The move by the Chinese government to introduce the “social credit” system to track and monitor its citizens has been met with resistance and support from both within and outside China (Bell, 31). The Chinese social credit system is compatible with the concept of ren in that it cares for its people. The main aim is to protect the population from the outside cultural influence. The concept of ren has always advocated for caring for people. The implementation of the social credit system in China amounts to a totalitarian dictatorship. Initially, the system was primarily introduced to help the government in the restoration of market order by leveraging the financial creditworthiness of individuals and businesses (Bell, 34). However, the social credit system is now being used to infiltrate other aspects of daily life such as measuring trustworthiness. The paper will seek to argue why the “Social Credit” system is a bad idea in China. Regarding monitoring the market and leveraging the financial creditworthiness of business and individuals, the government was right but on the part of monitoring the daily personal activities of individual and at the same time is an abuse of universal human rights.
Exposition
The reason for being against the social credit system is because of the pressure it puts on the Chinese people in the name of keeping the society safe. The Chinese government can keep the people safe without having to rate them or monitor their every move. The worse thing about the system is that an individual also depends on the partners they marry, siblings or even the parents to score a good credit. It is not fair to restrict a child to access important things such as booking a train just because his mother or father did something wrong that the government does not agree with. It would have been good if the system was only limited to its initial intention of monitoring and leveraging the market and also exposing government officials. A good example of the effects of the social credit system is the case of Hu, a Chinese journalist that played a great role in exposing high-level scandals in the government (Carney). Instead of his credit going up, the government has resorted to harassing him accusing him of spreading false rumors. The Chinese government should find another alternative way of motivating its citizens to behave in a good way. Otherwise, the citizens are behaving well for the sake of scoring good credit but not because they are willing to.
Argument
According to Bell, the Asian countries use their values to justify the oppression that is being meted on the citizens. In my own opinion, the Chinese social credit system is not even close to being compatible with universal human rights (Bell, 27). The social credit has deprived people of their human rights such as freedom of expression, privacy and the right to access basic commodities to health due to low credit rating. The Chinese citizens now live in fear because of the intensified surveillance by their government. The sad thing is that most of them agree with what their government is doing. The use of the social credit surveillance system indicates to us how the Chinese government disregards the universal human rights even though the state justifies the move as a way of trying to keep the society safe when in the real sense people are suffering silently.
Objection
According to the proponents of the social security system, the Chinese government is merely trying to promote and maintain social order in a largely populated country in the world. It is argued that the implementation of the system does not curtail any human rights rather it just punishes the wrongdoers (Bell, 28). Through punishment, the Chinese government inculcates a good behavioral culture among the citizens. Many proponents believe that the system will help the citizens to live right by being responsible citizens.
Reply
The Chinese government probably has good intentions of inculcating a good cultural behavior in its citizens by making them accountable and responsible for their actions. However, this is being done in the wrong way. The government seems to be pursuing hidden agendas but using the excuse of trying to make citizens more responsible in their actions. There is enough evidence in Matthews article to attest to this claim. Hu, an investigative journalist, was punished because of his good actions of exposing mega scandals in the government. Hu’s career has now been ruined (Carney). He now lives like a prisoner in his own country because he cannot access basic things such as booking a plane. All this is because of the low credit score that he has.
Conclusion
The Chinese government is trying to control its citizens the social credit system, which goes against the universal human rights. The use of the system is not compatible with human rights at all meaning that the Chinese government disregards the universal human rights that people should have.
Works Cited
Bell, Daniel A. "ASIAN JUSTIFICATIONS FOR HUMAN RIGHTS." Applied Ethics: A Multicultural Approach (2017): 88.
Carney, Matthew. "Leave no dark corner." (2018). http://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2018-09-18/china-social-credit-a-model-citizen-in-a-digital-dictatorship/10200278?pfmredir=sm
