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example, it collects big data about the user’s behavior on social media, travels, what is shared or posted,
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and a multitude of other data like shopping patterns.
All behavior is related to points and an overall score is displayed. For example, if you purchase a foreign

item, like a Japanese manga, your score goes down. If you repost news from state media agency, it goes
up. The higher the score, the better citizen you are. A good score rewards you with benefits: find a new
accommodation in a good neighborhood, make it easier to get a loan, be able to enroll your child in a

highly rated school, have online discounts or avoid queues for administrative documents.

It goes even further. Because it is based on social media, the app scans your network and, if you have
friends with low scores, it will downgrade yours. That is the strongest point of this app: the government
does not really need to intervene because social pressure will do the job. There are no consequences
yet for a low score, but rumors say that they could come by 2020 when the app should be highly
recommended to download. These consequences may be slower Internet speed or restriction from
certain job applications.
Days of Future Past
Currently, China is already the biggest cyber market in the world with more than 730 million Internet
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users, mostly on mobile phones. Its tech companies, such as Baidu, Alibaba, and Tencent (aka BAT),
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even if relatively unknown on the global market, are economic giants. These companies are growing,
investing abroad (transport, automobiles, e-commerce, on-line services), and supporting the international
government’s policy.

Assisted by big data, the rise of BAT and the imposition of domestically built technologies in its strategic
sectors like banking or energy, the Middle Kingdom is able to sustain its mixed model of an authoritarian
system coupled with economic growth. With this patriotic sense of belonging, the government tries to
avoid the affirmation of the newly established middle class that could also wish for more liberty and
democracy. Moreover, the rest of the world has less and less room for manoeuver regarding Beijing
schemes, as seen with the disappearing of Interpol’s ex-president Meng Hongwei or the situation with
the Muslim minority in Xinjiang. Xi Jinping is the Chinese leader who has centralized most power since
Den Xiaoping and he will continue this way after having been reelected during the 19 National Congress
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in October of last year.

23 HATTON Celia. “China social credit: Beijing sets up huge system”, BBC, Oct 26, 2015
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-34592186

24 International Monetary Fund, “China’s Economic Outlook in Six Charts”, IMF News, Jul 26, 2018
https://www.imf.org/en/News/Articles/2018/07/25/na072618-chinas-economic-outlook-in-six-charts
25 The Economist. “China’s Internet giants go global”, the Economist, Apr 20, 2017
http://www.economist.com/news/business/21721203-tencent-leading-acquisition-spree-alibaba-close-second-chinas-internet-giants-go

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