This is interesting:
The PLA is being pushed to be combat-ready as soon as possible, but military reforms haven’t been welcomed across the board. Changes in promotion structures, preferences for highly skilled labour and a new focus on high-tech joint operations have challenged the ways in which the PLA has operated for decades. However, the party’s longstanding battle to ensure that its army is loyal to it is an increasing priority under Xi, and the CCP continues to emphasise that the party controls the gun: 党指挥枪 (dang zhihui qiang). Under Xi, disloyalty to the party has been made illegal in order to protect the CCP’s power.
In the light of that threat perception, the PLA version of a social credit system seems to be a new tool for punishing betrayal, dissuading dissent and rewarding allegiance to the military.
It is interesting because the CCP clearly fears losing control of the major institution of raw brute force. It is just a pilot program now and not rolled out for the entire PLA. But who thinks it won't be rolled out to all the military?
The problem is that the CCP assumes their Social Credit Score System is accurate and diligently used by the bureaucrats under the system. Is that something that can be assumed?
I wrote this about the system in a data dump about a year ago:
China's new dystopia spreads its wings: China is now using its horrible "social credit score" system to deny 23 million people the ability to travel. With any luck this has built into it collateral damage on the Chinese Communist Party as corruption undermines the system and people in the cheap seats see how the wealthy and influential get a good score from the people in charge no matter what they do to violate the social credit rules. I'm sure the Green New Deal people who like "lists" of enemies could find a use for this system here to phase in the total ban on air travel, starting with "deniers" I'm sure (the article is satire but the tweet is not). Tips to Instapundit.
Will corruption undermine the accuracy (as defined by the CCP) of the system? Will people learn that the system itself is corrupt and just one more means of corrupt officials to extort money from people desperate to have a good social credit score? And will the people of China add this to the long line of grievances that they have against the Chinese Communist Party?
And more broadly, will the social credit system even if it works as intended simply kill the goose that laid the golden egg?
But hey, maybe the grievances don't need to wait for that development to have a dire effect. Cue the Wuhan Flu coronavirus:
Back on January 21 last year, Chinese President Xi Jinping told a gathering of senior officials that they must be on guard against “black swans” and “grey rhinos” which could threaten the rule of the Communist Party amid a slowing economy.
At that time, Xi’s use of animal metaphors sparked discussions among observers who generally interpreted his warnings as being related to different kinds of economic risks. “Black swans” are events that cannot be predicted but have a profound impact on markets, while “grey rhinos” are known risks that have the potential to cause great harm but which people choose to ignore.
One year later, Xi’s wildlife metaphors about the dangers facing the country have proved prophetic on a more literal level.
But we just don't know what the impact of this will be. But it could be a big deal:
Diseases emerge with some frequency. But given the Chinese dynamic and China’s current condition, the virus could readily evolve into a geopolitical and political event, in which tension within China might explode, with the coronavirus the last straw and China’s international position transformed.
To emphasize, I have no idea what “2019-nCoV” is or what it will do, but judging from what is being said about it and the level of anxiety, I will assume for the sake of argument that it is more dangerous than not.
Maybe a black-snake virus or a corrupt grey bureaucracy will be the source of a decisive threat to the CCP. "Rise people, who do not wish to be slaves," indeed.
Heck, before the social credit system pilot program can be rolled out to the entire PLA, will the leadership of the military that sees itself as the defender of China decide they have to save the country from the narrowly concerned CCP before the military is neutered with a snip-snip of the system applied to them?
