This past summer, I had the privilege of visiting Guangzhou for the very first time. The city itself was gorgeous: it was clean, full of vibrancy, and had the perfect mix of Eastern culture and Western modernities. However, as my uncle drove me around the city limits, I noticed something peculiar. Then I saw them again. And again.
 
At every single stop light, there were a bevy of cameras which far outnumbered the singular one at American traffic stops. My uncle told me that they used facial recognition technologies to catch traffic violations, from the mere speeding to a backseat passenger not wearing their seatbelt. Slightly dystopian, I thought to myself, but the cameras were doing a moral good.
 
When I returned to America, I soon found that the reasonings for facial recognition cameras were more sinister. I’d watched a VICE video that discussed how these technologies were fueling the Chinese social credit system, which would punish citizens for “crimes” ranging from traffic violations to getting in a public argument by banning them from domestic trains or buses and throttling internet speeds, amongst other things. It sounded like an idea seen only in science fiction novels, and one that nonetheless scared me.
 
But upon further reflection, perhaps this is something that China needs. American journalism harps on every ethical violation that China commits, well aware that America far beyond the point of being able to have any control over them. It creates the notion that China’s sole current purpose is to create a calculated deathgrip on its people. And while human rights violations should not be ignored, these reports are not necessarily contextualized with Chinese history.
 
A few weeks ago in my “20th-century China” course, I learned about Chiang Kai-Shek’s 1930s “New Life Movement”. It sought to moralize the behavior of a nation that had been functioning under ancient Confucian principles for millennia and make the Chinese people appear more respectable. His goal of shoving behavioral change down people’s throats can also be interpreted as “unethical”, yet Chiang’s regime was championed as a harbinger of democracy by the West. Perhaps a double standard with the social credit system is in play, simply because socialist China collides with the ideologies of a democratic America.
 
As an American, visiting China does open my eyes to certain moral indignities. People litter constantly and allow their children to relieve themselves in public, while driving etiquette seems nearly nonexistent. Chiang’s attempts at moral change resulted in failure because there was no incentive to change, but for China to accomplish a historically desired change within its people, perhaps punishments like those gleamed from the social credit system are necessarily. The average American wouldn’t understand the historical contexts of China’s attempts at moral reform, so maybe we shouldn’t be so quick to judge. We only see the headline, gasp in horror, and complain about how China is trying to oppress its citizens. But as with most things, digging under the surface reveals a more complicated story.