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6 March 2023
5:00 AM
‘Made in China’ … three words that most people on the planet will recognise. For more than half a century, China has been known as the home of mass production and low-cost imitation. With its mammoth labour force and insatiable appetite for coal, China’s factories are unrivalled when it comes to producing plastics, metals, cars, and pharmaceuticals.
Unfortunately for the people involved, this monstrous industrial machine exacts a heavy price – after all, a nation does not achieve that level of productivity without an authoritarian mechanism to keep its workers in check.
Enter the Social Credit System (SCS).
Officially launched in 2020, the China social credit system ‘is a broad regulatory framework intended to report on the “trustworthiness” of individuals, corporations, and governmental entities across China’.
Using three key mechanisms: data gathering and sharing; curation of black and red lists; and systems of punishment, sanctions, and rewards – the CCP have created the perfect dystopian nation.
Every citizen is given a score and depending on their ongoing behaviour, which is monitored nearly 24/7, they must live their lives according to the access that said score provides. If you are a law-abiding citizen, with nothing to hide, it doesn’t sound too bad right? For the most part, I’d argue that was true … until Covid.
Let’s talk about China’s Colour code system.
‘People in China sign up through Ant’s popular wallet app, Alipay, and are assigned a color code – green, yellow or red – that indicates their health status…
‘In Hangzhou, it has become nearly impossible to get around without showing your Alipay code. Propaganda-style banners remind everyone of the rules: Green code, travel freely. Red or yellow, report immediately.’
Sounds an awful lot like our lockdown vaccine passports, doesn’t it?
Knowing now that mRNA vaccines didn’t stop transmission or infection, those restrictions are looking less like public safety instruments and more like instruments of pure social control. Back to the Chinese Social Credit System…
‘But a New York Times analysis of the software’s code found that the system does more than decide in real time whether someone poses a contagion risk. It also appears to share information with the police, setting a template for new forms of automated social control that could persist long after the epidemic subsides.’
For those who don’t know, apps utilised by the Social Credit System are basically all your apps rolled into one, connected directly to your bank account. Sounds convenient right – using facial recognition to pay your bills? What could go wrong?!!!!
These integrated apps are all in service of the ‘public good’ until you can’t get your money out of the bank. The Chinese Social Credit System presents a future where there is no freedom of speech, no freedom of movement, no freedom at all, unless you do exactly what the governments tell you…
Misbehave, commit misdemeanours, speak out against your government in front of any one of the nation’s 540 million CCTV cameras, and they will take money right out of your pocket.
Funny coincidence… Aren’t Australian banks requiring us to ‘verify our ID’ with up-to-date driver’s licenses? And now we have a pandemic of cyber hacks, so citizens are rushing out for a brand-new driver’s license with an up-to-date photo. Even if these are accidental and unrelated events, they are leading to the same dodgy path.
And speaking of totally unrelated coincidences… Don’t forget to download the myGov app today!
‘The myGov app has launched today, giving millions of Aussies the ability to easily access government services through their mobile phones. Minister for Government Services Bill Shorten said the myGov app would make accessing services simpler, easier, and quicker…
‘There is also a digital wallet where Aussies can store government cards and certificates. Items in the wallet will get a QR code, which providers can scan and check.’
A ‘digital wallet’ you say? A convenient app that is connected directly to your bank account. For the cautious, this is a little too much integration.
At the same time, there has been a massive increase in public surveillance, with potential facial recognition scanners being used in the private and public sectors.
‘(2019) Tonight, A Current Affair will reveal the incredible rate of surveillance across our capitals is set to expand even further, with government plans to establish new technology eerily reminiscent of that used in China’s “social credit” system.’
‘(2023) Several CCTV cameras with sophisticated data analytics software that monitors crowd mood and density will be temporarily installed along Sydney’s Oxford Street as part of the Mardi Gras Parade on Saturday.’
And what about cars fitted with engine immobilisers, controlled by the government?
‘The Queensland government’s plan to fit cars with engine immobilisers will be “pointless” at curbing the state’s ongoing car theft crisis, the RACQ says. The government will spend $10 million installing 20,000 engine immobilisers in a trial across Mount Isa, Cairns, and Townsville, where ongoing car thefts have brewed a hotbed of community tension.’
It is probably best if we ignore the World Economic Forum’s plan to restrict everyone to 15-minute cities where freedom is defined by small amounts of regional travel… News.com told us not to worry about it, after all, despite the clear and obvious evidence on the contrary.
And for the pièce de résistance of uncanny coincidences, you are now likely to be put on a government watchlist for an alarmingly broad and ill-defined range of ideological thought.
‘As a result, officers must record all interactions with people holding ideological beliefs in the central information database used by officers across the state known as QPrime at the “first available opportunity”, according to the email sighted by the ABC.’
If Australians genuinely want a Social Credit System, fair enough, let’s have a referendum and put it into place. But don’t label me as an ideologue when all the evidence points to Australia laying the ground work for their own Chinese-style Social Credit System.
All it takes is one global cyber-attack – predicted to occur within the next few years – and our government will have all the opportunity, and foreign manpower they need to turn us into China 2.0.
Might be worth signing the petition…?
This article was first published on Tim’s blog, The Tenth Man.
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