Political and Social Trust in China

Can technology help restore trust in China?

Nina Ludviksen Thorsen

Master’s Thesis in Chinese Society and Politics KIN4593 (30 credits)

Department of Culture Studies and Oriental Languages

UNIVERSITY OF OSLO

Spring 2020

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Abstract Political and social trust in a country is essential to legitimate a regime and for stability in

society. This thesis will assume that there is a connection between political and social trust.

The state plays an important role in creating values for the citizens and society, to maintain

social trust, for instance trustworthiness. Also, whether citizens trust each other is strongly

influenced by whether they trust the government that they share or not. Authoritarian China

has experienced a high level of political trust, but due to, for instance, food safety scandals

and what some has argued is a shift to a “society of strangers” has resulted in a gripping fear

of declining social and political trust.

The Chinese government has an ambitious plan to use the power of data to change the

way it governs, and it has invested in information and communication technology in the hope

of restoring political and social trust, and creating a trustworthy society. This thesis examines

three systems that the CCP has introduced to the Chinese society: Cameras with facial

recognition technology, the Social Credit System and the political propaganda app Xuexi

Qiangguo app.

Through observations, three individual semi-structured interviews and eleven

unstructured interviews, this thesis examined how citizens perceived these technological

systems and how increased surveillance may affect the citizens in China. My research

suggests that the information about these systems is widely known and that most people are

acting as if they are being watched and rated on their behavior. My three main informants

believe that the proposed Social Credit System and the increasing number of CCTV cameras

with facial recognition technology will help restore trust, and that China will benefit from

these systems. Also, it appears most people are accepting the fact that CCP can do what they

want, and that the government is acting in the best interests of the citizens. But SCS is yet to

be implemented on a national level, and it will be interesting to see how the system will work

together with CCTV cameras, and perhaps also Xuexi Qiangguo.

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Acknowledgments First and foremost, I want to thank my supervisor Mette Halskov Hansen. Your optimism,

guidance, patience and feedback has been extremely helpful throughout this process. Thank

you for believing in me and my project.

To all my friends. You know who you are. Thank you all for support and

encouragement throughout this process. Eirik and Annica, who have been writing alongside

me, but always had some encouraging words to say. These two years would not have been the

same without you two. Ida, thank you for always being there when I needed to let some

frustration out and for proofreading.

To mom and dad, thank you for always being a phone call away, for encouraging

words and for always believing in me. And for bringing me food.

To all my informants, thank you for taking the time to meet with me and share your

personal thoughts and answered all my questions without any hesitations.

And lastly, Marius, thank you for all your love and support.

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Abbreviations CCP – The Chinese Communist Party

SCS – The Social Credit System

AI – Artificial Intelligence

CCTV – Closed-circuit television

PRC – People’s Republic of China

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Table of contents Abstract .............................................................................................................................. II

Acknowledgments .............................................................................................................. III

Abbreviations .................................................................................................................... IV

Table of contents.................................................................................................................. V

1 Introduction .......................................................................................................................1 1.2 Research questions ....................................................................................................3 1.3 Why does this topic matter? .......................................................................................4 1.4 Structure of thesis ......................................................................................................6

2 Discussion of Methodology ................................................................................................7 2.1 Research methods ......................................................................................................7 2.2 Sampling ...................................................................................................................9 2.3 Interview process ..................................................................................................... 11

3 Political and social trust in China ................................................................................... 13 3.1 The term trust .......................................................................................................... 13 3.2 How to define political and social trust? .................................................................. 14 3.3 Political trust in authoritarian China ......................................................................... 16 3.4 Social trust in China ................................................................................................ 18 3.5 Conclusion: Increasing use of technology – the road to a trustworthy society? ......... 20

4 Artificial Intelligence Technology ................................................................................... 21 4.1 China as an AI superpower ...................................................................................... 21 4.2 Facial recognition technology .................................................................................. 24 4.3 How does it work? ................................................................................................... 25 4.4 Conclusion: Restore trust in China ........................................................................... 26

5 The Chinese Social Credit System .................................................................................. 28 5.1 Yet to be a national system ....................................................................................... 28 5.2 Rongcheng – is the system working? ....................................................................... 30 5.3 Guanxi or high social credit score ............................................................................ 32 5.4 Conclusion: Acceptance among the citizens ............................................................. 33

6 The Xuexi Qiangguo app ................................................................................................. 34 6.1 Digitalization of propaganda .................................................................................... 34 6.2 Why has the Chinese government made a propaganda application? ......................... 36 6.3 Can a united ideology help rebuild political and social trust? ................................... 37 6.4 Conclusion: The future of Xuexi Qiangguo .............................................................. 38

7 Conclusion........................................................................................................................ 39

Bibliography ....................................................................................................................... 42

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Appendix 1 – Template of my informants ......................................................................... 50

Appendix 2 – Interview guide ............................................................................................ 51

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1 Introduction 1.1 Introduction

This thesis aims to examine the correlation between political and social trust in China and the

use of technology to create systems that, according to the Chinese government, will “create a

trustworthy society” (State Council 2014)1. In the past decades, China has gone from being a

poor country, to having the second largest economy in the world, racing ahead in information

technology research and using the knowledge to maintain and rebuild social and political

trust. This thesis will examine three different technological systems the Chinese government

has or plans to put into action and how it affects the daily lives of citizens in China. The

Chinese government is spending a great amount of money and resources to build what can be

seen as a massive surveillance system, gathering data from closed-circuit television (CCTV)

cameras, online and social media activity and financial records (Clover 2016). Western media

have been critical to China’s increasing use of surveillance over its citizens, questioning

whether it has to do with controlling its citizens or if it is to establish an honest and a

trustworthy society in China (Qiang 2018; Clover 2016).

The emergence of data has boomed in the last decades, and has changed global

communications, social relations, and international commerce (Chorzempa, Triolo and Sacks

2018, p. 1). Nowadays, technology are more often associated algorithms, machine learning,

robotics and artificial intelligence (AI), and it probably has a bigger part of people’s lives than

they are aware of. It determines what advertisements and information we see online, and even

the results we get from a simple Google search. China’s emergence as a technological power

is unquestioned. No other government than the Chinese government has a more ambitious and

comprehensive plan to utilize the power of data to change the way it governs. Since the early

2000s, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has invested heavily in information and

communication technology, and China is now one of the frontrunners when it comes to AI

research (Zhu, Huang, Chen & Gao 2018). Together with new start-up companies and well-

established companies such as Alibaba, Tencent and Baidu, the Chinese government is seeing

technology to secure China’s economic future and the rise of China as a world and

technological power. The government has encouraged big communications companies to

offer new digital services, such as mobile payment, while others are creating mobile

1 In bibliograpgy: Zhonghua Renmin Gongheguo Zhongyang Renmin Zhengfu 中华人民共和国中央人民政府 (The Government Of The People's Republic Of China)

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application that will convey the Communist Party’s ideology, allowing people to express their

loyalty to China and to the Party (Keane and Su 2019, p.12). By setting up a huge surveillance

system using the internet and AI technology, the Chinese government will be able to track

almost every single one of its 1.4 billion citizens. This has created many headlines in Western

media, comparing the CCP and China to Big Brother in George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-

four dystopian world where the people are under constant surveillance by authorities (Clover

2016).

There are three systems that have been especially mentioned in Western media and

which this thesis will focus on. These are, firstly, the increasing number of CCTV cameras

with facial recognition technology that are being set up all over the country. These cameras

can identify any citizen, and therefore the government knows where you are, who you hang

out with, and can spot any wrongdoings such as jaywalking or littering on the street. This

goes hand in hand with the second system, the Chinese Social Credit System (SCS 社会信用

体系), a social and financial system that, according to its plan, will rate and give each citizens

a social credit score, based on your financial records, from data collected by the CCTV

cameras and data from online activity. All this data will be gathered and analyzed and will

then determine whether a citizen is trustworthy or untrustworthy and the purpose is to

improve integrity and credibility of the whole society (State Council 2014). The third system

is a mobile application called Xuexi Qiangguo (学习强国), translated into English as ‘study

and strengthen the country’. It was designed by the technological company Alibaba and was

released in January 2019 by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Xuexi Qiangguo is a

propaganda app intended to teach its users President Xi Jinping’s own political ideology, help

them gain a deeper understanding of Xi’s political goal and to show users the path Xi wants

China’s future development to take. The app functions as a platform for articles, videos and

documentaries about Xi’s political ideology and you can follow the news about Xi Jinping

and his international visits. Much like the SCS, Xuexi Qiangguo does have a point system and

the users can earn points by logging in daily, reading articles and doing the quizzes. The

reason for including this system in this thesis is because it has been reported by several

newspapers that some companies are forcing their workers to download the app and

frequently send in their score (Liao 2019; Hernández 2019). It has also been reported that

members of the Communist Party in China are required to download the app. Therefore, the

CCP has taken greater control over the political lives of a big part of the population.

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To understand the motivation behind enforcing systems that might control citizens,

how they act and even who citizens choose to hang out with, it is important to understand the

concept of trust, both political and social trust. In this thesis, political trust will be used for

confidence in the political regime, political institutions and political leadership, while social

trust means trust in society and fellow citizens. Political trust is essential for a regime to be

legitimated (Wang 2005, p. 113), and a regime needs support and trust from its citizens to

function properly. The state can also impact trust between other parties of the society by

creating values, such as honesty, to maintain social trust (Levi & Stroker 2000, p. 494). If

there is a lack of social trust within a society, this can eventually hurt the political regime.

Both the Sanlu milk powder scandal in 2008 and the Changsheng Bio-technology incident in

2018 are incidents which led to distrust of companies, and the citizens held both local

governments and the national government responsible for safety scandals due to poor

regulations (Wu, Yang and Chen 2017, p. 604). Food safety, the use of pesticides and

fertilizers, and fake foods are major issues in China and can contribute in explain why there

might still exist social distrust in Chinese society. According to the Chinese Academy of

Social Sciences, China is in a state of moral decay and levels of trust are declining, due to the

fact that the society has shifted from a society of acquaintances to a society of strangers

(Wang S. 2017). The Chinese concept guanxi (关系) is essential to mention when discussing

social trust. Guanxi is a traditional and highly valued concept in the Chinese society, whereby

there are almost always an automatic trust between people who have personal relationships,

whereas strangers are often straightaway met with distrust (Cremer 2015; Huang 2018, pp.

484-485). The age of digitalization and the implementation of surveillance and point systems

can change the value of guanxi if people rather start to trust those with a higher score, since

they are already considered trustworthy by the government.

1.2 Research questions

The objective of this study is to gain understanding about political and social trust in China,

how digital systems can be related to trust and how the Chinese government can use

technology to control its citizens. The research questions this paper aims to answer are:

1. How is the Chinese government using technology to establish political and social

trust?

2. How does increased and constant surveillance in China affect the Chinese population?

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I have explored these questions through a short ethnographic study conducted in China during

a 4-week period in September and October of 2019, combined with the results with an

analytical review of research literature on political and social trust, as well as literature related

to China and technology, specifically facial recognition technology, the Social Credit System

and the Xuexi Qiangguo application. The literature includes both academic articles and

newspaper articles. Newspaper articles are used since the systems are relatively new and not

much academic work has been done on the systems. However, much of the information in

these newspaper articles have been conducted critically since I cannot know where the articles

have gotten their information from and even if it is correct. In addition, the SCS is yet to be a

national system and the planning process is still ongoing. Therefore, it is important to be

critical when reading since the information reported in media can be incorrect.

As a part of my study, I wanted to find out and understand how the increasing use of

facial recognition technology, the SCS and Xuexi Qiangguo was viewed by Chinese people,

how they experienced it and whether they thought it was a good or bad idea. The thesis will

attempt to answer the second question by combining literature and findings from individual

in-depth semi-structured, unstructured interviews and observations conducted in the fall of

2019. By linking the findings from the interviews and observations and the concepts of trust

and control, this thesis aims to discuss how technological surveillance will affect citizens in

China and what they might think about being rated and given a score on several aspects of

their lives.

1.3 Why does this topic matter?

The world is currently experiencing a technological development that is drastically changing

how the world is functioning. It has changed how we operate in our daily life and has

contributed to globalization. For an authoritarian regime such as China, who has already

started using technology that have affected both the citizens and the government in different

ways, building trust in the political leadership is important to prevent the regime to be

overthrown and secure the positions of parts of CCP’s leadership, for instance, Xi Jinping as

the president. However, rather than establishing trust in the political regime and society,

surveillance technology can have the opposite effect. Instead of establishing trust, systems

and technology such as the SCS and CCTV cameras can create political distrust. With these

systems, the citizens might question whether these systems are implemented because the

political leadership and authorities do not trust its citizens. Consequently, the topic of

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technology and its usage is very relevant to understand how the government aims to build

political trust in an authoritarian regime and how the population responds to it.

The use of technology for governmental use is an interesting field to study since it

does not only involve surveillance and control, but it also raises questions about ethics. In the

official documents from the Chinese government, the implementation of a Chinese SCS will

“improve the moral quality of members of society” (State Council 2014), and the main goal is

social integrity, social harmony, long-term stability and peace and perfecting socialist market

economy (State Council 2014; Li 2015). How ethical is it to set up CCTV cameras on every

corner to watch citizens? Or surveil what people post on social media, and maybe punish

them for it? One of the discussions regarding the implemented and soon-to-be-implemented

facial recognition cameras and point systems in China is whether collecting personal

information and invading the citizen’s privacy is ethical. How ethical is it to collect, store and

use personal information about citizens such as pictures from CCTV cameras collected

without their consent, even if it is used to make a trustworthy society?

What initially caught my interest on the topic for this thesis was the ethics aspect of

surveillance using technology, while at the same time, it being reported that many Chinese

citizens supported such systems (Hawkins 2017; Kostka 2019). To Westerners, more

governmental surveillance in an authoritarian regime such as China have caused skepticism

and worry, but many Chinese are viewing more surveillance and systems to punish the

untrustworthy as a potential remedy for the crisis of social trust in China (Hawkins 2017).

One of the purposes of my study was to find out if citizens actually think that being rated and

given a score on social, financial and their political interests is a good thing, and if they trust

the government to be doing the right thing for Chinese society.

Surveillance has become a global issue, we even experience surveillance in Western

democracies. Take airports as an example, there are many cameras installed to prevent

unwanted items being taken on the plane and your bags going through x-ray scans. Also,

users of for instance Facebook and Google leave behind digital traces, which are used to

personalize advertisements (Plantin, Lagoze, Edwards and Sandvig 2018, p. 304). However,

even though surveillance is a global issue, it is how the Chinese government is now rewarding

and punishing citizens based on their behavior that have caused attention in Western media,

as well as my interest.

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1.4 Structure of thesis

The thesis is structured as follows; after this introductory chapter, in chapter 2 I will

introduce the methodology used for the empirical study conducted in China and Norway in

September and October of 2019. How was the data collected? What was the methods used to

collect the mentioned data? The theoretical framework of the study will be presented and

discussed, and further investigate political and social trust in China in chapter 3. Chapter 4,

5 and 6 will discuss the empirical findings, and connect them to how the Chinese government

are using artificial intelligence technology, to the Chinese Social Credit System and to the

Xuexi Qiangguo app. The thesis will be concluded in the final part.

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2 Discussion of Methodology This chapter will explain how the empirical research for this thesis was planned and put in to

action. Most of the empirical data was conducted during a 4-week period in September and

October of 2019 in Shanghai, in a small city called Rongcheng in Shandong province, and in

Oslo. The sources of empirical data come from three individual qualitative semi-structured in-

depth interviews, eleven unstructured interviews and observations made during my field trip

to China and in Oslo. Firstly, this chapter will explain what kind of research methods were

used and discuss why these methods were used. The second part of this chapter will focus on

the sampling of materials, why I chose to travel to Rongcheng and Shanghai and how I came

to find my informants. In the third and last part the interview process will be examined.

2.1 Research methods

In order to understand how the Chinese government is using facial recognition cameras and

point systems to make a trustworthy society, I wanted to find out what Chinese people think

about the technological systems the government is imposing in the Chinese society, especially

focusing on the CCTV cameras in public areas, the SCS and Xuexi Qiangguo, and if they trust

the Chinese government. Therefore, I spent 4 weeks in Rongcheng in Shandong province and

in Shanghai in September and October of 2019. The plan was to do both individual qualitative

semi-structured in-depth interviews and unstructured interviews. In addition to interviews, I

wanted to spend a great amount of time observing people and see if the SCS and camera

surveillance have had any effect on people’s everyday behavior.

The first research method I chose to do was individual qualitative in-depth interviews.

Doing individual interviews is a research method where I, as the researcher, find and

interview individuals one-by-one who have knowledge about the topic of interest. For my

individual interviews, I chose to do “in-depth” interviews, referring to an interview style that

seeks to get deeper information and knowledge than one would get by conducting surveys, for

example (Johnson and Rowlands 2012, p. 2). These interviews would be semi-structured,

where I would use an interview guide in the form of “a written list of questions and topics that

need to be covered in a particular order” (Bernard 2006, p. 212). Therefore, I had written the

questions before travelling to China, which I brought with me at every interview.

I wanted to know how Chinese people perceived the increasing number of CCTV

cameras and social point systems, not how many thought it was a good or a bad idea. To learn

how many considered implementations of the mentioned systems to be a good or bad idea

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appeared irrelevant if I did not first learn how and what they thought about it. I wanted to get

a deeper insight to what some Chinese thought about the increasing number for CCTV

cameras, the SCS and Xuexi Qiangguo, and consequently chose to do a qualitative approach

for my individual in-depth semi-structured interviews. Silverman explains the difference like

this: “Qualitative researchers are prepared to sacrifice scope for detail. Moreover, even what

counts as detail tends to vary between qualitative and quantitative researchers. [Quantitative

researchers] typically seek detail in certain aspects of correlations between variables. By

contrast, for qualitative researchers, detail is found in the precise particulars of such matters as

people’s understandings and interactions” (2010, p. 104).

Since I am not doing a representative study, I decided to specifically interview

students for my individual in-depth semi-structured interviews. One reason for this is because

I am a student myself, and I thought that they would probably be more understanding and

helpful towards my project, and more willing to let me interview them. I also wanted to find

someone who in some degree spoke English as well as Mandarin, so I did not have to depend

on Mandarin entirely, and possibly minimize or avoid any language barriers. I did not decide

how many I was going to interview before my fieldtrip because “the number of interviews in

itself is uninteresting. What is important is the kind of interviews, observations and

interactions, and what the fieldworker gets out of them” (Sæther 2006, p. 55).

The second research method I used was unstructured interviews. According to

Bernard, “[u]nstructured interviews are based on a clear plan that you keep constantly in

mind, but are also characterized by a minimum of control over the people’s responses. The

idea is to get people to open up and let them express themselves in their own terms, and at

their own paths” (2006, p. 211). I wanted to conduct some interviews that would start with

one question and hopefully turn into a conversation, but where I had no control over what

they were going to say or if they were going to say anything relevant to my study whatsoever.

I did not have a plan for how many I would ask, but rather take this part as it comes. This was

because these interviews would be shorter and not as in-depth as my individual semi-

structured interviews. For this method I decided to focus mostly on the SCS and the goal was

to find out how widespread the information and knowledge of the SCS is and what they think

about the system. During my 4-week long field trip to China, I was able to ask eleven people

what they thought about the SCS.

The third research method I used was observation. I wanted to observe people’s

behavior and to see if the knowledge about the SCS, the CCTV cameras and the increasing

surveillance in China have had any effect on their behavior in public places or not. I did my

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observation by walking around in Shanghai and Rongcheng, by standing at intersections and

watching how people were acting. I decided to spend a great amount of time walking around

and observing, since parts of my topic could to some extent be politically sensitive and I did

not want to rely solely on finding people for interviews. Furthermore, I decided that to

observe how the citizens acted in public could potentially give me better answers to how well

the implementation of cameras and social systems have worked.

2.2 Sampling

When planning for my fieldtrip to China, I had to decide on a few matters. Firstly, where

would I travel? Probably the easiest would have been Beijing or Guangdong, two places

where I respectively studied in 2016 and worked in 2014, and most of the people I know in

China live there. But while reading about the SCS, a small city in Shandong province caught

my interest. Rongcheng is a city located at the eastern part of Shandong by the Yellow Sea.

This city has been a pilot city for a credit system, and it was mentioned in almost every news

article I read about the SCS as an example of how the Social Credit System could look like

when fully implemented on a national level. The problem was that I did not know anyone

who had ever traveled to Rongcheng or anyone from Rongcheng. But if I could find

somebody in Rongcheng who was willing to let me interview them, that would be interesting

information for my research.

Shanghai as a place to conduct my research was chosen because of several factors.

First of all, I have been told from people I have studied with in the past about an app called

“Honest Shanghai” (诚信上海), another credit app released in Shanghai to make the

population of Shanghai more honest. Since this app is within my field of interest, I thought

that Shanghai would be an ideal place to conduct research. Secondly, I knew that Shanghai is

a city where the government had set up a lot of CCTV cameras with facial recognition

technology. This was something I wanted to observe, and therefore, I thought that due to the

size of Shanghai, I would be able to spend time in different areas of the city observing. Even

though my own network in Shanghai was quite limited, I know a lot of people who have lived

there, and I also know that there are many Norwegians who study and work in Shanghai,

which I believe could be beneficial for me when looking for informants.

Secondly, how would I find my informants? I had chosen to travel and conduct

research in two cities where my social network is nearly non-existent. For my trip to

Rongcheng, I had to depend on meeting people on the street, in restaurants or in other public

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places. The main problem in Rongcheng would be the language barrier, since it is a relatively

small city in China, and I did not think English would be widely known there. Therefore, I

had to trust my Mandarin skills, but to be on the safe side, I downloaded a few translation

applications on my phone before travelling. For Shanghai, however, I decided to send a

message to everyone I knew that might know any Chinese students who would potentially be

willing to sit down for an interview. In addition, one of my closest friends who had lived in

Shanghai for over a year added me to several WeChat groups for Norwegians and students in

Shanghai. If neither of the two first options would give me anyone to interview, then my plan

was to visit some of the universities in Shanghai and try to meet Chinese students at campus.

However, locating informants was surprisingly difficult. I booked the tickets for my

fieldtrip based on what time frame was most convenient for me, which meant that I was in

Shanghai during the 70th Anniversary of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). The collision

of my arrival with this anniversary made me wonder whether people might be more patriotic

than usual or if the political sensitivity of my topic could be a reason for why I had such

problems locating informants. Would a potential general patriotic spirit or anxiety make

people more reluctant towards talking openly and honestly about political trust, SCS and

Xuexi Qiangguo? In Rongcheng, I did try to talk to the people who worked at the restaurants

where I was eating, especially at this dumpling place where I ate every day, but they were not

interested in talking to me any further about this topic. Also, none of the people from my own

personal network in Shanghai could help me, since the people they knew did no longer live in

Shanghai. When I asked in a WeChat group for Norwegians living in Shanghai, I received

responses from two people. The first person was working at a center for Chinese students

where the students could learn English. But she told me, as I had already feared, due to the

70th Anniversary of PRC, none of whom she taught wanted to talk to me. The reason, she told

me, was because of the political sensitivity of my topic. The second person who responded to

my request on WeChat agreed to meet with me and, subsequently, became one of my in-depth

interviewees. The two other Chinese students I interviewed are Chinese students studying in

Oslo.

In addition to my qualitative in-depth semi-structured interviews, I also wanted to

conduct some unstructured interviews. The reason for conducting unstructured interviews was

to hopefully receive more informal answers. Finding informants for this part was not as

difficult. Being a foreigner in China who can to some degree speak Mandarin catches

people’s attention, and a lot of Chinese people came up to me on the streets asking for a

picture with me. I knew beforehand that this would most likely be the case in Rongcheng,

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since it is a small city with very few foreign tourists visiting each year, but to my surprise, it

was the case in Shanghai as well. I believe that since I was in Shanghai during a public

holiday, most of the people who talked to me on the streets and in restaurants were Chinese

tourists visiting Shanghai during the holiday. Consequently, I met my informants for my

unstructured interviews on the street or at restaurants.

Since I also wanted to investigate if point systems and surveillance have had any effect

on people’s behavior, I spent a lot of time walking around both Rongcheng and Shanghai to

observe people. It had almost been two years since my last trip to China, but on that trip, I

only spent a few days in Beijing before travelling again, therefore, what was most surprising

was how many propaganda posters there were around the cities. They were along the

sidewalk, along the road and in public parks. Also, the number of CCTV cameras in public

places surprised me. There were several cameras at every street crossing and at every

streetlight. Cities in China are reported to be the most monitored cities in the world, and by

2020 it is reported to be 626 million cameras in China, one camera for every two people

(Zhang 2019). With the installed cameras, the Chinese government are using facial

recognition technology to build a national surveillance network. After the camera takes a

picture of the streets, the government will use AI and facial recognition technology to identify

each person and create profile of the person’s activities. Also, at the reception of the two

hotels where I was staying, there was facial recognition devices pointed towards me. This was

the same at the China Unicom where I bought my Chinese sim-card, as well as cameras in

public bathrooms, airports and banks (Denyer 2018). It really did feel like I was being

watched all the time, since there were new cameras every time I turned a corner.

What I wanted to research was if these cameras with facial recognition technology

have had any effect on people’s behavior. I spent hours standing at road crossings to observe

enough people for my research. Even though Rongcheng and Shanghai are two quite different

cities, the effect of surveillance and cameras is somewhat similar. From what I did read before

my trip to Rongcheng, I was not surprised that people there respected the cameras and acted

accordingly.

2.3 Interview process

As previously mentioned, finding informants who were willing to sit down with me and let

me interview them was more difficult than predicted, but I found three Chinese students who

wanted to talk to me if they could be anonymous. All I can say about my informants is their

nationality (they are all Chinese), their age and gender, their home province and that they are

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all university students2. They were all asked to pick a location for the interview. I asked this

so they could be at a location which they felt comfortable, and if they did not want to meet in

a public place because of the risk of being overheard, they had the chance to decide.

However, they all wanted me to find a location. One of the interviews was conducted at a café

and two were conducted at their university campus. All three of my informants were

comfortable with me taking notes and recording the interviews.

I had prepared my questions for my in-depth semi-structured interviews before my

fieldtrip to China, but these were primarily used as a guide3. Some additional questions were

asked during each interview to follow up on what they answered. My informants also spoke

freely for them to guide the interview. I tried, the best I could, not to share my own opinions

during the interview. I started each interview by introducing myself and my research to build

trust and make them feel comfortable talking to me. Once again, I informed them that they

would stay anonymous, and made it clear that the information would be used for my MA

thesis, and asked for permission to record the interview. The length of the interviews varied

from 12 to 112 minutes. The reason for this variation was due to the degree of knowledge

they had about the camera surveillance, the SCS and the Xuexi Qiangguo app. They were all

very open and answered all my questions without any hesitations.

I did not have a plan for my unstructured interviews, nor did I have any questions

prepared for this part of my research. The only thing I had in mind was to find out how

widespread the knowledge about the SCS was. Finding people to ask was not a hard task.

Both in Rongcheng and in Shanghai I got a lot of attention due to my appearance and because

I could speak Mandarin. I primarily talked and met people on the street or waiters at the

restaurants where I ate. They all were interested in knowing how I could speak Mandarin and

what I was doing in China. I told eleven people about my research and followed up by asking

them if they had heard about the SCS and what they thought about it.

The findings from my interviews and observations will be presented and discussed in

the following chapters.

2 See Appendix 1 3 See Appendix 2

13

3 Political and social trust in China This chapter will looker deeper into the theoretical framework of this thesis and the concept

of trust, as well as political trust and social trust in China. 40 years has pasted since the

economic reforms, which have led to improved living standards for many Chinese, as millions

have higher paying jobs. But the country has also been the home of environmental disasters

and food safety scares in recent years, which has resulted in a gripping fear of declining social

and political trust (Tao, Yang, Li and Lu 2014, p. 238), and the issue of hukou has created

social inequality in several major cities in China (Huang 2018, p. 482). In the last part of this

chapter, China and its increasing use of technology and surveillance will be addressed in

perspective of the notions of political and social trust.

3.1 The term trust

The concept trust is central in this thesis, but it is highly discussed and contested (Newton

2007, p. 344; Levi and Stroker 2000, p. 476). Yet there is a common sense among us what

trust is. Trust is the belief that others will not intentionally or knowingly do us any harm if

they can avoid it, and if it is possible, will look after our interests (Newton 2007, p. 344). To

put it another way, trust is the ability to walk down the street without expecting to be

assaulted or mugged, that one will not be treated unfairly or betrayed by others and the

government (Ibid). According to Delhey and Newton, there is no general theory of trust, but

rather “a degree of conceptual and theoretical confusion” (2005, p. 312). One reason for this

is because the term is floating and has a different meaning to everyone and is used both in

everyday conversation and in academic work. In addition, cultural background and

translations can be factors for different conceptions of trust. According to Newton, some have

claimed that since there are so many problems, we should just drop the term and replace it

(2007, p. 344). This, however, will not solve any problems and the new term will have to be

researched and studied just as trust has been, and the result would most likely show that any

new terms would be unsatisfactory. We trust to varying degrees, but we use the terms trust

and distrust instead of using clumsy terms trying to express that we are leaning more towards

trust than distrust (Newton 2007, p. 345).

The idea that trust is important in a society for social, economic and political reasons

goes back to Confucian time, a time when trust, food and weapons were basics for a

government to function (Newton 2007, p. 343). It is somewhat the similar idea that we have

today. Trust in the political leader and the government legitimates a regime. How much

14

citizens trust the government can predict how much strength and power the regime holds and

how much room citizens give a government to act (Wang 2005, p. 113; Wu et al. 2017, p.

603). Trust in a regime is the citizen’s evaluation of how the government is doing its job

compared to their expectations of its performance (Wu et al. 2017, p. 603). Social trust is

reflected in one’s trust in others, for instance fellow citizens, in social interactions (Huang

2018, p. 484) Social trust is one of the main components of social capital, which is necessary

for social cooperation, social integration, economic efficiency and stability in modern society.

With high level of social trust, society tends to enjoy better government and economic

performance (Tao et al. 2014, p. 238; Newton 2001, p. 202).

Trust in Chinese, according to my informants, is hard to translate and one uses

different words for different types of trust. Informant B mentioned first xinren (信任), which

she said meant to trust and to have confidence in someone or something, and would be used in

the terms of political trust (政治信任) and social trust (社会信任). Chengxin (诚信) is one of

the core values of Chinese socialism on the individual level, and was, according to informant

A, rooted back to Confucian philosophy, and means integrity, honesty and trustworthiness.

Informant C described chengxin as a collective and social concept, meaning that you should

be honest, have strong moral principles and follow the rules. Xinyong (信用) can mean credit,

to trust and trustworthiness. Informant B and C both said it means that you should keep your

promise and be a trustworthy person. However, the concepts of xinyong and chengxin seemed

to confuse the informants, since two of them said that the two terms were almost the same to

them. In the official document of the Construction of the Social Credit System, however, the

words chengxin and xinyong are used: xinyong is a verb or a noun, used in the Chinese name

for SCS (社会信用体系), while chengxin is an adjective, and the goal for SCS is creating a

trustworthy and honest society.

3.2 How to define political and social trust?

It is important to distinguish between political trust and social trust. This thesis will use

political trust as confidence in political leaders and leadership, and political institutions, while

social trust will be referred to as trust in friends, neighbors, fellow countrymen, social

institutions and the society. Previous research and scholars have argued about the relationship

between political and social trust, if the terms should consider as being independent of each

other or having a causal relationship (Tao et al. 2014, p. 238). Using the independent theory,

the terms are distinguished from each other placing social or horizontal trust on the one hand

15

and political or vertical trust on the other, and their relationship is weak or non-existent

(Newton 2001, p. 203). Social and political trust are different forms of trust and do not share

“common origins in the same set of social conditions; they are different things with different

causes” (Newton 2001, p. 201). In addition, people can register high social trust, yet not have

any trust in the political leader and leadership (Newton 2001, p. 203; Tao et.al 2014, p. 239).

Newton (2001) stated that “one can predict virtually nothing about a person’s trust in other

people from their trust in government (p. 203).

On the other hand, according to Tao et al. (2014), much literature assumes a social

basis for political trust, suggesting a causal relationship that runs from social trust to political

trust (p. 239). Levi and Stoker (2000) states that some scholars argue that “the major source of

social trust is government’s credible commitment to uphold property rights and to protect

constituents from each other” (p. 493). They also argue that the state plays an important role

in creating values for the society, which can cause and sustain social trust (Levi et al. 2000, p.

494). Furthermore, governments can “influence civic behavior to the extent they elicit trust or

distrust towards themselves” (Levi 1996, p. 51). Brehm and Rahn (1997) discuss that there is

an association between people’s trust in the government and trust in other citizens. To put in

other words, whether citizens trust each other is strongly influenced by whether they trust the

government that they share (p. 1001). They also put forward the argument that there is a

correlation between civic engagement, confidence in government and social trust, “[t]he more

that citizens participate in their communities, the more they learn to trust others; the greater

trust that citizens hold for others, the more likely they are to participate” (Brehm et al. 1997,

pp. 1001-1002).

This thesis will assume that there is a correlation between political and social trust in

China, with the use of propaganda as a tool for the CCP to control domestic opinion of its

policies. Propaganda has been a way to exceed social control and “to reinforce the idea that

the Chinese political system is oriented towards achieving concreate goals that meet the needs

of the Chinese people, such as those embodied in [Xi Jinping’s] Chinese Dream: developing a

prosperous society, building a military capable of fighting and winning wars, and reclaiming

China’s place as a global power” (Economy 2018, p. 43). In 2012, at the time of Xi Jinping

ascension as the CCP general secretary, the CCP introduce the twelve ideals that reflected

core socialist values (社会主义核心价值观), a set of values of Chinese socialism on national,

societal and citizen level; prosperity, democracy, civility, harmony, freedom, equality, justice,

16

the rule of law, patriotism, dedication, integrity and friendship4 (Economy 2018, p. 43). These

12 core values have since been plastered on walls and been turned into decorative signs

placed all over cities in China. The propaganda by CCP is not only being used as a tool to

promote trust in the political regime in China, but has also been used at the social and

individual level.

3.3 Political trust in authoritarian China

Much research have been done and many surveys have been conducted to gather data about

political and social trust in China, as well as on topics such as approval of a social credit

system and concerns about food safety in China (Tao et al, 2014; Su, Cao, He and Huang

2015; Huang 2018; Wang 2005; Chen 2017; Wu et al. 2017; Wang et al. 2015; Yan 2012;

Nathan 2003; Chen and Shi 2001). Political trust is a complex and multidimensional

phenomenon, and political support can be classified into five different levels: the community,

regime principles, regime performance, regime institutions and political actors (Tao et al.

2014, p. 243). There are several reasons to expect low political trust in China. Firstly, China

remains an authoritarian regime and continues to restrict civil liberty and prevent any attempts

to make China a democracy. Secondly, there is still corruption among cadres and other

governmental officials. Thirdly, the judicial system is plagued with irregularities such as legal

loopholes, political interferences and selective enforcement. Fourthly, the gap between the

rich and the poor is increasing. And fifth and lastly, environmental deterioration and food

safety scares are a remaining problem in China (Su et al. 2015, p. 316). Therefore, it would

not be a surprise if the Chinese citizens were distrustful nor resentful of the political regime.

Yet, data from surveys indicate that China has experienced a high level of trust to the

political regime for several decades. In a survey conducted by Chen and Shi and the Social

Survey Research Center of the People’s University of China between September 1993 and

June 1994, 91.4 percent of the respondents agreed or strongly agreed with the statement “We

should trust and obey the government, for in the last analysis it serves our interests” (Chen

and Shi 2001, p. 94; Nathan 2003, p. 13; Wang 2005, p. 115). In the same survey, high

proportions of citizens also agreed or strongly agreed with statements such as “You can

generally trust the people who run our government to do what is right,” “You can generally

trust decisions made by the central government” and “The government can be trusted to do

4 The national values of “prosperity” (富强), “democracy” (民主), “civility” (文明) and “harmony” (和谐); the social values of “freedom” (自由), “equality” (平等), “justice” (公正) and “the rule of law” (法治); and the individual values of “patriotism” (爱国), “dedication” (敬业), “integrity” (诚信) and “friendship” (友善).

17

what is right without having constantly to check on them” (Ibid). Note that this survey was

conducted only a few years after the pro-democracy Tiananmen square movement in 1989,

suggesting that the regime can rehabilitate its legitimacy. A survey conducted by the National

Bureau of Statistics in 2008 found that 91.5 percent of Chinese people were either ‘extremely

confident’ or ‘fairy confident’ of the direction and prospect of the path China’s development

is taking (Su et al. 2015, p. 316). With this survey one must question the credibility because

of the National Bureau of Statistics’ official status (the CCP might have altered the results in

their favor), but results from the 2006 Asian Barometer Surveys, 2008 China Survey and the

2007 World Value Survey all show high levels of political trust in China, respectively 87

percent, 86 percent and over 90 percent (Ibid).

Not many countries show a higher level of political trust than China. Su et al. (2014)

state that China’s high political trust can be traced back to four different sources (pp. 317-

321). The first source is traditional culture, saying that China’s high political trust derived

from traditional Confucian values. “Under the influence of the Confucian value characterized

by a hierarchical orientation toward authority and confrontation avoidance” (Chen 2017, p.

317), people seem to be more trusting towards political authority. The second source is the

high institutional performance of China to foster economic growth. Since the economic

reforms were introduced in the late 1970s by Deng Xiaoping, hundreds of millions of Chinese

has been lifted out of poverty and most people’s living standards have risen (Wang 2005, p.

125; Nathan 2003, p. 13). The third source is CCP’s political propaganda, which is used to

improve regime legitimacy. The CCP controls both the production and propagation of their

ideology and can alone promote positive attitudes towards the regime and encapsulate the

Chinese people with the idea that only the CCP can sustain economic growth and social

stability. The fourth source presented in Su et al. is perceived possibilities for social mobility,

defined as “an individual’s perception of his/her chance for upward social mobility on the

basis of personal initiatives and efforts” (2014, p. 319). Perceived social mobility raises

political trust because it creates a sense of fairness, optimism and self-responsibility. It gives

the citizens a chance of success, not because of family status and wealth, but because of

efforts. The legitimacy of the political regime is therefore maintained based on providing

opportunities, rather than guaranteeing the outcome (Ibid).

Furthermore, the high level of political trust in China can simply be explained by the

public in the society unquestioningly follows its leaders and automatically believes that the

government is acting in the best interests of everyone. Or that people do not answer truthfully

18

in surveys because of living in authoritarian regime, in fear of what can happen if the CCP

finds out what the responders answered (Chen and Shi 2001, p. 95).

I did ask all three of my informants whether they trusted the Chinese government and

if they trusted others in society. Even though this clearly will not give me any representation

of political and social trust in China, I found it important to ask, in hope to receive more

detailed answers than just yes and no. It was no surprise for me that they all said they trusted

the government to act in the best interests of the citizens. Informant A said “I think most

people don't care about politics, as long as their living standards are fine, and the government

doesn't take money from their pockets. They just trust that the government will do what is

best for them.”

3.4 Social trust in China

China’s unprecedented economic development over the past 40 years would not have been

possible without the millions of migrant workers traveling from rural to urban areas offering

cheap labor. But migrant workers have faced difficulties in the urban areas due to the Chinese

household registration system (户口 hukou). The hukou system was initially implemented to

limit population growth in cities, and to keep the rural population in rural areas to work in

agriculture (Huang 2018, p. 482). Having an agricultural or non-agricultural hukou has led to

inequalities and discrimination especially against rural migrant work in Chinese cities, who

are struggling to socially integrate into their urban society. Huang (2018) has divided the

population in major cities into a unique four-tiered social structure of urban locals, urban

migrants, new urbanites and rural migrants, the most visible division between urban locals

and rural migrants (p. 482). Even though there have been several hukou-reforms in the past

two decades, this four-tiered social structure still plays a great role in Chinese cities today.

The hukou has not only affected rural migrants’ socioeconomic participation and their safety,

but also formed the relationship between residents in urban areas.

Social trust between urban locals and rural migrant workers can improve cohesion and

reduce stigmatization. In 2013, Wang, Zhang and Wu (2017) conducted a survey on social

trust between migrants and locals in Shanghai and how neighborhood factors such as

residential diversity and neighborhood poverty can play a role. The results show that

intergroup social trust is significantly lower than in-group trust, but in-group trust among

migrants are lower compared to Shanghai natives (pp. 8-12). This may be because migrants

do not consider other migrants from other regions as fellow in-group members. The survey

19

also finds out that in areas and neighborhoods with a high percentage of migrants, the locals

are more trusting towards out-group members, probably because of higher interactions with

migrants than in a neighborhood with few migrants (Ibid). Their findings therefore indicate

that residential diversity is not necessarily negative for social trust, and that migrants and

locals are more likely to trust each other when they have intergroup contact (Ibid).

In contrast to personal trust, social trust can also be understood as a generalized trust

in social institutions to act in accordance with state rules. The production of fake and

contaminated food in China have in recent years contributed to a decline of social trust,

distrust in social institutions and strangers (Yan 2012, p. 719). The Ministry of Commerce has

since 2004 annually investigated food safety concerns and the yearly reports show that

Chinese consumers are highly concerned about food safety problems (Yan 2012, p. 720). The

reports state that among urban residents, the rate of concern went from 79 percent in 2005 to

96 percent in 2008, and among the rural residents the rate went from 58 percent in 2006 to 94

percent in 2008 (Ibid). The high rate in 2008 was most likely a result of the melamine-tainted

baby formula case by the Sanlu Group in 2008. It is estimated that 296,000 babies contracted

kidney problems after consuming dairy products by the Sanlu Group and other dairy

production companies such as Megniu and Yili. The increasing number of food safety

incidents in China have boosted people’s awareness of food safety risks and shown not only

decline in trust on social institutions and companies, but also in local and central authorities

(Wu et al. 2017, p. 604). However, in my study, informant B argued that “as long as it doesn't

hurt my health, it’s fine. I understand that people want to make money, so if they put water

into my beer, it doesn't bother me, because it won’t hurt my health.” All three of my

informants knew about the issue fake and contaminated foods in China, but they did not seem

to care too much. It could be because I used the Sanlu melamine-tainted baby milk formula as

an example when I asked them, and neither of them had kids.

When I asked my informants whether they trust other people or not, both in their own

personal network and strangers, the Chinese traditional concept guanxi was mentioned.

Informant A told me, “China is still a family-based society, and a guanxi based society, and if

I know you and my family knows you, I trust you. If you do something stupid, it will affect

not only yourself, but your family’s credibility. If my family introduce me to you, like my

grandma knows your grandma and they introduce us, then I trust you.” He continued saying

that guanxi is especially important if you want to do good in business. I will come back to this

in chapter 5.

20

3.5 Conclusion: Increasing use of technology – the road to a trustworthy society?

Even though surveys have indicated that there is a high level of political trust in China, the

citizens sufferings during the Cultural Revolution and the Tiananmen Square massacre are

still embedded in their history. Along with food contamination and the hukou discriminations,

there is a fear of political and social decline in China. The Chinese government is therefore

spending a vast amount of money and resources to expand their use of technology, that will,

according to governmental documents, promote the construction of government integrity,

business integrity, social integrity and judicial credibility, as well as social harmony, long-

term stability and peace, and improving the socialist market economy (State Council 2014).

In the following chapters, three different uses of technology imposed or soon-to-be

imposed by the CCP will be presented and discussed. What they all have in common is that

they are planned to make the Chinese society more trustworthy.

21

4 Artificial Intelligence Technology This chapter will look deeper into artificial intelligence (AI) and facial recognition

technology, and how the Chinese government is using this type of technology to try to

establish trust while controlling and surveilling its citizens. This chapter will begin by

presenting a few definitions of AI and continue with a discussion of governmental use of AI

and facial recognition, and how it is and will affect citizens in China. As China is striving to

become one of the world leaders on AI technology, the issue of data being collected without

knowing have not until recently been an issue, and now more people are questioning the

ethics of data being collected without consent. The empirical findings from my observations

and in-depth semi-structured interviews will be presented in the chapter.

4.1 China as an AI superpower

The academic field of AI research was born in 1955 when a research group at Dartmouth

College in New Hampshire proposed a research project on AI. The definition they came up

with was presented in the project proposal stating that AI was the problem of “making a

machine behave in ways that would be called intelligent if a human were so behaving”

(McCarthy, Minsky, Rochester & Shannon 1955). In 1965, Herbert Simon predicted in his

book The Shape of Automation for men and management that “machines will be capable,

within twenty years, of doing any work that a man can do” (p. 96). In a more recent paper

written by Kaplan and Haenlein, they define AI “as a system’s ability to interpret external

data correctly, to learn from such data, and to use those learnings to achieve specific goals and

tasks through flexible adaption” (2018, p. 17). Kaplan and Haenlein further distinguish

between three skills of competencies, which are (1) cognitive intelligence which is

characterized as competencies related to pattern recognition and systematic thinking, (2)

emotional intelligence, and these competencies have adaptability, self-confidence, emotional

self-awareness and are achievement orientated, and lastly (3) social intelligence, e.g.

empathy, teamwork and inspirational leadership. Based on these three competencies, Kaplan

and Haenlein classify AI systems into three groups, (1) analytical AI only has characteristics

consistent with cognitive intelligence and can be using learning from past experiences to

predict future results. Most AI firms today are placed in this group, and some examples today

are systems used to detect fraud in financial services, image recognition and self-driving cars.

(2) Human-Inspired AI has characteristics of both cogitative and emotional intelligence, and

such systems can be used to recognize emotions when recruiting new employees or during

22

customer interactions. Characteristics of all the mentioned competencies are shown in (3)

Humanized AI. Systems in this group would be able to be self-conscious and self-aware of

interpersonal interactions. However, it is yet to be available and is a project for the future

(Kaplan et al. 2018, pp. 17-19).

China’s rise in AI technology started much later than in the U.S. and in Europe, but

has in the last decade spent huge amount of money and resources to AI research and

technology, while striving to be the world superpower and leader within the field by 2030

(Zhu, Huang, Cheng & Gao 2018; Beard 2018; State Council 2017). In 2017, the State

Council of the People’s Republic of China released the “New Generation Artificial

Intelligence Development Plan” (新一代人工智能发展规划). This plan along with “Made in

China 2025” (中国制造 2025), released in 2015, have formed the core of China’s strategy to

build a domestic AI industry (Allen 2019, p. 3).

There is much good to be gained from technology and data science, but the negative

side includes, for instance, concerns over data privacy, risk management and cybersecurity

(Murrell 2018). Technology is rapidly changing life in China, yet there are few protections

limiting how much information the government can collect about its 1.4 billion citizens (Xie

2019). The lack of a national protection law on technology and privacy protection gives the

government and companies access to vast amounts of citizens’ personal data. 111New

regulations are, however, under consideration: During the “two sessions” (两会) in April

2019, China’s biggest political event of the year, it was made clear that National People’s

Congress is hastening to draft a new law to protect personal data, but it is not clear when it

will be completed (Chen and Qu 2019; Xie 2019). It is expected that the proposed law will be

a major step to protect citizens’ personal information, especially biometric data such as face

scans and fingerprints (Chen et al. 2019). One important aspect for making such a law is to

ensure that the state does not abuse its power when collecting and storing private data (Xie

2019).

Furthermore, China has seen an AI boom in classrooms from kindergarten to

universities. In 2019, the Wall Street Journal wrote about Jinhua Xiaoshun Primary School in

eastern China that starts each class by putting on headbands that measures electric signals

from the brain and translates using an algorithm into an attention score (Wang, Hong & Tai

2019). Using three electrodes —one placed at the forehead and one behind each ear—the

headband can detect activity in the brain and this information is sent to the screen in front of

the classroom for everyone to see, making it into a competition (Ibid). The purpose of these

23

headbands is to improve student’s attention and focus in the classroom. The higher the score

is, the more focused the student is. The headbands are part of a government research project

to gather and analyze children’s learning habits and improve attentiveness. Other parts of this

project include digital cameras scanning classrooms to spot students raising their hands or

whispering behind teacher’s back, facial recognition robots taking attendance and wristbands

keeping track of how much time one spends in the library (Ibid). It is important to emphasize

that AI technology is far from implemented at all schools in China, and only a selected few

schools are piloting the use of AI in classrooms. Informant B told me “I know there has been

installed cameras in classrooms, but I don't think anyone would mind. For the Gaokao5, for

example, in order to maintain justice, to ensure that no one is cheating, I think maybe that it is

necessary.” Again, there is no privacy protection law in China, but people seem to be more

tolerant about letting the government experimenting on them than the West might be (Wang

et al. 2019; Beard 2018).

It is central to find out why the Chinese government is experimenting with AI

technology. The goal is to be the world’s forerunner in AI technology, having grown a sector

worth $150 billion, which is possible since it generates much more data than any other

country and the government is much more pragmatic than in other countries, since China

encourage companies to make progress and advance (Beard 2018; Economy 2018, p. 148). In

a report from 2019 by former Adjunct Senior Fellow at the Center for a New American

Security Technology and National Security Program, Gregory C. Allen discusses that it is

important and critical for China to become a frontrunner in AI technology and development,

to secure future global military and economic power competition and stresses that becoming a

global leader in AI will reduce any vulnerable dependence on imports of international

technology (2019, pp. 3-4). “Chinese people are quite competitive, you know? Already from

elementary school we strive to be the best and our parents push us hard. Becoming the world

leader in AI will definitely help with those who don't trust that the government is doing what

is best for its citizens”, informant A told me. By using AI technology, the CCP wants to create

not only a trustworthy society, but establish trust in the government, making the citizens think

that surveillance is used for good and is beneficial for the society.

5 Gaokao 高考 college entrance examination

24

4.2 Facial recognition technology

Facial recognition technology is just one of several branches of AI technology. China is in the

process of installing CCTV cameras using facial recognition technology all over the country,

and eight out of the ten most surveilled and heavily monitored cities in the world are in China

(Wong 2019). The cameras are using algorithms, cloud computing, machine learning and

precise digital cameras, and can measure facial and body features to identify and shame

jaywalkers, stopping toilet paper theft, payments at restaurants, and identifying any traffic

violations (Wong 2019; Chen et al. 2019). After taking camera shots on the streets, the

government uses an AI system and facial recognition technology to identify each person

captured and create an activity profile for that person (Denyer 2018). Also, the cameras are

used by workers scan their faces when clocking in and out of work, by students when they are

entering or exiting campuses, as well as at residential buildings and subway stations (Ibid).

Consequently, CCTV cameras and facial recognition technology can be used for

convenience purposes, which is a helpful tool when, for instance, identifying criminals who

are caught on camera and convicted and even find missing people easier. A BBC reporter,

together with the police in Guiyang, tested how long it would take for the police to find the

reporter: It took only seven minutes (BBC News 2017). Furthermore, it seems like the

cameras do not bother people in a bad sense, and that most people do believe that the cameras

are installed for their own safety. Informant B told me that “I don't really pay attention to the

cameras. I am not afraid, because I have nothing to hide. I am an honest citizen; I really do

not have anything to hide from anybody.” Informant A had also acknowledged that there are

many cameras and explained that “as long as you are not on the list [blacklist], you have

nothing to be worried about. But if you are on the list, for example if you did something

terrible like betraying the country or citing important information, you are on their

surveillance list, and you are surveilled 24 hours a day.” Informant C did not know too much

of the purpose of the CCTV cameras or about what can happen to the personal data collected

with using AI technology and facial recognition.

During my trip to Rongcheng and Shanghai, I spent a lot of time observing people in

public areas. After several trips to China the past six years and living there in 2014 and 2016,

I feel I have gained a good understanding of how the Chinese behave in public areas. When I

arrived in Rongcheng, I found a taxi that would take me from the train station to my hotel. I

arrived close to midnight, and even though there were barely any cars on the road, the taxi

driver did not drive faster than the speed limit. After countless of taxi rides throughout the

years, I have never experienced any rides like the ones I had in Rongcheng. Walking around

25

Rongcheng the next day, in daylight, showed me the same pattern. Barely any cars were

speeding and driving like crazy, they all slowly approached red lights, and, to my biggest

surprise, the cars stopped when I was crossing the street. Along the streets there were signs

saying it was prohibited to honk, making Rongcheng the quietest city I have ever visited in

China. Also, the pedestrians surprised me. No one were crossing the road in the middle of the

street, they walked to the nearest pedestrian crossing even if it meant a long detour. I was,

however, more surprised with the effect of cameras in Shanghai. There were in fact more

people crossing the street even if the light was red, but from previous experiences in the

largest cities in China, the amount of people who did not cross the street on red light was

much higher than I have experienced in big cities such as Shanghai before. By just observing,

the increasing number of CCTV cameras have had a major effect on how people were

behaving. But this was my first trip to China after becoming aware of the number of public

cameras, and I do have to take that into consideration.

Throughout the years, I have traveled a lot in China and have stayed in a lot of

different hotels. This time, both the hotels in Rongcheng and in Shanghai were now equipped

with a facial recognition tool at the front desk. When I (and other guests of course) checked

in, the camera scanned and took a picture of my face. Also, it has been reported by South

China Morning Post that the hotels, using technology developed by Alibaba and Baidu, are

installing check-in terminals using facial recognition technology (Chan 2018). These are, for

now, only meant for Chinese guests. By scanning their ID card, enter their contact

information, pose for a portrait photo and wait a few moments to be verified, the machine will

issue room key cards. The rooms are also equipped with AI service features for a more

convenient stay (Ibid). This technology is also reported being used at KFC in Beijing and

Hangzhou to allow customers to “smile and pay”, and it will also try to predict and remember

previous orders for the guests own convenience (Hawkins 2017; Denyer 2018).

4.3 How does it work?

The CCTV cameras use complex algorithms, which means that for each face, the algorithm

measures out key data points, such as the distance between your eyes or your skin color. The

more data they have, the better the system works. For instance, the more CCTV cameras the

Chinese government installs in China, the more data will be collected, and the easier to spot

and identify a face. The more data the cameras gathered might also eventually prevent hack,

as the system can see the difference between a someone who is alive and pictures (Sample

2019). Because of social media such as Instagram, Facebook, Flickr, but also Chinese social

26

media such as WeChat and Weibo, billions of photos of people’s faces are on the internet and

are used to improve the algorithm.

As CCTV cameras are being installed all over China, the question of ethics and

whether the Chinese government are using the data they collect to more than shaming

jaywalkers, or not, is arising. China is also the first known example of a government

intentionally using AI for racial profiling. According to the New York Times, Chinese

authorities are using a vast, secret and advanced system of facial recognition technology to

track the Uighurs, a Muslim minority mainly located in the western province of Xinjiang

(Mozur 2019). Cities like Hangzhou and Wenzhou in East China are using facial recognition

technology that will exclusively look and identify Uighurs based on their appearance and

attributes and keep records of where they are and where they are going (Ibid). Additionally,

the government is forcing Uighurs to download an app called “jingwang” (净网), literally

meaning “clean internet”. This app can detect any religious photos, videos, audio files and

other documents and let the authorities monitor their activities on WeChat, Weibo, Wi-Fi

login data, and send all this data to a server (Lynn 2018). AI technology is a way for social

control, not only racial profiling, but supervise any wrongdoings. A national database of

criminals included in 2019 about 300,000 faces, including those with a criminal record,

mental illnesses and records of drug use (Ibid). In that way, facial recognition cameras and AI

technology can help to control and restore safety in society.

4.4 Conclusion: Restore trust in China

China is spending huge amount of resources and money experimenting with AI technology

and wants to become the forerunner of AI in the world. CCTV cameras and other forms of AI

technology have been introduced to the Chinese people, and the lack of an extensive data

protection law gives the government access to a vast amount of data of its 1.4 billion citizens.

However, a protection law is underway. Yet, it seems that the citizens are positive to

increasing surveillance and control, as informant B explained: “you know the strange thing is

that I am getting used to it [increased surveillance]. I am gradually accepting the idea that I

am a person with no privacy. As long as it is not used for bad, I am ok with it.” The

acceptance of the increasing use of AI technology in China can be reflected on the fear of

declining political and social trust, and the fact that the CCP is taking actions to restore trust

in the Chinese society might be a reason for the growing acceptance among the citizens. None

of my informants knew that the government is using AI technology for race profiling and

27

control. Therefore, the main concern among my informants is that the government or

companies collecting and storing the data will abuse it. Consequently, a law to ensure that the

state does not abuse its power when collecting private data is most likely the next action the

government should take to restore trust in the Chinese society.

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5 The Chinese Social Credit System This chapter will examine how the planned Social Credit System will look like, the

motivation for implementing such a system and discuss how it potentially can affect people’s

lives. The system has been widely compared to George Orwell’s dystopian world in Nineteen

Eighty-four and an episode of the Netflix series Black Mirror, but this chapter will explain

that the upcoming SCS is far more complicated than a single score, because no one knows

what a centralized and unified system like this will look like. What has been written about the

SCS comes from a governmental document from 2014 and existing governmental-led and

private pilot projects. This chapter will try to clarify some of the misconceptions, and at the

same time discuss how the Chinese government will use technology for the planned system.

Findings from my observations, in-depth interviews and unstructured interviews will be

presented throughout this chapter.

5.1 Yet to be a national system

Originally proposed by the State Council in 2014 when they published Planning Outline for

the Construction of an SCS, the Chinese Social Credit System aims to reinforce the idea that

“keeping trust is glorious and breaking trust is disgraceful” (State Council 2014). The official

document also states that the SCS is “an important component part of the socialist market-

economy system,” to guarantee a “harmonious socialist society.” Its intended goals are

“establishing the idea of a sincerity culture, and carrying forward sincerity and traditional

virtues,” and its primary objectives are to raise “the honest mentality and credit levels of the

entire society” as well as “the over-all competitiveness of the country,” and “stimulating the

development of society and the progress of civilization” (State Council 2014; Fan 2015). This

document outlines the CCP’s goals for the first planning period between 2014-2020 (State

Council 2014). It is important to clarify that, in the time of writing, the national Social Credit

System is yet to be a national and unified system. Many newspapers have written about the

SCS and reported that the system will be implemented by 2020, but this is a

misunderstanding. The first planning period is over, and the county could see a new set of

policies come out this year, potentially in a new five-year social credit plan (Zhou and Xiao

2020).

The proposed national SCS is an ambitious plan to use big data technology to create a

society where individuals, businesses and the government will act with integrity to better the

economy, have a stable regime and create a trustworthy society (State Council 2014). By

29

gathering data from financial records, credit history, social media activities, legal matters and

pictures from the increasing number of CCTV cameras using facial recognition technology,

the SCS aims to give all individuals and businesses an all-compassing digital score based on

financial credibility, morality, integrity and trustworthiness (Ibid). The official documents are

not too detailed, but by using all the data collected, the SCS is intended to be like a carrot-

and-stick system for the 1.4 billion citizens in China, meaning punishing individuals and

businesses who do not follow rules and regulations, and awarding those who preform actions

which are beneficial for the society (Chiu 2019; Loubere and Brehm 2018, p. 143). The

official document mentions four main areas people will be rated: commercial activities, social

behavior, administrative affairs and the law enforcement system (State Council 2014). The

rewards for being trustworthy (守信) could include easier employment and making it easier to

get a bank loan, whereas those who are seen as untrustworthy (失信) will be put on a blacklist

and can be denied purchase of train or airplane tickets. As of June 2019, over 26 million

people were prevented from buying airplane tickets and almost 6 million from buying high-

speed train tickets (Xinhua Wang 2019). Local government of Dengfeng in Henan province

has used a different approach to punish those who are untrustworthy. Xinhua reported in 2017

that the head of the Henan High People’s Court, Zhang Liyong, claimed that the only way to

solve the problem of untrustworthy citizens lies in the Chinese concept of losing face, “one’s

personal dignity in social contexts” (Xinhua Wang 2017). Therefore, every time someone

calls a person on the blacklist in Dengfeng, they are greeted with an audio message telling

them that “the person you are calling is listed as dishonest by Dengfeng People’s Court.

Please urge them to fulfill their obligations according to effective legal documents” (Wang L.

2017).

The system has been described by the South China Morning Post as China’s “most

ambitious project in social engineering since the Cultural Revolution” (Yan 2019), while

Western media has used headlines such as The rise of China as a digital totalitarian state and

China: When big data meets big brother (Qiang 2018; Clover 2016). As a result, the SCS has

been portrayed as a mass surveillance system used as a tool for the Chinese government to

control its citizens.

The impetus for the Chinese government to create a domestic social credit system are

both moral and economic reasons, both currently being prominent in China. These are linked

to a perceived “trust deficit” in the country (Loubere and Brehm 2018). The SCS aims to

extend financial credit scoring systems to other areas of government regulation, such as food

30

safety, corruption, and environmental protection. China has been a victim for environmental

disasters and food safety scares, which has resulted in a popular discourse of the decline of

morality and a lack of trust to other people or companies (Wu et al. 2017). The SCS is also

presented to improve financial inclusion: since most citizens do not even have a credit score,

China lacks a credit rating infrastructure. For the proposed system to work, everyone must be

considered equally, meaning that all citizens are able to improve their score, giving all

increasing credit opportunities. Whether someone is eligible for a loan or not depends on

psychometrics and personal data, which allows someone who is considered a trustworthy

citizen to gain rewards they were denied in the past (Loubere et al. 2018, p. 144).

Most new policies in China, including the SCS, are often sent to local governments, to

construct their own interpretations of the policies, and from the experiences made, the central

government will create a national model (Loubere et al. 2018, p. 143). According to Genia

Kostka, “[b]y July 2018, more than 40 municipal and provincial governments had established

a local SCS pilot” (2019, p. 1567). In addition, in 2015, the government opened up for eight

private companies, such as Alibaba, Tencent and Baidu, to run their own individual credit

pilots (Economy 2018, p. 79). The most widely used being Sesame Credit, developed by Ant

Financial, an affiliate company of Alibaba, “which utilises opaque algorithms to arrive at

social credit scores for their customers” (Loubere et al. 2018, p. 143). The government-led

systems are mandatory, while the private and commercial pilot projects, such as Sesame

Credit, are voluntary. However, in 2017 none of the private companies were considered

qualified anymore because they were rejected formal authorization to run private pilots

(Matsakis 2019). Therefore, today Sesame Credit effectively function as a loyalty program

where users with a high score receive privileges such as renting a bike without paying a

deposit or not needing to pay for medical expenses upfront (Ibid).

5.2 Rongcheng – is the system working?

Once again, it is important to emphasize that the SCS is yet to be a national system. As

mentioned above, some municipal and provincial governments have implemented their own

local credit system, which are used as pilot projects. One of these pilot cities is Rongcheng,

located in the eastern part of Shandong province. The city has been used as an example by

Western media when explaining what the national SCS system could look like.

I decided to travel to Rongcheng to conduct research for this thesis. But, I did not

know anyone living in Rongcheng, nor did I know anyone who had ever traveled there before,

but to understand how implementing such a system can affect citizens and find out how it

31

works, I decided to visit Rongcheng. Finding people to talk to was not difficult at all. I talked

to new people every day for the week I was there. But no one seemed to want to discuss the

SCS with me. Therefore, I had to rely on my observation in Rongcheng and existing research.

Compared to Chinese standards, Rongcheng is a relatively small city with a population

around 740,000 adults, with high percentage of Communist Party members (Mistreanu 2018;

Frisvold 2019). Consequently, Rongcheng and its citizens represent only a small part of the

Chinese society, and its version of the SCS is unlikely to be implemented as the national

system, but rather used as a model. Rongcheng’s SCS are currently measuring and rating

citizens, businesses and government institutions based on 570 categories (Frisvold 2019), and

all residents starts with 1,000 points (Kobie 2019; Síthigh and Siems 2019; Mistreanu 2018).

Good behavior which is beneficial for the society, such as donating blood and caring for

elderly family members, will earn points, while drunk driving, traffic violations, littering or

fighting in public, behavior considered to be ‘bad’, will result in one losing points (Síthigh et

al. 2019). Then, the points are turned into a rating system divided into six classes, from AAA

to D, and your scores can be picked up at the City Hall (Wong and Dobson 2019, p. 223;

Mistreanu 2018). If you are ranked as a AAA you are rewarded with heating discount each

winter, get better bank loan conditions and renting public bikes without paying a deposit.

Whereas some offenses can hurt your score more than others, for example, if you drive drunk,

you will automatically be rated a C (Mistreanu 2018). People rated as a C will be faced with

certain restrictions and have regular visits from government officials, while those rated with a

D score loses creditworthiness and are unqualified for management-level jobs (Wong et al.

2019, p. 223; Spink 2019). Citizens with a score higher than 1050 are considered model

citizens and are placed on ‘red list’, while citizens with a score lower than 599 are added to

‘blacklists’. A low score would therefore lead to public shaming, because these lists are

published publicly (Wong et al. 2019, p. 223). Billboards of citizens who have recently won

or lost points are placed all over Rongcheng, in residential areas and around City Hall.

So how is the data in Rongcheng collected? The city is, like the rest of China, home to

an increasing number of CCTV cameras that watches the traffic and pedestrians. But rather

than using AI and algorithms to calculate the score, it is officials of the Credit Management

Department who gather the information and decide which punishments and rewards the

citizens should receive. Anything that can influence one’s point and rank needs to be backed

by official facts with official documents (Mistreanu 2018). In addition, thousands of citizens

are voluntarily collecting using pen and paper and reporting any wrongdoings by the

neighbors to the local government monthly.

32

One central question is whether implementing its own version of a social credit system

has had any effect in Rongcheng to “create a trustworthy society”. One example is the taxi

industry. While in Rongcheng, I took a taxi a few times and a city bus once to experience how

the traffic was. Taxi drivers in Rongcheng are rated based on their behavior, and customers

rate their experience with the taxi driver, similar to Uber, an user-based rating system that is

used in the West (Spink 2019). This has led to a dramatic decrease of complaints towards taxi

drivers and their behavior (Frisvold 2019). I did wonder if the taxi industry was affected by

volunteers who reported any misbehavior to the local government. Even when I decided to

take the bus, I got help to find the name of the bus stop closest to my hotel from a Chinese girl

at the bus stop, and the bus driver, as well as several other passengers were eager to let me

know when my stop was approaching. Also, here, I wondered if the bus drivers were

behaving as if there were volunteers on the bus reporting them.

I did, however, encounter eleven people on the street or in restaurants in Rongcheng

and in Shanghai, and asked each of them if they had heard about the SCS and what they

thought about it. I did not really know what I was expecting them to answer. But only eight of

them acknowledged that they had heard about the SCS, and since they did not answer on my

follow-up question about what they thought about it, it seemed like this was a topic they did

not want to discuss any further. The remaining three might not have understood what I asked

them, or they did not want to answer the question. In my opinion, the fact that I did not get

any response about what they thought about the SCS, is an answer. It makes me want to

conclude that this might be a politically sensitive topic that they would not like to further

discuss with a foreign MA student.

5.3 Guanxi or high social credit score

As mentioned in chapter 3, guanxi is a social phenomenon in China and an important engine

of social capital. It translates into English at connections, relationships or network, and is

“based more on the development of relationships at the personal level” (Meng 2017, p. 78). A

person with good guanxi knows a lot of people and is well connected (Ibid, p. 92). It was

when I asked my informants whether they trusted their fellow citizens, the concept of guanxi

was mentioned. With China implementing different systems to make the society more

trustworthy with social rating score, I followed up asking informant A “do you believe that, in

the future, a high social credit score can replace guanxi?” He thought about this for a moment,

and answered “maybe, it’s hard to say now, since the SCS is not fully implemented

nationally. But on the other hand, guanxi is important to Chinese people. I can’t really say.

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But China is changing.” Guanxi is highly implanted in Chinese culture, and how the rating

systems will affect this is too early to say. But, all three of my informants did believe that

implementing a social rating system and dividing citizens into trustworthy and untrustworthy

would be beneficial for the Chinese society, therefore, being trustworthy might be a new way

to trust strangers and companies.

5.4 Conclusion: Acceptance among the citizens

In 2019, Genia Kostka wrote an article about an online survey conducted between February

and April of 2018 about the public opinion of the SCS. The result is somewhat surprising, 80

percent responded that they were either somewhat approving or strongly approving of the

SCS, while 19 percent responded they neither disapprove nor approve of the SCS, and only 1

percent reported that they strongly disapproved or somewhat disapproved of the SCS (Kostka

2019, p. 1573). 76 percent of the respondents stated that there is an issue of mutual distrust

between citizens in the Chinese society, and that the SCS can create trust in the society (p.

1586). Also, in this survey, one must consider if the results are true or not, or if people do not

want to respond honestly in fear of the CCP finding out what they answered.

I wanted to find out more what my in-depth informants thought about the SCS and

asked them all what are some positive and negative things the SCS will bring to the Chinese

society. Informant A said “what is a positive thing about the SCS? First of all, we need it.” He

continued telling me that because of the lack of trust in the society, a system such as the

proposed national SCS can be the way to go for China. Informant B is also positive about the

implementation of the SCS and said “after reading several reports about the SCS, I think it’s a

good thing. If some people break the rules, they get punished, and that is fair. But one

problem is, how to you define if the specific behavior is breaking the rules or not. If it is

related to moral issues, it can be difficult to define if the person has done something bad.”

Informant C did not want to answer if she thought implementing a SCS was a positive or

negative thing, because she did not know enough to have an opinion. Since the SCS is still in

a pilot phase, it can be possible that the public opinion can change after the system has been

implemented and has become a part of the Chinese society.

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6 The Xuexi Qiangguo app This chapter will examine the recently released app called Xuexi Qiangguo (学习强国). The

app has been compared as the digital version of Mao Zedong’s “Little Red Book” which was

widely spread during the Cultural Revolution in 1960s and 1970s. After explaining what this

app is about and why it has become one of the most popular apps in China, this chapter will

discuss why the Chinese government has released a propaganda app. After much confusion

and Google searches, I was able to download the app while on my fieldtrip to China, and had

the chance to experience the app for myself. I did spend some time on the app to understand

how it worked and received a few points myself but deleted it after 3 months since it was

reported that the government has a secret back door into the phones, giving them access to a

vast amount of data. Consequently, I did not spend as much time on the app as I originally

had planned and, therefore, it became more important for me to research how Chinese citizens

experienced the app. These findings will be presented in this chapter.

6.1 Digitalization of propaganda

Xuexi Qiangguo is a political propaganda app released in January 2019 by the Publicity

Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party in China and developed by the

Chinese giant technology company Alibaba. The purpose of the app is to teach the users of

the app about President Xi Jinping’s political ideology, “Xi Jinping Thought”. It was first

mentioned at the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China in 2017, where it

was affirmed as a guiding political ideology for CCP and became a part of the constitution

(Huang 2019). The name of the app, Xuexi Qiangguo, literally means ‘Study and strengthen

the country’, but it is also a pun – xuexi 学习 can both mean “study” but it also contains

President Xi’s last name 习, suggesting the users should “study Xi [Jinping]” 学习[近平] (Li

2019; Kuo and Lyons 2019). The app contains articles, videos and documentaries related to

Xi Jinping’s political ideology, and the users can follow Xi’s political life and his activities

abroad. There is even a bit of a competition, as users can earn points by being active on the

app, read the articles, watch videos, comment and do quizzes (Linder 2019; Fifield 2019).

There are 38 different channels to boost the learning experience, including topics such as

politics, party history, new political thought of both current and previous Chinese leaders, in

addition to less political topics such as science, technology and traditional Chinese culture

(Tucker 2019). The app also has an instant messenger function where the message disappears

35

after being read, similar to Snapchat, which is connected to Alibaba’s Dingtalk. One can also

link their Xuexi Qiangguo account with Alipay wallet app, which lets the users send “red

packets” (红包 hongbao), a Chinese traditional monetary gift (Huang 2019).

Within the first four months of Xuexi Qiangguo’s release, it was reported that it was

the most downloaded app on Apple’s app store, surpassing China’s most popular messaging,

social media and mobile payment app, WeChat, and the Chinese version of TikTok, known as

Douyin (Huang 2019; Li and Cadell 2019). Huawei’s app store showed that it had been

downloaded 300 million times (Kharpal 2019). Many of the earliest users were CCP

members, workers at state enterprises or local government officials, because they were told to

use the app, and some are required to report their daily scores to their employers (Liao 2019;

Hernández 2019). Different news articles have reported differently whether it is mandatory to

download the app if you are a CCP member, but all three of my informants were under the

impression that it was required if one was a member of the Party. Nonetheless, even if it is not

mandatory, it is highly encouraged for CCP members to download the app and learn more

about Xi’s political ideology. Furthermore, many private workplaces also force workers to

download the app, and it has been reported that employees are required to send screenshots to

document their progress on the app. If they refuse or do not send in their score, they are at risk

of a pay deduction (Duncan 2019). Informant A told me that “the app has become some kind

of trend too, if you haven’t seen or read the latest posts, you might feel left out of

conversations at work or with your friends.” The app is seen as an effort by the CCP to

strengthen ideological control in a time when digitalization and technology is becoming a

greater part of people’s lives.

To put it in perspective, over 90 million Chinese are members of the Communist

Party, and in 2018, over 800 million people were actively using the internet, and 98 percent of

Chinese internet users are mobile (McCarthy 2018). By using technology, the Chinese

government is promoting political propaganda in a more efficient way, reaching out to a large

number of people, especially the younger crowd. Instead of watching Xi Jinping speak on TV

and only listening to what he says and what he is presenting, they made an app where you can

do exactly that, but in addition you can also quiz yourself about the matter, and most likely

learning and remembering more of Xi Jinping’s political ideology.

36

6.2 Why has the Chinese government made a propaganda application?

Propaganda is far from an uncommon political tool in China. Informant A told me that

propaganda “is a way for Xi [Jinping] to make the people believe that he will lead China in a

successful way, and to make people believe that it will make the society more trustworthy.”

The same informant told me that the CCP has begun the public propaganda process 3-4 years

prior to the interview, and cities are now covered with posters with socialistic propaganda

quotes and the 12 guiding principles of Chinese socialism, including democracy, freedom,

integrity, equality and patriotism, which are often painted on walls. These guiding principles

remind the Chinese citizens what the core values of their country are and what the country is

built upon (Tucker 2019).

However, as the world is moving into the digital age, the CCP is finding new ways to

strengthen ideological control and to see all citizens united under the same political ideology.

The CCP believes that Xuexi Qiangguo will help the country on its path to global dominance.

As informant A described it, “this is actually a process that Xi wants to consolidate power in

China. This is the Chinese way to do it, not a democratic way, for military, economic and

social consolidation.” He continued asking “how to consolidate people’s mind? China is not a

democracy, so the Chinese way is to force you by giving you a propagandic bonding.” Is it

possible for an app to unite the population in China and help restore social trust? Informant B

said that “the purpose of Xuexi Qiangguo is to control and strengthen the political ideology. I

don't have the app myself, but I know people that feel they are part of something special

because of the app, like that the ideology brings people together.”

In addition to unite the Chinese population under the same political ideology, the CCP

has been able to have “superuser” access through a back door in Xuexi Qiangguo, meaning

they are able to access vast information and data from many of the app’s users. An

examination of the coding done by the U.S. based Open Technology Fund and a German

cybersecurity firm called Cure53 showed that authorities can retrieve a vast amount of data

from phones using the Android operating systems, including messages, photos and Internet

history and activate an audio recorder in the phone (Fifield 2019). The examination did not

cover Apple’s operative system, mainly because Apple only covers 6 percent of the Chinese

market (Ibid). This back door, however, gives the CCP access to over 100 million

smartphones, nevertheless, the examination by Cure53 could not reveal whether any

information was gathered from the phones or not, but that the superuser privileges gives the

government the ability to take over the device (Ibid). Therefore, after reading the report, I

37

decided to delete the app before I was done researching it, in fear of what information the

CCP could access from my phone.

6.3 Can a united ideology help rebuild political and social trust?

When I first heard about the app and decided it was going to be a part of my thesis, I initially

wanted to experience the app myself. However, the app is only available on China’s domestic

App Store. To change the App Store location, I needed a Chinese address, a Chinese phone

number and a Chinese bank card. Fortunately, I opened a Chinese bank account 3 years prior

to this trip. But I needed to get a Chinese phone number, which I, fortunately, have gotten

several times before and knew what to ask for at the shop. For the address, I used the address

of my hotel. When I finally was able to log into Chinese App Store, Xuexi Qiangguo was (not

surprisingly) easy to find, and I clicked download. When I entered the app, I had to register

my Chinese phone number and my real name, however I used my made-up Chinese name.

Then I had to agree to its term of use. And then I was, surprisingly enough, in. Even though I

only had the app for three months which was not nearly enough time, I did make some

observations. Multiple times a day, I have received notifications including news about Xi

Jinping’s activities, a “golden quote of the day”, beautiful pictures from all around China,

links to online courses on Chinese traditional culture, and patriotic songs to listen to. My

initial plan was to translate and read more of the articles, try a few quizzes and definitely earn

more than the 45 points I did earn.

The point system used in Xuexi Qiangguo has its own method to encourage its users to

use the app every day. You can earn “study points” by logging in to the app daily, read and

comment on articles, do the quizzes and watch videos, making the app extremely time

consuming if you want to do well. What is remarkable about the app, is that it encourages

users to use the app on particular times of the day. So, during their morning commute, their

lunch breaks and bedtime, users can score double points for their activities. After all, it is not

supposed to interfere with people’s work, which indirectly discourage users to “Study Xi”

during working hours. The point system, for me at least, makes the app addictive. It gives the

users a sense that they are doing something good if they receive a good score. Only informant

A used the app daily, informant C had only downloaded it to see what the fuzz was all about,

while informant B did not want to download it. However, informant A did say that “in the

beginning, we didn't like it at all. It was stupid and it was pure mind control, but after a while

you just get used to it, because that is how reality is. It is just like any other social media apps:

you feel left out if you haven’t downloaded it or if you’re not active”. Informant A continued

38

telling me that he had earn 2600 points since it was released 8 months before the interview

took place. He was not required to download it by his school or workplace, but told me that it

was his way to get an insight to the Chinese political system and to read news, and that it had

become a part of his morning routine to read and do quizzes on Xuexi Qiangguo. He said that

he had become addicted to the app. Informant C who had downloaded the app but did not use

the app, told me that “the app is a way to control party members mind and to consolidate

everyone’s will towards Xi [Jinping].” None of my informant mentioned whether the app has

had any effect on trust in Xi Jinping and the political regime nor the society, but as informant

A and C told me, the app is a part of consolidating and keeping power in China. However, if

the regime continues to collect personal data and misuse their power to control and surveil its

citizens, what will happen then? My interviews were done prior to the release of Cure53’s

report, therefore, I do not know if informant A and C still have the app, and what their

thoughts are CCP’s superuser access.

6.4 Conclusion: The future of Xuexi Qiangguo

Xuexi Qiangguo has since its release in January 2019 become one of the most downloaded

apps in China. It is still too early to determine how Xuexi Qiangguo will influence the society,

but the app has established itself as a propaganda tool for the CCP and to Study Xi has become

a trend in China. Even though it is not mandatory to download the app for everyone just yet,

as authoritarian China continues wanting to have control over its citizens and their mind, there

is no doubt that the CCP can make it mandatory, to unite the citizens and hope to have an

influence over how Chinese citizens view the regime. The app has raised some questions of

concern about data privacy and control of citizens minds. Also, what will the consequences be

if one disagrees with Xi’s political ideology?

The app is still new, and it will be interesting to see how the CCP will use the app in

the future. Looking towards to the implementation of SCS, one might expect that scores on

Xuexi Qiangguo can correlate with one’s social credit score. In that way, the CCP can tighten

control over political ideology even more. If there is still a fear of decline in political and

social trust and the people believe that the CCP is acting in the best interest of the citizens, the

CCP will be able to do what they want to tighten control over its people.

39

7 Conclusion This thesis aimed to examine the relationship between political and social trust in China and

three systems that the government hopes will create a trustworthy society in China and how

these systems would affect the Chinese citizens. Surveys have shown that China has enjoyed

a high level of political trust in the last decades, while other research has suggested that

Chinese society has suffered from a lack of social trust, due to hukou discriminations and food

scandals. By introducing three technological systems, the CCP hopes to restore trust in the

society.

The research questions I wanted to explore were how the Chinese government is using

technology to establish political and social trust and how increased and constant surveillance

affects the Chinese population. To answer these two questions, I looked deeper into three

systems that the Chinese government has implemented or plans to implement. I wanted to

find out why the CCP wants to implement the systems and if they had had any effect on

political and social trust in China. Firstly, the use of CCTV cameras with facial recognition

technology has boomed in China and by the end of 2020, over 600 million cameras will be

installed. The aim is to identify criminals, to shame jaywalkers, to stop toilet paper thefts and

to identify traffic violators. Second, the purpose of the planned Social Credit System is to

both create a finical credit system to promote economic growth and a system for improving

trust and integrity in the Chinese society. While this system has been compared to George

Orwell’s dystopian world in Nineteen Eighty-four by Western media, a survey conducted by

Genia Kostka in China has shown a high acceptance for implementing a credit system and

that SCS is, step by step, likely to help increase trust in the Chinese society (Kostka 2019, p.

1585). Last, by releasing the propaganda app Xuexi Qiangguo, the CCP wants to unite all the

citizens under the same political ideology. If the citizens are all united together with the same

political ideology, this might create a bond between the citizens, and influence how citizens

approach each other. The app is yet to be mandatory for everyone, but it will be interesting to

see how the app develops, and if the app might correlate with the SCS.

It seems that many citizens in China are accepting the fact that the CCP is using

technology that is controlling and surveilling. My observations in Rongcheng and in Shanghai

suggest that most people are aware of the cameras using facial recognition technology and act

accordingly, especially in Rongcheng, where the knowledge of the credit system seemed to be

more widespread. Two of my in-depth informants seemed more positive than negative to all

the cameras, as long as it is not being abused by the authorities. Informant A was not afraid of

40

the cameras because he had nothing to hide, he argued, while informant B said that she is

getting more and more used to it. Both believed that shaming those who violate rules in the

society could help restore trust between citizens. The third informant did not want to answer

what she thought about the increasing use of facial recognition technology because she did

not know too much about the cameras. For the implementation of SCS, two of in-depths

informants were positive, stating that it could be a way to restore social trust in the society,

because those who do not behave according to law will be punished, while informant C said it

might help to restore trust in China, but did not want to elaborate further because her

knowledge was limited. Eight out of eleven people from my unstructured interviews

acknowledged that they had heard about the SCS but did not state whether they thought it was

a good or bad idea. The three people who did not acknowledge that they knew about the SCS

might have not understood what I was asking, or they did not want to discuss this with me.

Thus, it does seem like the SCS is known to many people in the cities. As for the Xuexi

Qiangguo, only one of my informants used it. Since the interview was done prior to Cure53’s

report6 on CCP’s superuser access, I do not know if he is still using it today. But he said the

app had become a trend and that, in some ways, had united the users. However, it is too early

to say if it has affected the level of trust in the society.

I know, of course, that my small sample of in-depth interviews cannot reflect what the

Chinese population in general think, but all three of them had accepted the fact that that they

have less privacy and that the CCP can retrieve information about them without their consent.

Because of the authoritarian regime in China and high levels of corruption, one could assume

there is a low level of political trust in China, but surprisingly surveys show high level of

political trust. My informants supported these, saying that they trust that the CCP act in the

best interest of the citizens and that this is the common thought for most Chinese citizens. On

the other hand, China has experienced a decline in social trust, since it has shifted from a

society of acquaintances based on guanxi to a society of strangers (Wang S. 2017). One

informant mentioned that rural hukou holders are faced with discrimination and inequalities in

the city because of their rural status, which has been a factor for the low level of social trust,

which Wang et al. (2017) and Huang (2018) also found in their research. However, all three

of my informants believed that these systems will help restore social trust in the Chinese

society.

6 https://cure53.de/analysis-report_sgn.pdf

41

Before starting this research, I was skeptical of the degree of surveillance and control

the CCP could achieve with these systems and, in most ways, I still am. But after

investigating more, observing and talking to my informants about it, it might be what it takes

to restore social trust in China, if everyone is treated equally. If criminals know they can be

caught on camera, they might stop doing criminal actions, or companies or people

contaminating and selling fake food might stop because it will hurt their reputation if it

becomes known. Even if Genia Kostka’s survey shows that most people are accepting and

positive to the SCS, I think most citizens are just accepting the fact that the CCP will do what

it wants to restore political and social trust, by installing more cameras and implementing a

credit system. Furthermore, China has a long history of discrimination, and we know that the

facial recognition technology has been used for racial profiling Uighurs, so how can we know

that the SCS, for instance, will not create inequalities between different ethnic groups in

China? If these systems are going to work properly, a Han Chinese and an Uighur minority

have to have the same opportunities to earn scores. We cannot yet know whether the SCS will

be used fairy between the citizens, even if they are meant to restore social trust in the society.

Consequently, it will be interesting to see how the SCS will work on a national level, how AI

technology will continue to grow and affect the Chinese society and how Xuexi Qiangguo will

look like in a few years.

42

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Appendix 1 – Template of my informants

Age Home

Province

Gender

Informant A 34 Beijing Male

Informant B 23 Zhejiang Female

Informant C 27 Zhejiang Female

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Appendix 2 – Interview guide This interview guide was made before my fieldtrip to China, therefore, it does not include any

follow-up questions.

How old are you? 你今年多大了？

Where do you come from? Urban or rural? 你的家乡在哪里？

Are you from a city or are you from the country side? 你来自城市还是农村？

Are you a student or do you work? 你是学生，还是你做工作吗？

Do you have a sister or a brother? 你有没有兄弟姐妹？

What is your family background? 你的家庭背景是怎样的？

What does your parents do for a living? 你父母是做什么样工作的？

Have you heard about the SCS? Or the Xuexi Qiangguo app? 你听说过社会信用体系吗？学

习强国 APP呢？

Have you read anything about the SCS in the news? 你是否在新闻中看过有关这个体系的

报道？

What was your first reaction when hearing about the SCS? 听到社会信用体系时，你的第一

反应是什么？

What do you think about this system, and what kind of positive and negative things will it

bring? 你觉得这样的一个体系分别会带来什么好处和什么坏处呢？

Do you think the SCS will change people’s behavior? 你觉得社会信用体系会改变人们的行

为 吗？

Do you worry about surveillance of the internet? 关于网络监视，你对这个担心吗？

Do you use Sesame Credit or Xuexi Qiangguo? 你用芝麻信用，学习强国吗？

In your own words, can you tell me how the Xuexi Qiangguo app works? 请用你自己的话告

诉我怎么用学习强国 APP？

Have you gained any benefits from using Sesame Credit or Tencent? 您是否从使用芝麻信

用中获益？

What does integrity means?诚信是什么意思？

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What does trust/credit mean? 信用是什么意思?

Do you think there is a lack of trust in Chinese society? 你认为中国社会缺乏信任吗？

If yes, why do you think there is a lack of trust? 如果是，为什么你认为缺乏信任？

Do you think most people in China trust the government? 您认为中国大多数人信任政府

吗？

Do you trust the Chinese government? 你相信中国政府吗？

What do you think the purpose of the SCS and Xuexi Qiangguo are? 您认为社会信用体系和

学习强国的目的是什么？