China’s 2020 Vision of a Good Citizen
On October 4, 2018, Vice President Mike Pence gave a speech, describing China as an ever-growing global contender seeking to reach new heights on the international hegemony.
Now, through the “Made in China 2025” plan, the Communist Party has set its sights on controlling 90 percent of the world’s most advanced industries, including robotics, biotechnology, and artificial intelligence.
Since its implementation in 2015, this plan has put the international community on check because it promises to make China a new technological and manufactrurer superpower, eclipsing the United States. Moreover, China understands that in order to achieve these objectives, its citizens must be the ones in the forefront of the effort. The best way to do this is presumably by constanly surveilling the population.
The key here is that its citizens can sense that they are being observed, but they don’t know when or where are they being observed, just as Jeremy Bentham’s Panopticon. Vice President Pence later stated:
Today, China has built an unparalleled surveillance state, and it’s growing more expansive and intrusive — often with the help of U.S. technology … And by 2020, China’s rulers aim to implement an Orwellian system premised on controlling virtually every facet of human life — the so-called “Social Credit Score.” In the words of that program’s official blueprint, it will “allow the trustworthy to roam everywhere under heaven, while making it hard for the discredited to take a single step.”
Creating a Social Credit Score with the help of approximately 200 million surveillance cameras definitely makes it look easy (in comparison, the United States has four times less surveillance cameras). This means that Beijing has the capacity to track almost 1.4 billion people — and advancements in facial recognition and artificial intelligence will only improve these systems of control.
We could do a deep analysis of all the ways the Chinese are stalking their citizens but there are great articles already covering this, although, I never read something that answered two questions I had:
What does it mean to be a good citizen?
Being regarded as worthy of a country’s nationality seems pretty straightforward: follow the law, pay your taxes, be a good neighbor. However, the specific criteria the Chinese use to determine trustworthiness well, is rather blurry (Loubere, N. (2017)).
However, China did define someone as “untrustworthy”. First, they do not comply with the payment of governmental fees such as taxes or social insurance; second, they falsify materials, hide the truth, destabilize the order of social managment and harm the common social interests; lastly, refusing to act upon legal documents, such as a subpoena.
One assumes that these social interests must be married to the national interests. Kelly, T. et al, (2014) wrote a book called The U.S. Army in Asia, 2030–2040, and in the chapter Chinese Interests and Strategy, they wrote about what this country values as its “core interests”. These interests have been shaped by many Chinese leaders. Still, all relate to three main goals: firstly, to mantain “China’s basic state system and national security” (in other words, upholding Chinese Communist Party rule); secondly, to protect the “national sovereignty and territorial integrity” and, thirdly, “the continued stable development of the Chinese economy and society.”
These goals must have some -- if not all -- influence behind the Social Credit Score policy. One must remember that priority number one consists in the preservation of the Communist Party’s regime and back in 1989 — with the supression of the Tiananmen protests, the world witnessed how far this party can go to keep the status quo intact. As written in the book The U.S. Army in Asia, 2030–2040:
“Leaders in Beijing may see social instability as the greatest threat to the party, and they view balanced economic development and growth as central to avoiding it.”
This quote is backed up by numbers as China spends more of its GDP on domestic security than on defense budget. In other words, they are more affraid of political turmoil coming from the inside rather than the outside. Think about that for a second, they believe their own citizens pose greater danger to the regime than outside powers.
Moving on, being called untrustworhy is better than being labeled as seriously untrustworthy, right? Well, for someone to be considered as seriously untrustworhty, they need to pose a threat to other people, say, by killing them. They can also be added to the list if they disrupt the order of “fair market competition”, refuse to perform obligated actions by law or endanger national defense interests.
The consequences of being part of these low-rating lists are extensive. These ‘trust-breakers’ would be denied loans. They would be restricted on working in several businesses and the positions they could have. Their consumption of high-class goods would also be limited. This include staying in luxury hotels, traveling first class or traveling overseas, attending to elite schools — which essentially means lower quality of education, or even building a house. Loubere, N. (2017)
Now, as we try to picture both sides of the coin -- being regarded as a good citizen or being labeled as an unworthy one -- it is quite easy to choose a side. One would always try to be a civilized citizen in order to have all possibilities open so one could unravel its potential as a human being, but let us remember that one’s freedom solely depends on one’s social credit score.
Who defines the credit score?
It is evident that this “civilizing tool” could not be prone to make mistakes of say, humans, as whole lives and the quality of them will depend on it. So how could they implement it?
The idea is to remove any biases from human decision making by having an artificial intelligence-powered algorithm capable of storing big data of patterns and behaviors of the citizens. This implies that it is the individual, rather than the government or for that sake, than the algorithms, that will be the responsibles for the rights they earn, providing a sense of “freedom”.
Final thoughts
As China seeks to become the crown of the international hegemony, the individual will play a key role to accomplish this. Beijing knows this and has created the Social Credit Rating to establish a more ‘harmonious’ society which will focus on productivity and economic growth. Many questions rise of whether this “Orwellian system” will serve as a measure to increase control of an already surveilled population or will it help form a more prosperous society, empowered to take control of their own destiny.
It is not so clear as how someone is defined as trustworthy but as we get a notion of the negative traits one must have to become an untrustworthy one, so do the Chinese. If this technology works out and people become happier and more productive, we could expect it being adopted by other countries and passing the baton from human stalkers to algorithmic computers. On the other hand, if it only serves a few in power and creates an abysmal difference between socioeconomic classes, then expect more speeches from Mike Pence calling for the halt of this “unparalleled surveillance state”.
