Skipped paying a fine in China? Then forget about buying an airline ticket.
Would-be air travelers were blocked from buying tickets 17.5 million times last year for “social credit” offenses, including unpaid taxes and fines, under a system the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) says will improve public behavior.
Others were barred 5.5 million times from buying train tickets, according to the Chinese National Public Credit Information Center.
In an annual report, it said 128 people were blocked from leaving China due to unpaid taxes.
The CCP says “social credit” penalties and rewards will improve order in a fast-changing society after three decades of economic reform have shaken up social structures.
Markets are rife with counterfeit goods and fraud. The system is part of efforts by Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) government to use technology ranging from data processing to genetic sequencing and facial recognition to tighten control.
Authorities have experimented with “social credit” since 2014 in areas across China. Points are deducted for breaking the law or, in some areas, offenses as minor as walking a dog without a leash.
Human rights advocates say that “social credit” is too rigid and might unfairly label people as untrustworthy without telling them they have lost status or how to restore it.
US Vice President Mike Pence in October last year called it “an Orwellian system premised on controlling virtually every facet of human life.”
The CCP wants a nationwide system by next year, but has yet to say how it will operate. Possible penalties include restrictions on travel, business and access to education.
A slogan repeated in state media says: “Once you lose trust, you will face restrictions everywhere.”
Companies on the blacklist can lose government contracts, access to bank loans, or be barred from issuing bonds or importing goods.
Offenses penalized under “social credit” last year included false advertising or violating drug safety rules, the government information center said. Individuals were blocked 290,000 times from taking senior management jobs or acting as a company’s legal representative.
Since the launch of such “joint punishment,” the system has caused 3.5 million people to “voluntarily fulfill their legal obligations,” the Information Center said.
It said that included 37 people who paid a total of 150 million yuan (US$22 million) in overdue fines or confiscations.
The report gave no details of how many people live in areas with “social credit” systems.
“Social credit” is one facet of efforts by the CCP to take advantage of increased computing power, artificial intelligence and other technology to track and control the Chinese public.
The Chinese Ministry of Police launched an initiative dubbed “Golden Shield” in 2000 to build a nationwide digital network to track people.
Human rights advocates say that people in Muslim and other ethnic minority areas have been compelled to give blood samples for a genetic database.
Those systems rely on foreign technology. That has prompted criticism that US and European suppliers might be enabling human rights abuses.
This week, Waltham, Massachusetts-based Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc said it would no longer sell or service genetic sequencers in the Muslim-majority region of Xinjiang in northwest China following complaints that they were used for surveillance.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion