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- Laschet advocates dialogue with China
- UN wants to inspect Xinjiang
- Sichuan closing crypto mines
- EU and goods from Chinese child labor
- Opinion: Joschka Fischer on the Cold War 2.0
Just over seven years ago, the communist state leadership unveiled its blueprint for a far-reaching Social Credit System. The citizen and company rating is based on the scoring system for checking creditworthiness known from the financial industry. According to Beijing, they intended to increase reliability in economic exchanges. Critics, however, see the system as “Schufa on anabolic steroids” – because the potentially registered data include more than only the creditworthiness of individuals and companies.
So far, however, nowhere near as much has been done in expanding the credit system as planned, as Frank Sieren reports from China. So far, there have only been scattered field trials. But networking is underway. Therefore, it is anybody’s guess: What will an all-powerful state make of the Social Scoring System in the end? On that account, another insight is slightly surprising: The population generally approves of social credits.
Today, our economic focus is on a “hidden champion” par excellence. Do you know who the largest smartphone manufacturer worldwide is? What’s your guess? Samsung, Apple, Huawei? All wrong. BBK Electronics may be virtually unknown to consumers but actually produces one in four mobile phones worldwide. Let us introduce you to the company from Guangzhou.
Amelie Richter
Feature
The Unification of the Social Credit Systems is approaching
Beijing actually wanted to introduce its “Social Credit System,” which is controversially discussed especially in the West, nationwide as early as the end of 2020 (China.Table reported). However, the digital ranking of citizens and companies, which was officially announced seven years ago, has so far been limited to a series of pilot projects in various cities and regions. The China Law Translate platform has counted a total of seventy small-scale projects. However, little is known about most of them.
There have been bigger projects in Suining (three million inhabitants), in Rongcheng (one million inhabitants), and within the Zhima Credit system of the online company Alibaba. In the system, which is still most comparable to the German Schufa, creditworthiness is calculated based on consumer behavior within various Alibaba apps, for example, via the financial services provider Ant Financial or the e-commerce platform Taobao. The higher the score, the more discounts and special offers are offered to the user. Customers and providers are rated similarly as on eBay but also include information from the debtors’ database.
However, Zhima Credit is hardly going to be a blueprint for the state’s Social Credit System. Although the Chinese state is working closely with the big tech companies on the issue, the central bank refused to grant Jack Ma-led Ant Financial a license to participate in a national social credit system back in 2018. The state wants to retain sovereignty over the project.
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