
The system rewards citizens based on their accumulated "score," which basically reflects their alignment with state-approved values. A high score grants valuable incentives and preferential access to public services. For example, citizens with good credit may be exempt from paying deposits when using public hospitals or libraries, receive discounts on public transportation, and benefit from streamlined processes for certain international visas. Conversely, acts like running a red light or jaywalking can result in public shaming and a loss of points.
Based on this social credit system, the Chinese population is divided into 4 classes of citizens.
There is a documentary by a French journalist and his (Chinese) wife who were living in China's capital Beijing. The documentary has been made in 2023, but there is an edited version from 2025 (I watched the film back in 2023 and also the 2025 version; as far as I remember, the 2025 edits reflect the role of AI in the system).
Here is a YT link: Life Under China’s Social Credit System: A Dystopian Reality?
Here an alternative Invidious link: https://inv.nadeko.net/watch?v=p19nYrjZ1dQ
The documentary lasts 52 minutes.
[Edit typo.]
They have to. China's economy (and likely the government?) would be facing even more severe trouble without extensive export growth. Foreign markets are the country's only lifeline after a decade of so of failed economic policy. The world is waking up only slowly, but at least supply chain diversification is underway.
It all depends what Ukraine gets in return I would say.
That was my first thought, too. But as the article also says,
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has also said that Ukraine is ready to help protect Gulf countries from the Iranian regime, but is asking them to help Ukraine in return.
If all sides are willing, they will find a way I hope.
Source (Sixth Tone) is a Chinese state-funded soft-power outlet. That should not be relevant to this report, which is simply decent journalism.
This is always relevant, one reason being that they intentionally suppress certain information to spread propaganda and propagnada only. It's the outlet's sole raison d'être. This so-called "soft power" comes from the same dictatorial political system. It is an inherently bad and unreliable source and has nothing to do with decent journalism.
It is a really racist and dictatorial policy:
The new law was needed to provide better legal safeguards for the party’s “ethnic work” in order to “maintain the security and stability of China’s border regions and ethnic regions [...]
and
[there is] “no way” that non-Han people would be able to safely express “any type of discontent without being accused of being essentially separatists or terrorists."
but I would be surprised if China doesn’t come out stronger, some how.
How so?
I wouldn't say it is a different argument. China is using this for its propaganda, portraying itself as a 'democracy' and stable government valuing the rule of law. But this is not reality. Beijing just uses Trump's actions for vindication, although China has long been a dictatorship long before Trump.
I don't know what Trump exactly wants in Venezuela and Iran, of course, but the wars here and there hit China massively.
Both Venezuela, the country with the largest known oil reserves, and Iran are (were?) ideal partners for China's global business model built on commodity-based lending. It works quite simple: a Chinese bank close to its government loans the money, the borrower required to sell commodities to a buyer in China, and the commodities proceeds will then be redirected to the bank service the loan. As these trades often occur at predefined prices, China benefits not only by gaining political influence in the selling country - often politically isolated and whose primary source of income is the commodity - but also by making itself a bit independent form fluctuating oil prices.
China has similar deals with a wide range of countries to whom it provides loans for commodities: in Zimbabwe China purchases platinum with such agreements, in Zambia cobalt and copper, in Ghana bauxite.
In Venezuela, the China Development Bank financed the loans for the government in Caracas. The commodity purchase contract involved Venezuela's state-owned oil company Petróleos de Venezuela SA and a Chinese state-owned oil purchaser. The loan is then being repaid by the proceeds from Petróleos de Venezuela SA’s revenue stream from oil sales.
Venezuela is the largest borrower of this Chinese state-backed lending scheme in South America and the fourth largest globally. Between 2000 and 2023, China granted loans totaling USD 95 billion to Venezuela via this scheme, which is roughly 90% of China's total loan volume to Venezuela, according to AidData.
Amidst the current turmoils, however, the supposed convenience has a hefty price as China's credit risk is highly concentrated in a single commodity - in Venezuela's case, oil. Any fundamental change in Venezuela's oil industry would inevitably effect repayment terms (and enforcement conditions) of Caracas's debt to Beijing.
The situation in Iran is similar. China has been buying cheap oil form sanction-hit Iran for a long time. China accounts for more than 80% of Iran’s maritime crude oil exports, and Iranian oil accounts for 13% of China's oil imports. If Iran is forced to shut the Street of Hormuz, it has a much wider impact as 45% of China's (and 20% of the world's) oil and gas supply is shipped through this small lane in the gulf.
For a short period of time, China may be able to even benefit from a possible oil scarcity. It has bought a huge stockpile and could be able to sell its refined oil to others at a reasonable price. But Beijing has no reason to celebrate as this will be short-term. In the long run, the situation will cause a lot of troubles for China.
This is not to say that the US is deliberately aiming at China. I don't understand what the current administration is doing as Trump appears to contradict himself perpetually. But the impact on China is tremendous imho, at least this is how I interpret the data.
I apologize for the long comment.
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Dude, each single app she has on her phone is from a private company. The state doesn't even have an app, and it doesn't need one.
To paraphrase what the documentary says: The private companies are creating the apps, but the Chinese party-state makes the recipes. And the state has access to every single piece of information. The state decides what happens with the data, and what 'features' are added. The party gets what it wants.
That's what the documentary explains explicitly.
It's an Orwellian nightmare.