#41 Shazeda Ahmed on China’s Social Credit System

09/15/17 • 16 min

September 15, 2017In setting up the so called Social Credit System, China plans to monitor, rate and regulate the behavior of citizens and companies with the help of big data, rewarding those who obey the rules and punishing those who cheat or don’t conform. “Social Credit is seen as a means of making people, companies, entire industrial sectors and the government more honest by monitoring behaviors,” says Shazeda Ahmed, a Ph.D. student at the University of California, Berkeley, and former Visiting Academic Fellow at MERICS. The digital mechanism the system is based on will collect data on every single person in China by 2020. What motivates the government? What are the biggest challenges in setting up the system? And: how do people in China think about this system? Listen to our latest MERICS experts podcast.

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#40 Carsten Holz: Challenges of Chinese investment in Tibetan areas

August 2, 2017The Chinese government spends millions to develop the Tibetan areas of China. But what can investment achieve in these remote regions? Can it create sustainable jobs and change people’s lives? The economist Carsten Holz of Hongkong University of Science and Technology has spent many months on the Tibetan plateau in Western Sichuan to study how Beijing’s policies affect local people’s lives. Roads have improved and access to education has increased, he says. But restrictions on travel, unequal pay and a heavy security presence fuel resentment. The central government hasn’t managed to buy the hearts and minds of the Tibetans. Listen to Holz’s observations in the new Merics Experts podcast.

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#42: Carsten Cramer über den BVB in China und chinesische Fußballträume

26. September 2017China hat große Fußballträume und steckt viel Geld und Energie in die Entwicklung des Sports. Dabei hilft, dass auch Bundesligavereine China längst als Markt entdeckt haben. Top-Clubs wie Bayern München und der BVB Dortmund spielen regelmäßig im Reich der Mitte und haben dort eigene Büros eröffnet. Was bringt die deutsch-chinesische Zusammenarbeit? Warum geht etwa der BVB eine Partnerschaft mit einem chinesischen Club ein? Darüber hat Kristin Shi-Kupfer vom MERICS am 5. September bei der MERICS China Lounge mit Carsten Cramer, Marketing-Direktor des BVB gesprochen. Eine gekürzte Fassung der Veranstaltung hören Sie im neuen MERICS Experts Podcast.