China's Social Credit System Barred Millions from Traveling in 2018

China’s draconian Social Credit System will punish those who do not submit to communist law, including religious laws. The following is excerpted from “China’s Social Credit System,” Futurism.com, Mar, 1, 2019: “As early as 2014, China began conceptualizing a Social Credit System (SCS), sort of like a credit score for citizen behavior where behaviors deemed good for society are rewarded with privileges and bad behaviors result in a poor score and loss of privileges. China has since been working to test its new method of population control and has been slowly conscripting citizens into the system. Now, a new report acquired by the Associated Press, suggests millions of would-be travelers had their plans canceled as a result of the SCS in 2018. According to the report obtained by the Associated Press, as many as 17.5 million ticket purchases were blocked last year for ‘social credit offenses’ such as unpaid taxes or fines. Other would-be travelers were barred from purchasing train tickets as many as 5.5 million times and according to an annual report from the National Public Credit Information Center, as many as 138 people were stopped from leaving the country. The ruling party hopes to fully establish the system within the nation by 2020. Although it isn’t completely clear yet how the system will be maintained, what the SCS will penalize, and what penalties there may be for having ‘poor social credit,’ offenses penalized last year included everything from false advertising to drug charges. In addition to travel restrictions, companies ousted from the nation’s good graces can lose out on government contracts, bank loans, and be restricted from importing goods. Employees can be prevented from representing companies or taking senior management roles, a penalty which was applied 290,000 times last year.”

​(Friday Church News Notes, March 8, 2019, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143)

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