shaobo
> Shutting down ALL internal Chinese travel from Wuhan, but letting international departures - that did happen, after all the more the merrier, let the world share our misery. ...
implying China allowed the flights to leave so they can infect the rest of the world, when in fact China did stop international flights from leaving, but the US, UK governments lobbied hard for these repatriation flights due to their own domestic politics.
It is all in the articles you linked.
from https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/04/03/life-inside-chinas-soci...
"The public blacklist has been incorporated by another incarnation of the social credit system — Zhima Credit, a service of the mobile payment provider Alipay. China has a huge mobile payment market, with transactions totaling $5.5 trillion in 2016, compared with $112 billion in the United States. Alipay, owned by Ant Financial, and WeChat Pay dominate the still-growing Chinese market.
Zhima Credit is an optional service embedded in Alipay that calculates users’ personal credit based on data such as spending history, friends on Alipay’s social network, and other types of consumer behavior. Zhima Credit’s technology director controversially told the Chinese magazine Caixin in 2015 that buying diapers, for example, would be considered “responsible” behavior, while playing video games for hours could be counted against you.
Hu Tao, Zhima Credit’s general manager, paints a different picture now. She says the app doesn’t monitor social media posts “nor does it attempt to measure qualitative characteristics like character, honesty, or moral value.” Zhima Credit is not a pilot for the social credit system and doesn’t share data with the government without users’ consent, she says."
For example, this incident, https://news.cgtn.com/news/3d3d514d7a457a4e79457a6333566d54/...
The "buying too many video games" line came from the gamification aspect of a social network owned by a private enterprise and has nothing to do with the government scheme. And even they have backpedaled from that claim:
"Hu Tao, Zhima Credit’s general manager, paints a different picture now. She says the app doesn’t monitor social media posts “nor does it attempt to measure qualitative characteristics like character, honesty, or moral value.” Zhima Credit is not a pilot for the social credit system and doesn’t share data with the government without users’ consent, she says."
from https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/04/03/life-inside-chinas-soci...
And the "posting fake news online" line actually refers to "spreading false information about terrorism" which quite a bit more serious.
This is done by local courts, not the financial institutions.
And if you read related article on this kind of name and shame tactic, you find that it is designed for debtors who are capable of repaying their debts but choose to defy court orders. Hence the travel restrictions are for flights and high-speed trains, and not regular trains or other public transports.
from http://uk.businessinsider.com/chinas-tax-blacklist-shames-de...
"Restrictions are placed on "high-expenditure consumption" and "consumption not necessary to sustain normal life or businesses" for individual defaulters as well as the legal representatives and CEOs of companies that default."
> China knew this going in, and agreed to it when they signed the treaty.
China signed it but they didn't agree to compulsory arbitration. They made declaration to that effect, along with a number of countries.
https://www.un.org/depts/los/convention_agreements/conventio...
It gave the impression that China is defying the UN, not saying that China wouldn't do something like that, but they didn't in this instance.
And because it is a court of arbitration, both sides have to agree to have their dispute resolved by arbitration in the first place. China did not agree to it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permanent_Court_of_Arbitration
Every article I read described it as a government system already implemented and measuring every aspect of your life, when it was actually a scheme created by a private company within their ecosystem and most people used it for showing off.
The government proposed system is still in pilot stage.
https://www.techinasia.com/china-citizen-scores-credit-syste...
Your weight, your age and how much you earn are not taboo subjects in China, so people will bring them up in casual conversations.
It is easy claim that China is autocratic therefore it must do X bad things
I am genuinely curious.
http://www.theverge.com/2015/12/27/10670346/china-passes-law...
The point I am trying to make is that people think China is a smidgen way from North Korea, when the actual difference is night and day.
The point I was trying to make is that, a sweeping statement such as "Anything that is published in China, by definition is representative of the opinions of the Party.", simply isn't true.
It is not even true for the mainstream media, nevermind a work of fiction.
For example, from http://gking.harvard.edu/publications/how-Censorship-China-A...
"Contrary to previous understandings, posts with negative, even vitriolic, criticism of the state, its leaders, and its policies are not more likely to be censored. Instead, we show that the censorship program is aimed at curtailing collective action by silencing comments that represent, reinforce, or spur social mobilization, regardless of content."