The use of blacklists and redlists, combined with what is known as the Joint Sanctions and Rewards (JSR) regime, can be seen as the key initiative of the emerging SCS so far.
Essentially, agencies and government departments blacklist individuals or entities found to break laws, regulations or legally binding decisions, and ‘redlist’ those with exemplary records within their jurisdiction. Names and related information are aggregated in the public credit information platforms and those on blacklists face a number of sanctions, such as being disqualified from participating in government tenders or obtaining credit from banks. Their names can be publicly searchable on the credit platform portals for the benefit of other government or private sector actors. In some cases there is even an element of public shaming, displaying names in public spaces, such as cinemas or cellphone caller tunes.
The first target of this initiative was debt default. This was addressed through what is known as the Nationwide Judgement Defaulter Blacklist, maintained by the Supreme People’s Court, which contains a list of individuals and firms with outstanding court judgements against them, in most cases willful debt defaulters. Now there are a growing number of industry blacklists ranging from tax evasion and unpaid salaries to customs and even academic plagiarism.
The blacklists gain their bite when combined with the JSR regime. Departments that sign up to this regime agree to recognise each other’s blacklists and take enforcement actions within their power. For instance, the names from the Judgement Defaulter Blacklist are shared with about 40 other central government agencies who then impose sanctions within their respective authority. These punishments can range from being disqualified from obtaining bank credits and government subsidies to, more famously, bans on purchasing flights or high-speed rail tickets. Increasingly, private companies are also entering into agreements with the government, committing to limit services or access to their platforms. For instance, ride hailing service Didi may prevent blacklisted drivers or riders from using its platforms. Ant Financial’s Sesame Credit score, used for a number of services, is negatively affected by blacklist status.
'While the blacklist-redlist and JSR regime does not involve computing scores of any sort, some city governments are experimenting with using credit information to generate scores that assess a citizen’s level of promise keeping'
The key policy motive behind the JSR is to strengthen the enforcement power of regulations by coercing individuals or firms to fulfil their legal obligations. In the case of the judgement defaulter list, the aim is clearly to strengthen the Supreme People’s Court and coerce firms and individuals to pay back loans. According to data published on the China Credit website and collected by this author, from June 2018 to May 2019 1.3 million firms and 2.2 million people were added to various government blacklists. During the same time 813,000 firms and 1.56 million people were removed.
