It is getting to the stage where I will no longer buy shares in companies which have significant exposure to China, here's the reason why.... China’s Big Brother targets business Beijing has announced one of the most significant developments in its Social Credit System ahead of a planned nationwide rollout of its controversial behavioural engineering system pegged for 2020. Key points: Companies will be labelled as having excellent, good, fair, or a poor credit rating The NDRC will seek feedback from companies and local authorities by the end of October Businesses risk repercussions like sanctions or even blacklisting if they don't comply with rules The National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) circulated a statement saying it is pushing ahead with a corporate ranking system that will affect 33 million companies. But it is generally understood that all companies in China and its 1.4 billion citizens will by 2020 be covered by the mandatory system that is designed to value and engineer better individual behaviour by awarding the trustworthy and punishing the disobedient. Beijing | China is funnelling vast amounts of public and private data into huge databases aimed at tightening its control over its nearly 1.4 billion people. But the business world has become its biggest target. Beijing is increasingly amassing information now divided among various government agencies and industry associations — including court decisions, payroll data, environmental records, copyright violations, even how many employees are members of the Communist Party — and using it to grade businesses and the people who run them, according to state media, government documents and experts. For many businesses, however, social credit has become a fact of life. In September, China's central economic planning agency announced that it had completed a first evaluation of 33 million businesses, giving them ratings from 1 for excellent to 4 for poor. China hopes it will someday become a nationwide regulatory tool, harnessing the country's growing skills in big data and automation, to help the Communist Party keep the business world in line. "It's supposed to affect the decision-making of businesses to conform to what the party wants," said Samantha Hoffman, a fellow at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, a think tank. Loren Fei, the 30-year-old-daughter of a silk factory owner, has been added to a blacklist of businesses and their owners. Because her father couldn't pay his bills, she said, her bank accounts have been frozen and she lost her job and her ability to travel. "My family really wants to pay back the money, and the system is making it impossible," Fei said. The rewards and punishment system increases the potential for one violation to snowball until you have this avalanche of penalties Authorities are testing the system as a tool to bend foreign companies to the Communist Party's political views. United, Delta and American received letters last year from Chinese aviation officials saying their social credit score could be hit unless their websites labelled Macao, Hong Kong and Taiwan as part of China. Lower scores would lead to investigations, the possibility of frozen bank accounts, limitations on local employees' movement and other punishments, according to a letter sent to United and seen by The New York Times. Representatives of United, Delta and American Airlines confirmed changing their websites but declined to comment specifically on the matter. Companies have little recourse if the data is inaccurate or punishments disproportionately disruptive, experts said. "The unified rewards and punishment system significantly increases the potential for one violation to snowball across your operations until you have this avalanche of penalties that make it impossible to operate until you solve that one thing," said Kendra Schaefer, head of digital research at Trivium China, a consulting firm that recently published a report on social credit. Foreign companies have expressed concern about how they could be affected by their business partners. The German chemical company BASF, for example, is responsible for ensuring that its Chinese partners stay environmentally compliant. "They put pressure on us in the supply chain to sort out the environmental challenges," said Jörg Wuttke, president of the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China, who is also the chief representative of BASF in China. "That's a definite shift that puts a lot of pressure on us." Foreign businesses also worry that social credit could become a weapon in the trade war between China and the United States. (Or any country) China began to detail its ambitions for the social credit system six years ago, saying it could be a reality by 2020. While some critics saw it as a form of total social control, it was primarily envisioned as a tool for a country where people often break the law in big and little ways without consequences. Chinese authorities typically exert social control through police, who are setting up separate, more draconian systems that include biometric data, like face scans and DNA records. The social credit system brings together various blacklists long run by different ministries and local governments, allowing authorities to broadly and consistently punish wrongdoers. Fei, the daughter of the silk factory owner, found out she was in the system during a work trip in late 2017, when she could not buy a train ticket home. Then her bank accounts were frozen. She was eventually fired from her job as a financial analyst. Fei had signed for a loan on her father's behalf. Fei's mother, who is retired, is also on the blacklist because she is a shareholder. Her monthly pension payments have been frozen. The family is in debt for hundreds of thousands of dollars. Fei, who now sells goods on the internet, said she makes one-10th of what she did before. Fei said this was unfair. "No one wants to be a dishonest person," she said.
Nobody wants to be dishonest? Perhaps but too many happily take into account dishonesty if it personally benefits them. Does anyone want big brother watching and listening in? No, but as an honest person with integrity I choose to have some of my data known and analyzed by government any day over an ever widening number of people who cheat, lie, trick, and deceive. I fear nothing and I don't think any upstanding citizen has anything to fear. I bet something similar will have to be introduced in the US and Europe at some point as well. As to the reasons of why people are becoming increasingly dishonest I will only state "look at the difference in crime rates and dishonesty in Copenhagen vs Compton, CA". I bet crime rates will immediately drop when perps can't even buy a car or alcohol or what have you anymore because their social credit score dropped below the threshold. Will it cost some of our personal freedom and privacy? For sure but we sold that away a long time ago when we increased mass immigration of people from societies that have hardly any respect for the rule of law.
Yeah ok, citizens are perceived as dishonest in business while govt perceived as honest? LMAO! And over regulation in business is what one needs to avoid, tighter the controls the more it's stifled and becomes uncompetitive.
Not just in business. Many ordinary folks are dishonest fucks as soon as you depart from the countryside. Guess why crime rates are lower per capita in the countryside? Because they already have something very similar to social credit. Crimes and unethical behavior gets you ostracized from the community. Generally, anonymity shields transgressors. Does not help to have a bunch of folks living around you in cities who hail from societies where a bit of stealing and cheating and telling lies is the name of the game. When was the last time you have been cheated by the government like you would get fucked each day by people throughout the day if you did not vigilantly watched out for yourself. At some point it gets tiring knowing that at any given point in time someone is angling for your savings, cash, belonging. My wild guess is that anyone who thinks the wild west, where every man looks after himself with no government intervention is better off, is the preferred way of life, represents a minority opinion. Most honest people prefer to give up certain freedoms in exchange for safety, honest dealings and an overall less worrisome life style. In the wild west only slick gun slingers (heros) and criminals got ahead of the game. Both usually die young.
When a murder takes place in a rural area residents automatically assume, in almost all cases incorrectly, that it was done by an outsider. But just like in suburbia and major cities most likely the killer was known to the victim.
What we have here though is robo justice, computers and face detection number crunching justice. Then the added issue, China since I've had comprehension has always been a difficult country for foreigners to do business with, but it appears the chinese who reputedly have a long history and long memories have not learnt any lessons, I can see them becoming more insular, more withdrawn, more isolated. I have no sympathy for communism, but I do for their people who once again are becoming repressed via their business being stifled via heavy handed tactics.
Very true, yet occurrences as such are rare enough to make it onto every national news station. A girl went missing in the countryside and was later on found murdered. I remember how the entire nation was holding its breath for weeks. We already have neighborhood cooperation in cities and outside cities that exercise vigilance and report suspect behavior. Do we need cctv cameras everywhere? No, but I would highly welcome a social score that offenders get hit with when they commit crimes, large and small. Such scores should factor into whether one gets extended credit at which interest rate, for example. Imagine that: you as upstanding citizen get charged a rate that is proportionate with your past behavior of being a responsible citizen and borrower while offenders pay up because they have a bad track record. When I fly I don't want to sit next to people who have been thrown off the plane on 3 different airlines for drunkenness, racist offenses, or lewd behavior. I want my airline to access their history and ban them from flying for some time until they have proven betterment. When I entrust my broker with hundreds of thousands or millions in savings I want to rest in the comfort that my broker filtered out other individuals that have a history of reckless trading and frivolous lawsuits that cost my broker and potentially expose me to heightened risk as well. When I send my child to a school I want that school to have done an extensive background check and ban all kids with an extensive track record of bullying. The list goes on.
I think you are conflating a thing or two or potentially have not been exposed to Chinese culture much yet. The reason that there are so many cheaters in Chinese society is because cheating to a certain extend is not only not punished but its even encouraged. There is a saying that the person who does not cheat when he can get a way with it is a dumb person. We just came back from Canada and stayed for 3 nights at an airbnb of a home in Richmond (BC, near a Vancouver) that is currently valued at around 3.6 million cad. The owner and manager proudly shared with us how he cheated himself to permanent residence through Saskatchewan where the provincial nominee program explicitly nominates immigrants to settle in the province. Yet he and many Chinese abuse that particular program to immediately move to other provinces after they get their PR. He also proudly shared how he cheated the building code and made exterior and interior alterations that required approvals which he did not request. The list goes on and on of societies that make other countries their new home but blatantly disregard the rule of law and ways of life in their new home. Such people can only be held accountable through a rigorous monitoring system that punishes misbehavior. China will collapse unless people very soon will be forced to act more responsibly. Right now it's a chaos and jungle where everyone does whatever it takes to enrich themselves without any regard to the law. The only way, imho, to solve this crisis is to implement a rigorous monitoring system.
ROFL, Groot finally gave in to his impulses, and put me on ignore. All because I called him out on getting too harsh on that folk who asked a simple question on taxes by DannoXYZ. Hey, Groot...If you want to confuse the ET community even more? Put me on total block! You have no idea how much you mess up the threads with this ignore/block stuff. Oh wait, you cannot see my response because you have me on ignore.
Count me out. I'm not afraid of my own shadow like some but I am afraid of my gubmint or yours knowing too much about all of us. Both good and bad guys.