**TL;DR - China’s social credit system is the epitome of 1984 and a surveillance state, but is not as far-fetched as we perceive at first** It is quite easy to say “China is basically 1984” or “China has such a surveillance state that it doesn’t give a good life to its citizens”. This is not necessarily the case exactly. We look at China with very western ideals rather than appreciating what it is (even though sometimes we may not agree with some of its policies). We are used to having Credit Scores, mortgage assessments, Uber ratings and eBay seller ratings - we don’t see an issue with this! China have just taken this premise and expanded it, or at least wish to. Rating and scoring citizens is [not just a Chinese phenomenon] (https://www.wired.co.uk/article/china-social-credit-system-explained) but is taken to a new level. There are some reports of ‘blacklisting’ citizens. I don’t think this is is in anyway a good idea, however I am also unsure if this will be implemented. If it was, I would take the angle that the future of citizenship can’t be blacklisting citizens and eradicating them of all freedom. Hatred breeds hatred. If someone is not able to book a flight to a holiday destination because they stole some gum from a sweet shop 10 years ago, it will breed resentment and possibly revolution. People have to have the opportunity to change and grow. Society benefits off of people making mistakes and improving themselves. There are other parts to the credit system that seem ‘okay’. The idea that if you rip people off on eBay then your rating decreases and no one buys from you seems fair. This then put in place in China would mean that if you were a seller who stole or was fraudulent, you couldn’t do x,y,z. This doesn’t seem, as a premise that bad, but do we really want a nanny state? Personally, China's social credit system is based off of sound logic, but humans don’t behave logically all the time. Humans are impulsive, silly and grow and learn all of the time and not allowing people to do certain things due to their past- it seems **too** dystopian.

**China’s social credit system should not be implemented in China or anywhere else in the world as it is a huge curtailing of the human rights of the people of China and sets a dangerous precedent for and overly powerful and interfering government.** There are many types of credit checks and social-style scores that we are subjected to in the UK and that act as a block or a gateway for accessing certain things ie. your credit score. However, China’s social credit system takes this idea one step further and expands the idea of ‘credit’ to rating a citizens behaviour and ‘trustworthiness’. Mareike Ohlberg, research associate at the Mercator Institute for China Studies, says that it is ["both unique and part of a global trend"](https://www.wired.co.uk/article/china-social-credit-system-explained). For this reason, people may think that this social credit system is the future of citizenship and almost a natural progression from the way we are currently living our lives which is a very traced and documented way. **BUT** there is something very scary and different from not being able to get a loan because you have a poor credit rating and not being able to get on a train or a flight because the government has blacklisted you for travel. These infractions are not enough to land you in prison or serious trouble with the state but somehow lead to your rights being curtailed. Furthermore, there are pilot schemes in which points can be added or won back for doing things like donating to charity. Liu Hu, a journalist writing about government corruption and censorship in China, was blacklisted and had this to say to a [Canadian newspaper](https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/chinese-blacklist-an-early-glimpse-of-sweeping-new-social-credit-control/article37493300/): _“There was no file, no police warrant, no official advance notification. They just cut me off from the things I was once entitled to … What's really scary is there's nothing you can do about it. You can report to no one.”_ This is a huge abuse of power, control and surveillance by the Chinese government that threatens a reduction in the human rights of Chinese citizens even more so than they are curtailed already. Samantha Hoffman, fellow at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, argues [this](https://www.wired.co.uk/article/china-social-credit-system-explained) that I think sums up the argument against any wider extension of this system: _“The People’s Republic of China is an authoritarian country, the Chinese Communist Party is responsible for gross human rights violations for decades. There is nothing any liberal democratic society should even think about copying in the social credit system”._

**With the apparent decline of liberal democracy and the rise of Big Tech, a more widespread implementation of this dystopian concept does not seem entirely unforeseeable.** • Across the world, our data is already being harvested by Big Tech companies such as [Google](https://www.forbes.com/sites/zakdoffman/2021/07/17/apple-iphone-12-and-iphone-13-upgrade-hides-location-tracking-in-ios-14-and-ios-15/?sh=56e1bbc353ab) and [Facebook](https://www.ft.com/content/caa8fa34-2399-454a-8a90-ba9429e381e8). Moreover, medical apps such as NHS England already store important personal information which could [potentially be shared](https://theconversation.com/nhs-data-gathering-government-plans-to-collect-and-share-health-records-are-hugely-concerning-heres-why-162699) with third parties. • Over the past decade we have seen a slight decline in liberal democracy in some states across [Latin America](https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2020/02/28/the-rapidly-deteriorating-quality-of-democracy-in-latin-america/), and [Europe](https://freedomhouse.org/report/nations-transit/2020/dropping-democratic-facade). Some states, such as [North Korea](https://www.crisisgroup.org/asia/north-east-asia/korean-peninsula/north-korean-style-democracy-and-prospects-true-democratisation), shun the concept entirely. • In light of this, one could argue that it is plausible that more governments in the future could use technology to monitor their citizens more closely.