Abstract

REYES VASQUEZ, Arnulfo; FERNANDEZ TAPIA, Joselito  and  VALENCIA LOPEZ, Oscar David. China's Digital Social Credit System: A Holistic Perspective. PAAKAT: rev. tecnol. soc. [online]. 2025, vol.15, n.29, e932.  Epub Nov 11, 2025. ISSN 2007-3607.  https://doi.org/10.32870/pk.a15n29.932.

The Social Credit System (SCS) implemented in China constitutes the first public policy designed to evaluate social behavior through incentives and sanctions, based on a logic of social trust. In recent years, this model has sparked growing international interest due to its projection as a replicable system, even in democratic contexts, which poses challenges for individual freedoms and digital rights. This article aims to identify and analyze the main dimensions that comprise the SCS as a model of centralized digital governance. To this end, a qualitative analysis assisted by MAXQDA software was conducted based on 16 documents, including six official Chinese government instruments and ten specialized texts from the academic literature. The results show that the Chinese SCS articulates seven interrelated dimensions: 1) ideology and domestic politics; 2) technology; 3) credit management; 4) society; 5) public management; 6) economy; and 7) international politics. These categories constitute a state infrastructure of digital control, where diverse spheres of social, political, and economic life converge under a core of algorithmic surveillance. It is concluded that the SCS represents a paradigmatic example of state control through data, useful for understanding how digital technologies can be used not only to manage but also to shape the social fabric under centralized regulatory frameworks.

Keywords : Social Credit; Digital Control; Algorithmic Governance; Digital Surveillance; Digital Government; China.

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