China’s social credit blacklist coerced repayment through restricted mobility and purchases.

Evidence

According to a report in China Daily, debtors on the list were automatically prevented from flying 6.15 million times since the blacklist was launched in 2013. Those in contempt of court were denied sales of high-speed train tickets 2.22 million times. Some 71,000 defaulters have missed out on executive positions at enterprises as a result of their debts. The Industrial and Commercial Bank of China said it had refused loans worth more than 6.97 billion yuan ($1.01 billion) to debtors on the list. No one is sent to a reeducation camp, but they may not be allowed to purchase luxury goods. According to the director of the Institute of the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation, “Given this inconvenience, 10 percent of people on the list started to pay back the money they owed spontaneously. This shows the system is starting to work.” Economies of action were performing to plan. — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1246

Categorization

• CANDY: The mix of mundane sanctions (no luxury goods, no executive posts) versus stark ones (no flights/trains) is a grimly quotable fact about how a surveillance state applies friction.
• XREF: connects to: China’s social credit system is a political rather than market instrument — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1256; Western firms separately pursue the same social-credit practices China institutionalizes — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1252; Chinese social credit systems apply the identical logic as Western surveillance capitalism — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1251 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• China’s social credit system is a political rather than market instrument #expands (0.80) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1256
• Chinese social credit systems apply the identical logic as Western surveillance capitalism #corroborates (0.75) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1251
• China’s unified social credit system remains fragmented and untested at scale. #qualifies (0.75) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1248
• Western firms separately pursue the same social-credit practices China institutionalizes #corroborates (0.72) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1252