
Life on the wrong side of China’s social credit system - alanwong
https://www.inkstonenews.com/china/chinas-13-million-discredited-individuals-face-discrimination-thanks-social-credit-system/article/3003319
======
AmVess
USA is heading down this road, too. 21 states will suspend your driver's
license if you fall behind on student debt. This is ass backwards and
destructive thinking. I am certain this is just the start of greater
restrictions on the unfortunate.

~~~
massivecali
As I've been reminded countless times, "driving is a privilege not a right".
You can lose your license for all kinds of 'unfair' reasons that do not make
sense, and I agree it's heavy handed to include student loan debt, but until
it is Federally acknowledged that all citizens have a right to drive (after
passing proper license tests), then this downward progression will continue.

In California you can't even register your vehicle if you're behind on your
child support payments. (I need my job to make payments. I can't get to my job
without my car.)

~~~
lisper
Sure, but none of that changes the fact that suspending someone's driving
privilege as a _punishment_ for _failing to pay a debt_ is incredibly stupid
and counterproductive.

~~~
headcanon
I was once sitting in a courtroom for something unrelated and saw a 19 year
old kid go to jail for 3 months for not paying child support. Not sure how
he's going to pay it back in there, but if all you have is a hammer...

~~~
nradov
Was he really sent to jail for not paying child support, or was it actually
for contempt of court? People generally can't be jailed for debt. But if the
subject of a child support order has money and refuses to may, or refuses to
take reasonable steps to earn some income, then sometimes the judge has to
administer an object lesson on the importance of fulfilling one's obligations.
Judges usually don't take that step unless the defendant has demonstrated a
long history of irresponsible behavior.

~~~
headcanon
It was awhile ago so I don't remember correctly, but you might be right. I
just remember thinking this was rooted in the debt he had to pay, and removing
his ability to pay the debt, while ostensibly serving to teach him a lesson,
didn't seem constructive. Perhaps it was the correct thing to do, perhaps not,
it just seemed sad.

------
wjmao88
This is not the social credit system(edit based on OP comment: the dystopic
social credit system that people are afraid of). This is just the list of
discredited people("Shi Xin Zhe" list) published by China's court system. The
whole list is published on
[http://zxgk.court.gov.cn/](http://zxgk.court.gov.cn/)

You don't end up on the list for simply owing money (and it has nothing to do
with social mis/conduct), you end up on the list for being sued over the money
you owe, and the court determining that you do have to pay and that you have
the ability to pay based on your personal financials (or if you refuse to
disclose your personal financials to the court), and you still refuse to pay.
Hence why its maintained by the court system.

The word "Lao Lai" that is quoted to describe them in the article is literally
"long term renege".

~~~
frotak
> you end up on the list for being sued over the money you owe

You mean like the summary judgments that can be leveled against debtors in the
US by debt collection agencies...

And which...ding your credit score. Which makes it harder to get
credit...secure a loan...(sometimes) get housing...(sometimes) get a job

Versus...institutional segregation and denial of services by the government.
Definitely not even in the same ballpark and definitely an artifact of the
"social credit system" as described by the authors of this article in other
comments here as being an accumulated set of practices and programs in China -
no single thing.

~~~
wjmao88
No, I mean like how in the US the creditor can get the court to let them take
your property (except certain exempt things like your primary residence) and
garnish your wages.

~~~
seniorivn
Wouldn't you agree that court in us and in china are two completely different
things?

------
andreilys
Anytime a criticism of China's social credit score is brought up, there's
always a "yeah but US credit score", yet I still don't understand how the two
are even in the same ballpark.

The social credit score in China is far more invasive and penalizes you for
associating yourself with individuals who have low scores.

To compare the two is disingenuous and reaks of whataboutism

~~~
csomar
There are 13million in China social credit system. That's around 1% of the
population. On the other hand, the US has the highest rate of incarceration in
the world.

Which would you prefer? Be thrown in jail; or be limited some
freedoms/privileges?

I'll take limited freedom. Maybe, then, I'll have a simple chance to prove my
case. From Wikipedia, 21% of prisoners in the US are unsentenced. That's
roughly 400,000 persons.

It's as crazy to think that close to a half million people are sitting behind
bar with no sentence and probably no resources to fight back.

Yes, China is bad. But I think it is doing better than the US given the
resources it has and the population challenges.

~~~
zanny
I'd prefer neither, and as a US citizen reserve the right to criticize the
totalitarian practices of both my and foreign governments.

Criticizing evil does not implicitly mean you endorse your own localized evil.
The rampant systemic and structural racism and classism built into American
society is heinous, but all I can realistically do about it from my vantage
point of poor 20 something living in rural PA is vote and advocate for
politicians I put my trust in to right the wrongs.

------
moosey
> In order for him to clear his debts, Kong argues, he needs to be able to
> succeed at his new business – but that is hard to do if prospective partners
> and customers shun him because of his official status as a “deadbeat.”

This is awful. Totally admit it, they shouldn't do it, etc.

About the same as being a released felon in the United States. We also allow
financial information to be pulled for background checks in the United States:

> A check of a candidate’s background may include employment, education,
> criminal records, credit history, motor vehicle and license record checks.

From [https://www.hireright.com/background-check-
faq/answers/what-...](https://www.hireright.com/background-check-
faq/answers/what-does-a-background-check-consist-of/)

We already have what is functionally a social credit system in the United
States, you'll find the people suffering under it getting harassed by ICE
boarding greyhound buses.

~~~
gamblor956
Not even remotely similar. China's rating system is government-mandated.

In the US, the credit rating system is a creature of, and controlled by, the
market. The US imposes very weak regulation on the credit ratings companies
for individuals, and almost none at all on the credit ratings companies for
businesses.

~~~
ceejayoz
> Not even remotely similar. China's rating system is government-mandated.

Neither one is really optional, so does it matter?

~~~
thoughtstheseus
In some ways yes, in others no. There is a difference between having the
possibility of optionality (you can try something else if you want) and it
being completely not optional.

~~~
ceejayoz
We don't _really_ have the ability to "try something else" when it comes to
the credit bureaus, barring becoming a hermit. (Which would work in China's
case, too.)

------
qlk1123
Rumor has had it that there is a social credit system in China, and now this
report reveals one part of it, which I believe is also just one small piece in
the whole mass surveillance puzzle.

As a Taiwanese, I don't know how the system works, nor can I feel the same as
what Chinese citizens under that surveillance feel. However I can certainly
say that, there must be an another part of the system that monitors "political
activists" against CCP. Let's call this part as X below.

Once you are in the blacklist of X due to reasons like criticizing Chinese
government, you loses some rights implicitly, and the worst part is that X
applies even if you are not a Chinese citizen. I have two examples here:

1\. Taiwanese rights advocate Lee Ming-che held in China

[https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-
china-39428220](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-39428220)

Lee has been in prison since 29 March 2017, because he "ruined Nation
Security." He was retained for months before he had a trial.

2\. [Documentary] Self-censorship by Kevin H.J. Lee

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpHFVZX2TuA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpHFVZX2TuA)

He criticized CCP and then he could not obtain a visa to even Hong Kong. In
this documentary, many instances of such censorship are mentioned, and you can
see how the atmosphere is under such surveillance.

~~~
powerapple
"..... I don't know how it works ..... however, I can certainly say that ,
there must be ....."

you lost me there.

~~~
qlk1123
Just tried to be honest, but sure I should have put that in another way.
Thanks for the feedback anyway.

------
Legogris
Not at all defending the system here, but the article exaggerates quite a bit
when talking about the trains.

> In China, only those who cannot afford the high-speed train take the slow
> train.

I have taken a similar train from Shanghai to Shenyang, it was also a bit
north of 30 hours. Sure, it was not very clean and as everywhere you may
encounter unconventional people but in general it's not at all the deadbeat
caravan they paint it out to be.

~~~
alanwong
OP and Inkstone editor here. The slow train certainly isn't a deadbeat
caravan, and I don't think the article suggests that. But it is unusual for a
businessman to take this train instead of the high-speed options.

~~~
Legogris
Thanks for the reply and for doing an article on this.

Of course most businessmen would almost always take the high-speed option, but
that is the case in Europe too. I did meet and talk to a man who owned a
factory on the train, though, and I get the impression that middle-class
people and students will still take it for trips in their free-time. Not
necessarily because they can't afford other options and I think it's just
untrue that "only those who cannot afford the high-speed train take the slow
train". If that had been a quote by the subject, that is one thing, but here
it's stated as fact.

Don't you think there's more to the story than that his associates deduced his
laolai status just by which train he came by?

------
_bxg1
Studies, especially in recent years, have shown that punishment is not an
effective way of improving on self-destructive behavior. Usually things like
procrastination and substance abuse are irrational symptoms of emotional drain
and hopelessness, and punishment exacerbates those problems. There was an HN
post about it just the other day:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19487411](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19487411).
Poverty and debt tend to also protract out from this kind of emotional
bankruptcy.

I hold some small hope that despite their lack of empathy, regimes will at
least see the practical side of how ineffective this kind of policy is and how
much it inevitably will hurt their economy, after trying it out for a while.
Hopefully that lesson will be learned while it's still mostly contained to
China.

~~~
alanwong
OP and Inkstone editor here. I think you raised a really, really interesting
point.

One thing I think many people overlook in China's social credit system is its
stated goal – to create a system that rewards good behavior and punishes bad
behavior – and whether this system can really tackle self-destructive behavior
you describe, like debt.

And what's going to happen to people who're entering a debt spiral, and are as
a result further punished by the system? Does the idea of social credit mean
these people are simply abandoned?

~~~
dis-sys
> And what's going to happen to people who're entering a debt spiral, and are
> as a result further punished by the system?

please stop spreading false info. people on that "laolai" list are those who
intentionally refuse to pay their debt when they have the resources to do so.
as also explicitly mentioned in your own article, they are punished to the
extent of being inconvenience to do certain things, e.g. in your described
case, they can still ride a train just not the high speed one.

~~~
alanwong
The point is, as demonstrated in the article, high speed train isn’t always a
luxury. And the punishment can have the opposite effect of making people to
pay their debts.

~~~
dis-sys
You are defending those offenders with a passion by completely ignoring the
real victims here. When those "laolai" refuse to pay their debts when they
have the resources to do so, rather than defending for those "laolai", how
about show some decency by thinking about the real life situations of the
actual victims who couldn't get their money back from those "laolai" even
after court orders?

With 1.4 billion people, surely you can dig up some "opposite effect", but
again - how about look at the vast majority of those real victims here? When
someone owes you money and the court order says they should pay you back, yet
they choose to completely ignore that. It is just shockingly unbelievable that
you choose to defend such offenders because they now can't ride high speed
rail!

~~~
_bxg1
At least in America, the vast majority of the time, creditors are huge
companies and debtors are individuals who happened to fall on hard times or
make financial decisions that didn't pan out. Therefore it's much, much worse
when a debtor is unjustly punished than when a creditor unjustly goes unpaid.
It's the difference between completely ruining an individual's life, and
removing a meaninglessly small amount of money from the pockets of rich people
who will remain rich regardless. Are creditors in China commonly non-rich
individuals? Are micro-loans a significant portion of what's being talked
about here? I'm asking this as a serious question.

~~~
dis-sys
> Are creditors in China commonly non-rich individuals? Are micro-loans a
> significant portion of what's being talked about here? I'm asking this as a
> serious question.

From what I saw/met, most of those debts happened between average individuals.
That is how the list end up having millions of cases.

I randomly checked a few cases on that list, most of time, the amount of debts
are a few thousand USD. It is not some micro-loans for average guys on
streets, it is close to one year of their wage.

------
Animats
"One creditor said the company was a sham from the beginning, with fabricated
expenditure and cooked books."

Looks like the system is working.

If "barred from participation in the securities markets" by the SEC meant
flying in coach and no landing slots for private aircraft, it might have more
effect.

~~~
chaseha
Along that line, if the US had a similar system, our current president would
have been marked a "deadbeat" long before he got the chance to run for office
(not saying the system is right, just saying)

------
ada1981
This system seems inhumane. I’ll consider supporting a boycott of China if it
would help.

~~~
ocdtrekkie
In what way would you boycott China? Refuse to buy or use products made there?
How likely do you think this could scale to an impact that would meaningfully
impact China's trade?

And as horrible as I think the social credit system is, there's an interesting
question, as people who don't live in China, what business it is of ours
(except, perhaps, as a cautionary tale)?

~~~
ada1981
I don’t know. I sometimes manufacture physical products. I could state
publically that I won’t. I could also not buy products made in China
personally.

In general we ought to try to change things we don’t like. I can’t imagine the
people of China like this system do they?

~~~
ocdtrekkie
They do, actually! Source:
[https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/03/21/what-
do-p...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/03/21/what-do-people-
china-think-about-social-credit-monitoring/)

Presumably a system that promotes good behavior is well liked by people who
haven't run afoul of it. And of course, via censorship practices, a very small
percentage of Chinese citizens are aware of a lot of reasons they should be
concerned about their government.

Russian citizens are also wildly enthusiastic about Vladimir Putin. It's not a
safe assumption that people living in countries with authoritarian leaders
disapprove of them.

~~~
TimTheTinker
> It's not a safe assumption that people living in countries with
> authoritarian leaders disapprove of them.

Also see Hitler's popular approval ratings [0] (Godwin's law notwithstanding).
In August 1934, roughly 90% of German voters were in favor of the
consolidation of the offices of President and Chancellor into a single Leader-
Chancellor in the person of Adolf Hitler. Note that number should be taken
with a big grain of salt, since there was tremendous social and political
pressure to vote that way -- and a threat of repercussions for voting "no".

[0]
[https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/learning/general...](https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/big/0819.html#article)

~~~
refurb
What an absolutely fascinating article to read.

 _In all Bavaria Chancellor Hitler received the largest vote in his favor in
the concentration camp at Dachau where 1,554 persons voted "Yes" and only
eight "No" and there were only ten spoiled ballots._

------
NoblePublius
I don’t see how this is functionally different than having your wages
garnished by a court order. Deadbeat dads are subject to the same financial
scrutiny in the US. I get the feeling now that much of the criticism of this
system is just Western media clickbait.

~~~
not_kurt_godel
It is fundamentally different in numerous ways. Being in debt in the western
world does not mean you are officially prohibited from certain forms of
travel, for starters. Another huge difference is that China's system is based
on factors other than financial dealings such as anti-government views. It is
a much stricter, less fair, more authoritarian system in nearly every aspect.
I find your whataboutism to be highly suspicious.

~~~
dang
Your last sentence breaks the site guideline against insinuations of
astroturfing (and spying or shilling and all the rest of it). Would you please
review
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)
and stick to the rules when posting here? If anyone wants further explanation,
there is plenty at the links here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19496892](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19496892).

Also, please don't use the tired trope of "whataboutism" on HN. It contains no
information, and is a form of name-calling that breaks the site guidelines as
well. More on that:
[https://hn.algolia.com/?query=by:dang%20whataboutism&sort=by...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=by:dang%20whataboutism&sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix=false&page=0)

Your comment would be fine without that last sentence.

~~~
not_kurt_godel
Apologies for breaking the guidelines. I admit the insinuation wasn't entirely
appropriate. I regularly encounter obvious pro-China astroturfing on the
Internet and I jumped to a premature conclusion/attack in this case.

~~~
dang
I appreciate the response. We have to be really cautious about this, because
the cost of getting it wrong is so high, both to the community and to anyone
who is unfairly accused. If you look at the thread at
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19401961](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19401961)
you'll see an example of this.

------
ChuckMcM
It is an interesting experiment but if it is really a tool for social change
then the ability to correct one's score can't really rely entirely on things
where the individual has no control.

In the US getting a felony on your record is perhaps the biggest limiter to
your future success that you can do. There are so many things stacked against
you at that point. In California there is at least a process for getting some
felonies expunged, which allows you to get back on to the playing field of
life without that weight dragging you down.

The article seems to make the case that the only way the victim could get
their status restored was to come up with money somehow to repay debts.

~~~
gowld
It's China. It's a tool for social control and keeping the Communist Party
billionaires in power.

~~~
chessturk
> the Communist Party billionaires

It's so Orwellian. All of it.

~~~
Teknoman117
The joke goes - When the rest of the world took Orwell's 1984 as a warning,
China used it as a model.

However, that joke really isn't true, because all the countries took it as a
model, it's just that China seems to be somewhat proud of that fact, whereas
the rest tried to do it covertly.

------
coldtea
This Kafkaesque system will be the end result of the constant increased
collection of information from governments (and private businesses, which is
the same, they're bed-pals, only after a certain size it's the businesses that
wear the strap-on) everywhere.

Technology is a multiplier. It can give us some irrelevant goods (basically,
access to every article, news, movie, information without effort, in other
words, without any real investment from us, or the ability to make some
bureaucratic experience faster, while helping add tons of new bureaucratic
requisites that weren't there before), but it mostly multiplies control, and
thus dystopia.

------
shereadsthenews
Yes, spending 30 hours on a train and getting 900 miles down the track sounds
like a fate worse than death. -Confused American

~~~
mindslight
CHI->LAX is 2000 miles in about 45 hours, so still about 40% slower than even
US rail travel. I did appreciate the quip though.

------
caprese
> If he had money to buy an airline ticket, they told the South China Morning
> Post, he should use it to repay what he owed.

This line of thinking spans cultures and completely ignores the velocity or
time value of money. It is extremely counterproductive and doesn't factor in
what someone is trying to do.

This punitive approach to all forms of spending and consumption hampers the
productivity of nations.

A simplistic analysis like this has no way to distinguish someone shirking
their debts, and someone reinvesting in a future business prospect, or just
unwinding! All humans want to unwind.

People with lower debt ratios do the same thing. They don't always pay things
down, don't always prioritize debts in any particular order. So this privilege
shouldn't disappear just because someone is visibly having money challenges or
merely known to have a creditor.

~~~
powerapple
Apparently then a person found out he couldn't fly in airport, he paid back
the money straightaway from his phone. True story.

~~~
caprese
got to know your culture then

------
jondubois
The bankruptcy system in the western world is far too lenient; it encourages
ruthless risk-taking behavior which benefits selfish people at the expense of
those who are socially conscientious. This social credit system doesn't seem
so bad when you put things into perspective.

If our system punished selfish people more, as a conscientious individual, I
would be better off. I don't buy this bullshit that selfish people drive the
engines of progress; they don't drive it; they just capture the proceeds of
progress.

John D. Rockefeller himself admitted that "He who works all day, has no time
to make money".

~~~
wonderwonder
if you are born poor you miss out on the benefits that allow people to be
successful. Take this site for example it encourages people to take risk and
start a business. Worst that can happen if most of us fail is that we move in
with our parents. If you grew up poor, maybe your parents don't have a place
for you to stay if you fail so the ability to start a business is essentially
closed to you as you don't have the safety blanket of your middle class
colleagues.

To claim that people who declare bankruptcy are selfish is quite a blanket
statement and leads me to believe that you have never known poverty. Try being
poor or even border line and breaking a leg or having a child get cancer. Try
getting laid off for even a few weeks when over 40% of Americans cant even
come up with $400 to cover an emergency.

~~~
floe
I think the above poster is talking about corporate bankruptcy, while you are
talking about personal bankruptcy. I agree with both of you :)

------
xorand
A form of Algorithmic Segregation. Let's not forget who started that trend.
Here [1] is a screenshot of an example from 2016. [1]
[https://chorasimilarity.files.wordpress.com/2016/11/screen-s...](https://chorasimilarity.files.wordpress.com/2016/11/screen-
shot-2016-11-11-at-10-47-16.png)

------
Lidador
Neuromancer, 1984, William Gibson.

------
geuszb
I definitely felt on the wrong side of a gazillion popup banners after that
click

~~~
alanwong
I'm sorry you felt that way. I'm an editor of the website. What pop-up banners
did you see? Would love to improve the UX for you and other readers here.

~~~
yorwba
Since you are the editor, can you explain the relationship between SCMP and
Inkstone? I noticed that this article was also posted on SCMP (with minor
differences, curiously enough), so is Inkstone only a way to experiment with a
different website design, or will there eventually be Inkstone-exclusive
articles?

------
known
Sounds like Chinese version of
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outlaw](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outlaw)

------
duxup
>In some places, telecoms companies even apply a special ringtone to the phone
numbers of laolai as a warning.

The ringtone as a scarlet letter...

------
bashwizard
The dystopian cyberpunk world we know from movies, books, video games is
getting closer.

------
caprese
I can't believe China copied our no-fly list too!

------
mk926
You guys do not live in China, you guys cannot understand that in China
biggest problem is credit, many people not pay the debt deliberately, many
people do not follow the rule. even the reporter herself do not live in China,
she live in Hong Kong. I do not know if the social credit system is the right
solution, but think more how many people lives in this country, and how law is
weak in this country, and how mass the society that is not like western
country.

