What Does Credit Mean? The Evolution of China's Social Credit System [ECR]

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Manchester China Institute

In this Early Career Researcher Workshop, Pengfei Xu will explore the evolution of the Chinese social credit system.

In 2014, the Chinese government officially promulgated the social credit system (SCS), which aims at encouraging sincerity in the Chinese society. Through the official document, the Chinese government wants to guide individual behaviour by quantifying value and virtue. This presentation will investigate how Chinese rulers’ writing and thinking about credit have developed over years. By tracing its emergence and development, this presentation illuminates that credit has developed along three normative dimensions: a motive to produce homo economicus, an essential element for governing China, and a tool for political obedience in the hands of the CCP. This presentation demonstrates how credit is rooted in discourses and official practices that evolved through history. In the first part, the presentation focuses on how certain credit problems were described and shaped in the official material of Chinese government. It then applies genealogy in the second part to explore historical antecedents of morality discourses in the history of Chinese governance. By putting the moral practices into Chinese history, it points out that the requirement of civic morality in SCS fits the historical tradition of Chinese rulers. In the last part, by considering contemporary socio-political context, it demonstrates that the scope of credit within the SCS is being extended, becoming a tool to increase the obedience of Chinese citizens. These three dimensions are closely connected with what counts as credit within the social credit system. Among these three dimensions, this presentation historicises and problematises the ways credit is constructed.

About the SpeakerPengfei Xu is a PhD researcher in Politics at the University of Manchester. He specialises in Chinese politics, Chinese big data governance and Foucauldian theory.

N﻿otesMCI’s ECR Workshops are lunchtime seminars held in person at the<a href="https://www.mci.manchester.ac.uk/" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer"> Manchester China Institute</a>. They seek to bring together students, faculty, and staff who can best provide feedback as Early Career Researchers develop their ideas. Free lunch will be provided.B﻿ackground illustration: Kevin Hong

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What Does Credit Mean? The Evolution of China's Social Credit System [ECR]

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