‘Bigger incentives will mean bigger public buy-in’ for China’s social credit schemes
- Rewards on offer in two non-punitive test schemes not enough to generate broad community interest, researcher says
- More than 40 local governments across the country testing systems of rewards and punishments to promote ‘trustworthiness’ in society
Dev Lewis, a fellow at the Hong Kong-based think tank Digital Asia Hub, said he studied test schemes in Xiamen, Fujian province, and Fuzhou, Fujian province, and found only a minority of residents opting in to the cities’ low-key programmes.
“I think the key will be when you get good incentives for people to join and then they will – then, you will have that scaling up. [Right now] the rewards are not that great anyway, so people don’t really care that much,” he said.
But other researchers warned that a focus on incentives could just be official cover for intruding into people’s lives.
Xiamen and Fujian are two of more than 40 local governments across the country testing systems of rewards and punishments to promote “trustworthiness” in society.
