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Political and Social Trust in China

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Political and Social Trust in China Political and Social Trust in China Can technology help restore trust in China? Nina Ludviksen Thorsen Master’s Thesis in Chinese Society and Politics KIN4593 (30 credits) Department of Culture Studies and Oriental Languages UNIVERSITY OF OSLO Spring 2020 Abstract Political and social trust in a country is essential to legitimate a regime and for stability in society. This thesis will assume that there is a connection between political and social trust. The state plays an important role in creating values for the citizens and society, to maintain social trust, for instance trustworthiness. Also, whether citizens trust each other is strongly influenced by whether they trust the government that they share or not. Authoritarian China has experienced a high level of political trust, but due to, for instance, food safety scandals and what some has argued is a shift to a “society of strangers” has resulted in a gripping fear of declining social and political trust. The Chinese government has an ambitious plan to use the power of data to change the way it governs, and it has invested in information and communication technology in the hope of restoring political and social trust, and creating a trustworthy society. This thesis examines three systems that the CCP has introduced to the Chinese society: Cameras with facial recognition technology, the Social Credit System and the political propaganda app Xuexi Qiangguo app. Through observations, three individual semi-structured interviews and eleven unstructured interviews, this thesis examined how citizens perceived these technological systems and how increased surveillance may affect the citizens in China. My research suggests that the information about these systems is widely known and that most people are acting as if they are being watched and rated on their behavior. My three main informants believe that the proposed Social Credit System and the increasing number of CCTV cameras with facial recognition technology will help restore trust, and that China will benefit from these systems. Also, it appears most people are accepting the fact that CCP can do what they want, and that the government is acting in the best interests of the citizens. But SCS is yet to be implemented on a national level, and it will be interesting to see how the system will work together with CCTV cameras, and perhaps also Xuexi Qiangguo. II Acknowledgments First and foremost, I want to thank my supervisor Mette Halskov Hansen. Your optimism, guidance, patience and feedback has been extremely helpful throughout this process. Thank you for believing in me and my project. To all my friends. You know who you are. Thank you all for support and encouragement throughout this process. Eirik and Annica, who have been writing alongside me, but always had some encouraging words to say. These two years would not have been the same without you two. Ida, thank you for always being there when I needed to let some frustration out and for proofreading. To mom and dad, thank you for always being a phone call away, for encouraging words and for always believing in me. And for bringing me food. To all my informants, thank you for taking the time to meet with me and share your personal thoughts and answered all my questions without any hesitations. And lastly, Marius, thank you for all your love and support. III Abbreviations CCP – The Chinese Communist Party SCS – The Social Credit System AI – Artificial Intelligence CCTV – Closed-circuit television PRC – People’s Republic of China IV Table of contents Abstract .............................................................................................................................. II Acknowledgments .............................................................................................................. III Abbreviations .................................................................................................................... IV Table of contents.................................................................................................................. V 1 Introduction .......................................................................................................................1 1.2 Research questions ....................................................................................................3 1.3 Why does this topic matter? .......................................................................................4 1.4 Structure of thesis ......................................................................................................6 2 Discussion of Methodology ................................................................................................7 2.1 Research methods ......................................................................................................7 2.2 Sampling ...................................................................................................................9 2.3 Interview process ..................................................................................................... 11 3 Political and social trust in China ................................................................................... 13 3.1 The term trust .......................................................................................................... 13 3.2 How to define political and social trust? .................................................................. 14 3.3 Political trust in authoritarian China ......................................................................... 16 3.4 Social trust in China ................................................................................................ 18 3.5 Conclusion: Increasing use of technology – the road to a trustworthy society? ......... 20 4 Artificial Intelligence Technology ................................................................................... 21 4.1 China as an AI superpower ...................................................................................... 21 4.2 Facial recognition technology .................................................................................. 24 4.3 How does it work? ................................................................................................... 25 4.4 Conclusion: Restore trust in China ........................................................................... 26 5 The Chinese Social Credit System .................................................................................. 28 5.1 Yet to be a national system ....................................................................................... 28 5.2 Rongcheng – is the system working? ....................................................................... 30 5.3 Guanxi or high social credit score ............................................................................ 32 5.4 Conclusion: Acceptance among the citizens ............................................................. 33 6 The Xuexi Qiangguo app ................................................................................................. 34 6.1 Digitalization of propaganda .................................................................................... 34 6.2 Why has the Chinese government made a propaganda application? ......................... 36 6.3 Can a united ideology help rebuild political and social trust? ................................... 37 6.4 Conclusion: The future of Xuexi Qiangguo .............................................................. 38 7 Conclusion........................................................................................................................ 39 Bibliography ....................................................................................................................... 42 V Appendix 1 – Template of my informants ......................................................................... 50 Appendix 2 – Interview guide ............................................................................................ 51 VI 1 Introduction 1.1 Introduction This thesis aims to examine the correlation between political and social trust in China and the use of technology to create systems that, according to the Chinese government, will “create a trustworthy society” (State Council 2014)1. In the past decades, China has gone from being a poor country, to having the second largest economy in the world, racing ahead in information technology research and using the knowledge to maintain and rebuild social and political trust. This thesis will examine three different technological systems the Chinese government has or plans to put into action and how it affects the daily lives of citizens in China. The Chinese government is spending a great amount of money and resources to build what can be seen as a massive surveillance system, gathering data from closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras, online and social media activity and financial records (Clover 2016). Western media have been critical to China’s increasing use of surveillance over its citizens, questioning whether it has to do with controlling its citizens or if it is to establish an honest and a trustworthy society in China (Qiang 2018; Clover 2016). The emergence of data has boomed in the last decades, and has changed global communications, social relations, and international commerce (Chorzempa, Triolo and Sacks 2018, p. 1). Nowadays, technology are more often associated algorithms, machine learning, robotics and artificial intelligence (AI),
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