China's 'Digital' Totalitarian Experiment

by Gordon G. Chang • September 12, 2018 at 5:00 am

China's "social credit" system, which will assign every person a constantly updated score based on observed behaviors, is designed to control conduct by giving the ruling Communist Party the ability to administer punishments and hand out rewards. The former deputy director of the State Council's development research center says the system should be administered so that "discredited people become bankrupt".
Officials prevented Liu Hu, a journalist, from taking a flight because he had a low score. According to the Communist Party-controlled Global Times, as of the end of April 2018, authorities had blocked individuals from taking 11.14 million flights and 4.25 million high-speed rail trips.
Chinese officials are using the lists for determining more than just access to planes and trains. "I can't buy property. My child can't go to a private school," Liu said. "You feel you're being controlled by the list all the time."
Chinese leaders have long been obsessed with what Jiang Zemin in 1995 called "informatization, automation, and intelligentization," and they are only getting started Given the capabilities they are amassing, they could, the argument goes, make defiance virtually impossible. The question now is whether the increasingly defiant Chinese people will accept President Xi's all-encompassing vision.

China's President Xi Jinping is not merely an authoritarian leader. He evidently believes the Party must have absolute control over society and he must have absolute control over the Party. He is taking China back to totalitarianism as he seeks Mao-like control over all aspects of society. (Photo by Lintao Zhang/Getty Images)

By 2020, Chinese officials plan to have about 626 million surveillance cameras operating throughout the country. Those cameras will, among other things, feed information into a national "social credit system."

That system, when it is in place in perhaps two years, will assign to every person in China a constantly updated score based on observed behaviors. For example, an instance of jaywalking, caught by one of those cameras, will result in a reduction in score.

Although officials might hope to reduce jaywalking, they seem to have far more sinister ambitions, such as ensuring conformity to Communist Party political demands. In short, the government looks as if it is determined to create what the Economist called "the world's first digital totalitarian state."

That social credit system, once perfected, will surely be extended to foreign companies and individuals.

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Turkey's Latest Power Grab a Naval Base in Cyprus?

by Debalina Ghoshal • September 12, 2018 at 4:00 am

The possibility of a Turkish naval base on Cyprus does not bode well for the chances of a Cyprus reunification deal, particularly after the breakdown of the July 2017 peace talks, which were suspended when "Turkey had refused to relinquish its intervention rights on Cyprus or the presence of troops on the island." Turkey has 30,000 soldiers stationed on Cyprus, the northern part of which it has illegally occupied since 1974.
"If Greek-Turkish tensions escalate, the possibility of another ill-timed military provocation could escalate with them... Moreover, such a conflict might open up an even greater opportunity for Russian interference." — Lawrence A. Franklin.

Turkey's Naval Forces Command has "submitted a proposal to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs stating that Turkey should establish a naval base in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus." Pictured: The Turkish Navy frigate TCG Oruçreis. (Image source: CC-BY-SA-3.0/Brian Burnell via Wikimedia Commons)

Turkey's Naval Forces Command has "submitted a proposal to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs stating that Turkey should establish a naval base in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus," according to Turkey's strongly pro-Erdogan daily, Yeni Safak, which recently endorsed the proposal for the base in an article entitled, "Why Turkey should establish a naval base in Northern Cyprus."

"The base will enable the protection of Northern Cyprus' sovereignty as well as facilitate and fortify Turkey's rights and interests in the Eastern Mediterranean, preventing the occupation of sea energy fields, and strengthening Turkey's hand in the Cyprus peace process talks."

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