Precis

It’s innocuously called “Social Credit”. In fact it’s a dystopian personal scorecard for every one of China’s 1.4 billion citizens.

Jaywalking, late paying of bills or taxes, buying too much alcohol or, much worse, mouthing off against the government will see you lose points and accumulate punishments like the right to travel by plane or train.

Model citizens, fear not. You will gain bonus points and rewards like the waiving of deposits on hotels and rental cars.

If people keep their promises they can go anywhere in the world. If people break their promises they won’t be able to move an inch! – Cong Jie, Tianjin General Manager, financial credit system Alipay

“Leave No Dark Corner” is a slogan China’s authorities have long used to root out “unstable elements”. It can equally be applied to Social Credit, which builds on China’s formidable history of surveilling its people.

Already about 200 million cameras sweep its cities. That number is set to triple by 2020. Combine these with rapid advances in facial recognition, body scanning and geo-tracking, add each individual’s digital history and behaviours, and there you have it: a personal score ranking your trustworthiness.

Dandan, a young mother and marketing professional, is proud of her high credit score. If she keeps it up her infant son will be more likely to get into a top school.

China likes to experiment in this creative way… I think people in every country want a stable and safe society – Dandan

We need a social credit system. We hope we can help each other, love each other and help everyone to become prosperous – Dandan’s civil servant husband Xiaojing

Social Credit is still being trialled – it’s supposed to be fully operational by 2020 – but already an estimated 10 million people are paying the price of a low rating. Corruption-busting journalist Liu Hu is one of them.

The government regards me as an enemy – Liu Hu

After exposing official corruption, Liu Hu was arrested, jailed and fined. Now a poor Social Credit rating bars him from travelling by plane or fast train. His social media accounts with millions of followers have been suspended. He struggles to find work.

This kind of social control is against the tide of the world. The Chinese people’s eyes are blinded and their ears are blocked. They know little about the world and are living in an illusion – Liu Hu

From Beijing, Correspondent Matthew Carney travels to the north western province of Xinjiang, where China’s surveillance machine is at its most ruthless. Here, the UN estimates that about 1 million Islamic Uighur people are being held in re-education camps.

The surveillance system suddenly ramped up after the end of 2016. Since then, advanced surveillance technology which we’ve never seen, never experienced, never heard of, started appearing – Tahir Hamut, Uighur poet and filmmaker who fled to the US.

GVs China. Citizens. Faces

Music

00:00

MATTHEW CARNEY:  China has long been a surveillance state.  Now Big Brother meets Big Data. 

00:09

Surveillance cameras

In trials across the country, cameras and spyware are watching – mapping your digital footprint to every step you take.  What you do, say, and even think, is being monitored and marked against you.

“The Party calls it Social Credit,

00:17

Carney to camera walking down street

a personal scorecard for 1.4 billion citizens.  Rewards for good behaviour and punishments for bad.  It’s not fully operational yet, but this report will show you a vision of China’s dystopian future,

00:39

GFX over Carney and people in street

the world’s first digital dictatorship”.

00:55

Music

00:58

Title:
Foreign Correspondent

01:06

High rise city buildings. Title:
Beijing, China

01:11

Carney walking down Beijing street.
Reporter: Matthew Carney

01:17

Surveillance cameras.
Title:
LEAVE NO DARK CORNER

01:24

Surveillance cameras over road

MATTHEW CARNEY:  China’s cities are already flush with cameras.  Around 200 million of them.  What’s changing is they’re getting smarter.

01:29

Carney starts to cross road against traffic signal. Security camera picks up his movement

01:41

ANNOUNCEMENT ON SCREEN: “You are illegally cross this road.  Stand back!

01:44

GFX over participants at World Intelligence Congress

Music

01:56

MATTHEW CARNEY: China is positioning itself to lead the world in Artificial Intelligence.

02:01

Facial recognition demo on screen at congress

Surveillance technology is a key proving ground.  Facial recognition, body scanning and geo-tracking - matched with your personal data and online behaviour - will power the Social Credit System, leaving no dark corner to hide in.

02:06

Congress hall – Exhibitors

At the World Intelligence Congress in Tianjin, Big Brother’s new toys are on show. Several of the exhibitors here – including tech giant Alibaba – are now working with the State to write the algorithms that will calculate your Social Credit score.  They’ve already got the knowhow and the user data from their financial credit system, Alipay. Manager of Alipay Tianjin is Cong Jie.

02:28

Cong Jie interview

CONG JIE: “Once a person has a score, all their credit behaviour in life is recorded and can be evaluated by that number.  Our goal is to ensure that if people keep their promises they can go anywhere in the world and if people break their promises they won’t be able to move an inch”.

03:00

Facial recognition payment video

Music

03:17

MATTHEW CARNEY: Sounds dramatic, but it’s the Party line. Pilot programs for a national Social Credit System are already underway. By 2020, the official outline boasts, it will “allow the trustworthy to roam freely under heaven while making it hard for the discredited to take a single step.”

03:22

Fan Dandan walks.

Music

03:50

GFX overlay – recognition technology

FAN DANDAN: “China can make such great achievements very quickly. I’m really proud of it.  With the development of big data and other digital technologies it’s getting more and more convenient to live in China”.

04:05

Fan Dandan uses mobile phone/walks/shopping

MATTHEW CARNEY: Fan Dandan is going places, very much the modern Chinese women.  She’s a marketing professional, diligent and prosperous, and sees clear skies in her digital future.

04:30

FAN DANDAN: “The government already knows a lot about our personal information. 

04:46

Fan Dandan interview

So I think if this system can integrate big data put all the information together it will be more efficient”.

04:49

Dandan walks. Social Credit recognition tech GFX

MATTHEW CARNEY:  A model citizen, Dandan will rate highly on Social Credit.  That her every action will be tracked and judged is fine by her.

05:01

Dandan interview/Into car in car park

FAN DANDAN: “I think people in every country want a safe and stable society.  If as our government says cameras are installed in every corner of public space I’ll feel safer”.

05:18

Dandan driving

MATTHEW CARNEY: Dandan’s criminal, academic and medical records will feed into her score, as well as State security assessments. Her shopping habits will be another measure.

05:35

Dandan into supermarket with surveillance cameras

Her score could even change in real-time, depending on what she puts in her trolley. Buy a lot of alcohol - suggests dependence. Lose a couple of points. Buy a pack of nappies - gain a few. Suggests responsibility.

05:49

Dandan into bedroom with child in bed

Late on mortgage payments or your tax return - lose a lot more. Not that Dandan would risk that.

06:15

Dandan uses mobile payment app on phone

She keeps a close eye on her financial rating via a mobile payment app.

06:24

Carney with Dandan looking at mobile payment app

“So, this is Sesame Credit, right?  So, what’s the score that you have?”

FAN DANDAN: “773”.

MATTHEW CARNEY: “773 so what’s the maximum you can get?”

06:29

FAN DANDAN: “I think it’s 800”.

MATTHEW CARNEY: “So you got a pretty good score”.

FAN DANDAN: “Oh well, I think I’m doing well.  Not the best, but yeah, somewhere on top”.

MATTHEW CARNEY: “773… what kind of access or privileges does that give you?”

06:39

FAN DANDAN: “This is for like for rent cars, I don’t have to pay deposit”.

MATTHEW CARNEY: “So you don’t have to pay a deposit?”

FAN DANDAN: “Yeah and this is also for a hotel.  And also no deposit for renting a house”.

06:55

Dandan dresses/In lift

Music

07:07

MATTHEW CARNEY: China’s middle class is on the rise.

07:19

Dandan meets friends

Like Dandan, they’re mostly young, urban, and used to living much of their lives online and on devices.

07:23

XU [CHECK]: “Yeah, let’s add each other. I can show you how to use Alipay, and you can start Ant Forest.

07:33

FAN DANDAN: “What is it?  Alibaba?

XU [CHECK]: “It’s Alibaba for utility payments.  It also records your steps as you walk, and you can click and check on your friends.

04:40

I’ll share the app with you. If you join, both of us get a coupon”.

07:53

FAN DANDAN: “For me, the social credit system isn’t a totally new thing.  I think it’s always been there.  Now it’s just in a more efficient format. An online or digital format.

08:00

Dandan

But it’s based on the system we already have."

08:16

People dancing in park

MATTHEW CARNEY: Who you date and ultimately partner with also will affect your Social Credit.

08:23

Dandan walks with family in park

Dandan married for love but she also chose the right husband.  Zhang Xiaojing’s score is likely to be even higher that hers. Xiaojing is a civil servant with the justice department - a loyal cadre of the Party.

08:34

Zhang Xiaojing interview/ Dancers in park

ZHANG XIAOJING: “We need a social credit system.  In the Chinese nation we hope we can help each other, love each other and help everyone become prosperous.  As President Xi said, we will be rich, democratic, cultural, harmonious and beautiful. 

07:54

Family in park

It’s Xi’s hope for the country’s future.  It’s also the hope of the whole Chinese nation”.

09:15

Night. Highrise buildings/ Surveillance cameras

09:27

Liu Hu walks

LIU HU: “You can see from the Chinese people’s mental state their eyes are blinded and their ears are blocked.  They know little about the world and live in an illusion”.

09:39

Street food stalls/ Men play cards

Music

09:57

Night. Chongqing city GVs

MATTHEW CARNEY:  I’ve come to Chongqing city – a high-tech metropolis in central China, where the Jialing River meets the Yangtze. I’m here to meet

10:07

Liu Hu shops for food

one of the 10 million people who’ve seen the dark side of the Social Credit system, investigative journalist, Liu Hu. With a street-smart, hands-on approach, Hu has exposed high-level corruption and solved murder cases abandoned by the police. In many countries, he’d be celebrated.  Not in China.

10:16

Surveillance camera signage

LIU HU: “The government regards me as an enemy.  The mainstream media is like a propaganda machine for the party.

10:41

Liu Hu interview

Their main duty is to indoctrinate people and stop them knowing the facts.  In my view, if someone wants to prevent corruption being revealed then they’re corrupt too”.

1054

Liu Hu into apartment building and lift. GFX: Surveillance tech

MATTHEW CARNEY: In 2015, Hu lost a defamation case, after he accused an official of extortion. He was made to publish an apology and pay a fine. But when the court demanded an additional fee, Hu refused.

11:04

Hu into apartment

Then in 2017, he found himself suddenly locked out of society. Under a pilot Social Credit scheme, he’d been blacklisted as ‘dishonest’.

LIU HU: “I have friends who are lawyers and judges.

11:23

Hu interview

They told me that these so-called ‘dishonest personnel’ are people in debt. I don’t owe any money. 

11:39

Hu in apartment

So I shouldn’t be on the blacklist”.

MATTHEW CARNEY: Hu maintains he has fully met the terms of his 2015 case.  He believes his blacklisting is political, but he has no way of challenging it.

LIU HU: “There are a lot of people

11:45

Hu

who are on the blacklist wrongly.  But they can’t get off it”.

12:05

Hu on apartment balcony

MATTHEW CARNEY: His poor social credit rating has shut down his travel options and confined him to effective house arrest in Chongqing.

LIU HU: “Right now my ability to travel is limited.  I can’t book high speed trains or flights.

12:12

Hu with Carney, attempts to book ticket on phone

I’ll show you.  We use this app to book tickets.  Say, from Chongqing to Xi’an. Let’s try to book a ticket for the next few days”.

MATTHEW CARNEY: “And what, what is it saying?”

LIU HU: “It says it failed to make a booking. That my access to high speed rail is legally restricted”.

12:31

MATTHEW CARNEY: Hu’s social media accounts have also been closed. Before his arrest he had nearly two million followers. It’s where he published much of his journalism.

LIU HU: “I had more than 10 Weibo accounts. 

12:57

Carney and Hu

Now they’re all gone. This is the newest one. It got blocked recently too”.

13:09

Hu on balcony

MATTHEW CARNEY: Hu scrapes by, writing for an online publication.  His investigative reports are on hold. 

13:22

RECREATION:  Hu in interview room with police officer

It’s not his first run-in with censorship.  In August 2013, he was detained without trial after exposing a senior Party member’s links with illegal prostitution. 

13:31

RECREATION. GFX over

This is a recreation based on Hu’s accounts.

13:45

CHINESE POLICE OFFICER: “Your behaviour is defamation. Do you admit it? If you admit guilt, the leader will be happy and set you free”.

13:49

MATTHEW CARNEY: Over the course of a year, he was interrogated more than 70 times.

LIU HU: “They threatened me saying that I must cooperate.  If I didn’t, I’d lose my job and even my wife and children”.

14:03

MATTHEW CARNEY: Hu refused to confess and was eventually released.

14:23

GFX. Hu at window

Now he’s trapped again. The four walls of a cell replaced by Social Credit’s dragnet.

LIU HU: “It’s been five years since I was released.  Big changes have taken place in the media industry.  A lot of people have left the industry

14:28

Hu interview

especially journalists doing investigative reports. 

14:49

Surveillance cameras/Police on streets

But I still love this work and I want to continue to be a journalist here.  I want to keep on reporting as much as possible”.

14:54

Carney boards plane

MATTHEW CARNEY: I’m going to a place where the principles of Social Credit have been taken to brutal extremes. The Party doesn’t want the world to know about it. Reporting on the situation is risky. To get there we must fly 4000 kilometres from Beijing

15:16

GFX: Map showing Kashgar

to the western edge of China. Xinjiang, the nation’s largest province, and according to some,

15:36

Xinjiang GVs

the world’s largest open prison. Xinjiang is the homeland of the

15:45

Uyghurs – Turkic people of Islamic faith.  China’s rulers have struggled to control the region and its people for two millennia. Surveillance technology is the new weapon in their campaign.

15:53

TAHIR HAMUT: “The surveillance system suddenly ramped up after the end of 2016. 

16:17

Tahir

Since then, advanced surveillance technology which we’ve never seen, experienced or heard of started to appear”.

MATTHEW CARNEY: Tahir Hamut is a Uyghur filmmaker and poet from the Xinjiang city of Kashgar.

16:24

Tahir leaves house and walks down street

He can talk about the situation there because he managed to escape with his family to the US, where they’ve applied for political asylum.  He made the decision to flee last year.

16:42

TAHIR HAMUT: “We got a phone call from the police station instructing us to come by. We were taken to the basement. There were manacles and shackles hanging in the cells

16:56

Tahir interview

and iron chairs called ‘tiger chairs’ where criminals are strapped in. We went inside and there were about 20 to 30 people there. We were all Uyghurs. 

17:17

When it was our turn, my wife and me first they drew blood from us. Next, they took our voice samples. Then our fingerprints were taken. After we finished the fingerprinting, they began the facial analysis. 

17:32

GFX Facial recognition of Tahir and wife

They’re recording and we look straight at the camera. Then we look to the right, and back. Look left, then back. Look up, come back.  Look down”.

MATTHEW CARNEY: Tahir and his wife were being scanned by facial recognition software, their faces mapped from all angles to enhance the accuracy. They were even forced to produce a range of facial expressions.

17:56

TAHIR HAMUT: “This controlling surveillance system is specifically targeting Uyghurs. 

18:30

Tahir interview

The reason is people like us count as one of the minorities in China and ethnic culture is always the first target for political oppression”.

18:37

Kashgar GVs

Music

18:55

MATTHEW CARNEY: Inside Kashgar it’s almost impossible to report independently. Government officials do their best to conceal any sign of the oppression Tahir describes.   Look closer and the cracks appear. The Party-approved vision of this city is a façade.  Kashgar’s historic

18:58

Kashgar old town 'theme park'

old town has been demolished and just one section rebuilt as a sort of Uyghur theme park for Chinese tourists.

19:20

You can buy souvenirs, try the local cuisine, and even see a show.

19:33

Carney watches dancing

19:50

But there’s tension in the air. The locals can’t speak with us.  Armed guards and cameras keep a watchful eye, and Chinese flags claim the rooftops – even the dome of the mosque.

“So it’s quite difficult to film here.

19:55

Carney in car

We’ve got about six minders with us the whole time. They’re telling us what we can film, what we can’t do. Sometimes they delete our material. On top of that we’ve got about another 8 to 10 security guards that further restrict our movements.

20:14

What I can tell you from the car is that they’ve set up a kind of grid-like management system and every 100 metres or so you see a police station, and they’re aided with enormous amounts of CCTV cameras, with facial recognition, to really have a total control here. What is clear though is that there is quite a brutal, repressive crackdown going on here and technology is at the centre of it”.

20:29

Xinjiang GVs. People

Xinjiang’s take on Social Credit is simple and ruthless. Citizens here are not given a score. Instead they’re divided into just three categories: trustworthy, average, untrustworthy.

20:56

If you’re Han Chinese, you’re deemed trustworthy and granted freedom of movement. But if you’re Uyghur, you’re average, with restrictions imposed on travel and religious practises.  If you’re a Uyghur male who breaks those restrictions, you’re marked as untrustworthy, and detained in what the Party calls “education and training centres”.  Tahir Hamut has another name for them.

TAHIR HAMUT: “The concentration camps are very congested

21:14

Tahir interview

and over-populated with detainees. They have to study political propaganda 12 hours a day.  The food, drinking water and living conditions are very poor. Many people are getting sick in the camps. When we were still living back home we started to hear that some were even dying in there”.

21:44

Satellite stills. Detention centres and re-education camps

MATTHEW CARNEY: In August this year, the UN announced it had seen credible reports that over a million Uyghurs are currently held without charge in camps in Xinjiang, purely because of their ethnicity. The Chinese government rejects the claim,

22:19

Still. Men in camp

insisting it only detains convicted terrorists.

22:38

Tahir and family at dining table

Tahir’s personal experience tells a different story. When Xinjiang authorities discovered he had fled to America, his brother and two brothers-in-law disappeared.

22:42

Stills. Missing brothers in law

TAHIR HAMUT: “It’s impossible to communicate with them.  They’re in the concentration camps. Even contacting their families, their wives, isn’t possible now.

22:55

Tahir and family at dining table

We could contact them.  Sure, we could call. But if we do, the police will know immediately and then the others would be taken to the camps as well”.

23:08

Hu and Xia Xianhu walk down street

MATTHEW CARNEY: Back in Chongqing, Journalist Liu Hu worries for his family too. His blacklisting on Social Credit has cast a shadow on those closest to him.

23:26

Xianhu and Hu in restaurant

Xia Xianhu is an old journalist colleague.

23:42

XIA XIANHU: “I’m no on the blacklist yet. If I do end up on it, it would be like the system of collective punishment in feudal times where if one person breaks the law all associated people are also punished. If that happens it’s not Social Credit, it’s political extremism”.

23:46

MATTHEW CARNEY: Like Tahir, Hu is risking the welfare of his friends and family to alert the world about China’s experiment in hi-tech social engineering.  

24:10

He says people don’t fully comprehend what’s to come, a digital totalitarian state where algorithms decide your fate and nothing can be questioned.

LIU HU: “I think it’s wrong. 

24:22

Hu interview

This kind of social control goes against the tide of the world. We always say we should learn from the good aspects of Western countries. But when it comes to limiting the government’s power we don’t learn anything”.

24:36

Surveillance street footage

24:58

River

25:05

FAN DANDAN: “China has the largest population in the world. This is very different from Western countries. 

25:10

Dandan, husband and child in park

The happiest thing for me is to see my children live a happy and healthy life. I hope he can do what he wants to, gets a good education

25:19

Dandan interview

and lives a harmonious life. To me, that’s the most important thing”.

25:32

Dandan, husband and child in park by lake

MATTHEW CARNEY: Fan Dandan and husband Xiaojing’s high social credit will give their son Ruibao a running start. The provisions and protections of the Party will be bestowed upon him. So long as Mum and Dad keep their credit up.

25:37

FAN DANDAN: “Although the new system isn’t prefect, China likes to experiment in this creative way and continuously make improvements to suit our society. I see a positive future for it.  I hope this new system

25:56

Dandan interview

will bring good things to the Chinese people”.

26:17

Surveillance montage

Music

26:23

Credits

Reporter - Matthew Carney

Producer - Alex Barry, Cecily Huang

Camera - Brant Cumming, Adrian Wilson

Editor - Pete O’Donoghue

Graphics - Andres Gomez Isaza

Executive Producer - Marianne Leitch

Foreign Correspondent
abc.net.au/foreign

ABC © 2018

26:53

Outpoint after credits

27:14