I’ve just been reading a little more about China’s plans for total control of its citizens. As the Roman historian Tacitus once said “The more corrupt the State, the more numerous the laws.”  Today, the collection of personal data has become an indicator of government corruption, and the Chinese Communist Party’s new ‘ratings’ system is quite Orwellian. In the name of social cohesion they are currently experimenting with a ‘social credit’ system which measures an individual’s ‘trustworthiness’.

Each person, where the system is being trialled, is given a card rated at 100 points but citizens can reach 200 points by performing ‘good deeds’, e.g. charity work, blood donation and recycling. If your rating is high, you reap the benefits, perks like free gym membership, cheaper public transport. If your score drops, by acts like littering, unpaid or late bills, domestic abuse, or traffic infringements, you face travel and public service restrictions and your education and job prospects are seriously impacted.

Now you may think that’s not too bad, but significantly, included amongst the negatives is ‘Speaking critically about the communist party’ and they plan to include social media and ecommerce behaviour records. In other words the system will keep every Chinese citizen firmly under the thumb of the party with no way of speaking freely or even freely using the web without it recording your choices.

This is the end product of the ‘ideal’ left wing government and also a threat to all freedom loving peoples – something we must beware of ourselves in the Western democracies, for these days political correctness  is bringing more and more laws which restrict our freedoms.   Isaiah 29:21, ‘who by a word make a man out to be an offender, and lay a snare for him who reproves in the gate, and with an empty plea turn aside him who is in the right’