I beg to differ.

I don't fucking care what you think lol.

I'm not saying we shouldn't support China, I'm saying we should call it out for the BS that it does actually do, and not treat it like divinity beyond criticism. Every time I make any criticism of China, the responses are apologetic at best.

Those issues aren't "invented", but I won't go over those points again.

I didn't say it's permanent. It's common sense that everything is temporary. If you're reading that into my statements, that's on you.

Re: chauvanism and dogmatism.
What was that thing you said earlier? Phrasemongering? Sounds like. I'll add one: hypocrisy.

You can debate whether the system works well, but it isn’t accurate to say there’s no evidence for the claim that the working classes play a central role in the Chinese state.

China’s constitution explicitly defines the PRC as a socialist state “led by the working class and based on the alliance of workers and peasants,” with state power exercised through the National People’s Congress (NPC) system. The NPC is the highest organ of state power, with nearly 3,000 deputies drawn from provinces, the PLA, and different social sectors.

The makeup of the NPC is not just party bureaucrats or business elites. In the 14th NPC there are hundreds of deputies from workers and farmers and large numbers of grassroots representatives, along with 442 ethnic minority deputies covering all 55 minority groups. Most deputies in China’s people’s congress system (about 95%) serve at the county and township level, which are directly elected and involve hundreds of millions of voters. Higher congresses are elected from these lower levels. This structure is what China calls “whole-process people’s democracy.”
Sources explaining the system include CGTN’s Who runs the CPC and the State Council white paper China: Democracy That Works.

You can also look at how the state treats capital. China has private capital, but it is clearly subordinated to state goals. When Jack Ma tried to push an aggressive fintech model through Ant Group that would massively expand lightly regulated consumer credit, regulators halted the IPO and forced restructuring under stricter oversight. That is a case of disciplining capital when it conflicts with social stability and the broader economy.

Likewise, China has pursued policies like eliminating extreme poverty and building massive infrastructure networks (including projects that are not monetarily profitable) because they are treated as long-term public development goals. That kind of large-scale, socially oriented investment is difficult to sustain in systems where private capital dominates the state.

So you can disagree with the Chinese model, but there is actually a large amount of Chinese material explaining how their system is supposed to function and why they claim it represents working-class political power.

That's not what I said. Under the veneer of censoring capitalism, you allow broader censorship.

I never said history was metaphysical or wasn't something that progresses. As long as you keep reading things into my statements you're going to keep responding to arguments I never made.

Every time I make any criticism of China, the responses are apologetic at best.

Probably because 90% of your "criticism" is just spreading lies.

Here's some comparison:

• In both USA and china you can't buy a ticket to a fast train if you're credit score is bad. In china there is direct ban, in USA there is no fast Train.
• In china, this also applies to flight tickets. Basically if you have bad social credit, you are kinda fucked in almost anything in china including apointment to government services. USA it's mostly tied to taking new loans or getting a new house or renting an
  apartment (?). Does not have actual effect on your ability to purchase flight tickets.
• In China they can check your phone (for images) and your online activity is quite accessible to the government. The checks can happen not only in international borders but also in inter regional borders. In USA, i know it's a thing for foreigners during entrance to USA, not sure how is it for the citizens.
• In China you have to give away all your data (as a company), regardless of where that data is stored, if the government or the communist party requests it. They are technically different entities but practically the same entity. Failure to do so will fuck up your social credit. In USA you also have to hand over all your data (as a company) if the government asks regardless of where it is stored (since the CLOUD act), but hey at least you're not handing over to the commies and it will probably not have any effect on your credit score.
• In china there is an app that notifies people of other people with poor social credit so they can generally avoid them. USA hasn't invented that YET, although people from other political party are usually considered subhuman and beneath themselves and someone is [probably] looking [to develop an app so they can actively avoid people supporting the other political party].

This comparison mixes a few real policies with a lot of exaggeration. For example, the train and flight issue people always bring up is not about having a vague “bad social credit score.” What actually exists is a court enforcement measure. If someone refuses to comply with an effective court judgment (most commonly paying a debt or damages) the court can place them on the judgment-defaulter list (失信被执行人) and issue a high-consumption restriction (限制高消费). That mainly blocks luxury consumption like flights, first-class rail seats, and luxury hotels until the court order is fulfilled. The purpose is simply to pressure people to comply with the judgment and protect the creditor’s rights (why should sleazy business people who don't pay their debts get to live lavishly).

Because of that, the claim that “if you have bad social credit you’re basically locked out of everything” is misleading. These restrictions target specific high-end consumption, not normal daily life. Even Chinese legal explanations make clear that they are meant to restrict non-essential spending such as flying, luxury hotels, expensive travel, etc., rather than basic living or ordinary transportation.

The surveillance point is also mixing separate issues. China does have strong state monitoring powers and extensive digital infrastructure, but that is not what the court enforcement blacklist system is. The travel restrictions and blacklists people talk about come from civil enforcement procedures in the courts, not from scanning someone’s phone or some universal personal “score.”

The same confusion shows up in the company data point. China has strict data and cybersecurity laws, but those are regulatory and national security frameworks. They are not the mechanism that puts someone on the judgment-defaulter list. That list exists specifically because someone ignored a legally binding court ruling, not because they refused to hand over corporate data.

And the idea that there is some nationwide app warning citizens about people with low “social credit” is another exaggeration. What actually exists are court databases of judgment defaulters, sometimes publicly searchable, similar to debtor registries in many legal systems. Again, the target is people who lost a case and then refused to comply with the ruling.

So the reality is much more mundane than the viral version. China absolutely has strong enforcement tools, but the famous travel bans people cite are mainly a judicial enforcement mechanism against people who refuse to comply with court judgments, not a universal social-credit score controlling everyone’s daily life.

Authoritarianism, violent oppression of minorites and dissenting movements, deeply ingrained surveillance state with state censorship.

The social credit system that you know of doesn't exist.

You're saying that, why should I believe that's actually the case?

Censorship is always done with some sort of "positive" narrative tied to it.

Yeah the made up system that doesn't exist in the real world is really fucking scary OMG.

The direct statements I've made are directly against that. You're arguing in bad faith if you're going to put words in my mouth for me and insist I said what I didn't.

I can have a discussion about the present without focusing on the past or future. Saying that it is metaphysics is a non-sequitur. Not everything has to be viewed historically.

What you're doing is you're using dialectical materialism as a veneer to deflect criticism here.

geographic satellites

A good fucking chunk of the "satellites images" was normal children's schools. I don't trust this shit that comes from countries that deliberate bomb schools, they can differentiate what it is.

Ahh I see. I read about and watched few documentaries about Xu Xiadong who criticized kungfu masters and lost social credit (among other things) and couldn't rent, own property, stay in certain hotels, travel on high speed rail, or buy plane tickets. I guess that was not true then.

The bit about data handover. I guess the center for internet security is misinformed so is the australian strategic policy institute, department of homeland security, and NCSC.

About the app, BBC is probably where it comes from, it's more for debtors and not with people with bad social credit but I suppose there is an overlap. So this didn't make it pass the trial phase?

The existence of this infamous app should be easy to prove. I have never seen anything but armchair reddit-tier experts making bold claims about.

Many areas are more open and progressive.

See Chengdu for instance.

authoritarian— but I know you're apathetic towards authoritarianism

All governments/states are authoritarian. That is their nature. No government is excluded from this.

The difference with some governments over others is who wields that authority: the majority of working class people, or the minority of capitalist class people.

I'd prefer to live in a state that advocates for my best interests as a working class individual rather than submit to capitalists that want to extract everything that I'm worth for themselves and hoard for no good reason.

I agree, and I would really want to know. The only "news" I found is the tests from Heinan province in 2019 but I couldn't find anything after that. But testing of this system (introduced by the government), where you can see and report debtors itself feels quite scary and authoritarian to me.

You ain't wrong about the social credit thing! There was only one municipality that tried to implement it in any way that even vaguely resembles how mainstream media hysterics portray, and that city's administration was punished for it on the national stage.

The only thing the "social credit" system was meant to do is make major public figures accountable for corruption. It was never aimed at REGULAR people!

But yeah nah fuck anyone and anything that opposed democracy especially the two faced single political party of the United States of America. If they actually gave a shit about democracy for real instead of just consuming lives to pay for their pedophilia addictions, we'd have ranked choice voting by now.

The Xu Xiaodong case actually illustrates the exact point I was making. He wasn’t punished for “criticizing kung fu masters” or for having the wrong opinions. What happened is that he lost a defamation lawsuit and the court ordered him to apologize and pay damages. He refused to comply with the ruling, and because of that he was placed on the judgment-defaulter list (失信被执行人). Chinese reporting describes the reason as “有履行能力而拒不履行生效法律文书确定义务”, having the ability to comply with a court judgment but refusing to do so. Once someone is on that list, courts can impose high-consumption restrictions (限制高消费), which include things like flights, certain high-speed rail tickets, and luxury hotels until the judgment is fulfilled. In other words, the trigger was refusing to carry out a court order, not some general punishment for speech.

On the data issue, you’re citing reports from Western government-linked think tanks and security NGOs, which obviously approach the topic from a national security perspective. China’s cybersecurity and data laws (like the Cybersecurity Law and Data Security Law) exist because the state wants control over critical data flows, infrastructure security, and cross-border data transfer. That approach isn’t unique in principle; governments everywhere are tightening control over data because it has become a strategic resource. But those laws are regulatory frameworks about data governance, not mechanisms that automatically “ruin someone’s social credit.” The think-tank papers you cited are describing geopolitical risk concerns, not explaining how the Chinese court enforcement system actually works.

On the app point, what the BBC article referred to were tools connected to the court defaulter database, sometimes nicknamed things like a “laolai map.” That’s basically a searchable database of people who have lost a case and then refused to comply with the judgment, which courts use to pressure them to comply. Many countries have debtor registries or public enforcement records; the difference here is mostly presentation. Western coverage often framed it as part of a sinister “social credit” ecosystem when in reality it was tied to a specific court enforcement list, not a universal citizen score. It's good to have a database of those who have defrauded people. And to be honest, the BBC has a long history of framing Chinese policy in a particular narrative, so it’s not surprising that nuance tends to disappear.

The reality is that some of these mechanisms absolutely exist, but how they work, who they apply to, and what they actually do is often somewhere between heavy exaggeration and outright fantasy in viral discussions. What exists in practice is a mixture of court enforcement lists, regulatory blacklists, and sector-specific compliance systems. Turning that into a story about every citizen having a constantly changing “social credit score” controlling their life is a much simpler narrative, but it’s not how the underlying policies are actually structured.

God the more and more I hear about China the more based it is.

President Xi Jinping save us all

Unfortunately I don't think ranked choice voting will save you. You need to clear the board so to speak and get some options that actually represent people over corporate interests.

You should be happy to know then that the social credit score only applies to corporations and individuals who do business with the government as contractors, it doesn't apply to private life and doesn't make anything illegal that wasn't already legally punishable (even then minor crimes aren't covered).

Do you have sources for any of these claims?

That's not what fascism is either lol

I wouldn't call china fascist, though doubtlessly authoritarian. But I don't have nearly as much info on china, it seems to me the persecution of minorities is less of a central political scapegoat and more some weird side thing. But without speaking chinese, I might be wrong. The US had plenty of fascist characteristics at this point and is rather open about the persecution.

I see, that was the result of not following court orders. So not complying with court orders will prevent you from these things (flights, high speed rail tickets, and luxury hotels?). Some institutes also report rent or purchase property, are those also restricted when you don't comply with court order? What if you already own property? I am only asking to know.

I guess this questions are more about authoritarian rather than soical credits.
How about xiaodong's account being wiped 9 times was it (?) for having a viewpoint against the government. Is that somehow illegal and hence banned?

And about censorship. Wikipedia has a list of things that is banned from china including the marxist internet archive and Kanzhongguo, how much of that is true?

There is also one funny things that maybe you can shed some light on. There was this joke that if you get spam call from china, you can text them "Tiananmen Square and June 4, 1989 (1989年6月天安门广场屠杀)" or something about Taiwan being a country and their internet will be cut and they will be arrest or something x'D. I suppose it's only a meme but is there some truth to it, memes do come from somewhere right?

I donno anything about China, but whoever made this meme certainly doesn't know anything about the USA. The idea that "liberals" or anyone else (??) are high-fiving themselves over a credit score. lol

I put some links in the comments below. But most of the 'information' I have is from news and documentaries about Xu Xiaodong. You can check the wikpeida article, but it's just wikpedia.

I also know of someone who went to tibet as a tourist through Nepal. Their phone had to be surrendered for thorough checking, they apparently painstakingly checked all images. I don't expect anybody to believe this as I can't provide proof that it did happen.

On the property point, it’s the same principle as the other restrictions. When someone refuses to comply with a court judgment and is placed under high-consumption restrictions (限制高消费), the court can restrict certain forms of luxury spending, which can include purchasing additional real estate or carrying out non-essential renovations until the debt or judgment is fulfilled. The idea is that if someone owes money according to a court ruling, they should not be spending large amounts on luxury consumption before complying. Existing property is not automatically taken just because someone is on the list, although assets can be enforced as part of normal debt collection(just as in every other country).

As for Xu Xiaodong’s accounts being wiped, that situation was tied to the series of lawsuits and disputes he became involved in, along with platform moderation rules. That falls under content moderation and legal disputes on private platforms, not the court enforcement mechanism we were discussing earlier.

The blocked-website lists you see online are a very mixed bag. Some sites are inaccessible because of political or regulatory issues, but many cases come down to compliance requirements, such as rules around data protection, licensing, and the requirement for companies handling Chinese user data to host or manage that data within China’s regulatory framework. When companies choose not to comply with those requirements, their services often simply do not operate in the mainland market.

And that meme about texting someone “Tiananmen 1989” to get them arrested is honestly pretty ugly. It basically jokes about condemning random Chinese people to some vague punishment for the sake of a punchline, which is a pretty dehumanizing way to talk about an entire population. Fortunately it’s also just a meme, sending a phrase like that to someone does not magically cut their internet or get them arrested.

Okay, but tbf, pledging allegiance to the flag/country is much better than to the self alleged dictator.

Is it though? We are currently seeing the forced nationalism be weaponized.

Thank you for taking time to answer.

One additional question; what do you mean by political or regulatory issue? You mean that is a grounds for something to be banned?
Also who dictates that certain thing is ban-able from political or regulatory issue and what is the threshold?

I meant that internet content in China is governed by formal laws and regulations, mainly enforced by the Cyberspace Administration of China (国家网信办) and related regulators. Chinese rules such as the 《网络信息内容生态治理规定》 classify online information and require platforms to prohibit illegal content and prevent harmful content, including material that endangers national security, spreads rumors that disrupt social order, promotes extremism or violence, or infringes on others’ rights. Platforms are legally required to monitor and remove such content and regulators can order services restricted or removed if they violate these rules.

As good as preferential/ranked voting is. Compulsory voting would have a much larger positive impact on US' democracy

Ideally both

Thank you for the reply.
I do find it strange that certain things blocked puzzling. Such as google, youtube, reddit, crunchyroll, hbo. The one I find the most puzzling is reuters, from what I understand are one of the most independent news reporting institute. I don't claim to know much but from what I read the reason cited is 'criticism of communist party leaders'. Is it illegal, to criticize leaders in China?
I assume there is more to this right?

Well then use that amendment that children keep dying for or stop complaining. So pathetic

Most of the platforms you listed are "banned" largely a result of regulatory and data-governance issues. China requires internet services operating in the mainland market to comply with domestic regulations covering data protection, content management, and licensing, which generally includes managing Chinese user data within the Chinese regulatory framework and cooperating with local oversight. Many large foreign platforms chose not to operate under those requirements, so their services were never integrated into the mainland internet environment.

As for Reuters they aren't banned per say they simply haven't obtained the licences required to operate in the mainland (to my knowledge).

That's because people confuse nationalism with patriotism. I love my country, which is why I want it to be better. Others love their country because it gives them permission to be worse.

To be clear, it's still not good. I support any kid that wants to sit out for the pledge or sit or kneel for the national anthem. It should always be non-obligatory. In fact, I don't love the word "allegiance" to begin with.

But it would be significantly worse if the pledge of allegiance was to Donal Trump. Ultimately, that's what many people are following, but it's not default in schools to pledge allegiance to him or anything.

That is interesting reason. From what I read, Reuters were just banned and they inquired to the Cyberspace Administration (CAC), they didn't get any response. If this is to believed to be true then Reuters weren't notified about needing a license and suddenly blocked and nobody responded when they inquired why were they blocked. And this was in 2015, is there a reason Reuters haven't managed to obtain such license yet, as according to them 13% of their revenue is from Asia and I assume china was a big part of it.

Also I was unaware news agency needs license to operate in countries. Again apologies if I sound ignorant, but I can't read chinese and I assume a lot of these information are only covered by chinese news agencies on why were each of those services banned which includes duckduckgo (a search engine) and internet archive (archive.org). I would appreciate if you have any links or sources which cites reason of banns or any news coverage e.g. by licensed chinese news media (I can translate).