China's Brave New World

By Stacey Vanek Smith,

Echo Wang, Cardiff Garcia

Published October 11, 2018 at 4:09 PM EDT

China's social credit score is a lot like a credit score in the U.S., but with a twist. In China, your ability to participate fully in the economy is dependent not just on your borrowing history, but also your behavior. How you act at work, what you buy in the store and whether you obey traffic laws can all factor into your score.

The Chinese government is currently piloting this program in several cities. Today on the Indicator, we look at life in one of the pilot cities and see what life might look like in China if this system is adopted nationwide.

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Stacey Vanek Smith

Stacey Vanek Smith is the co-host of NPR's The Indicator from Planet Money. She's also a correspondent for Planet Money, where she covers business and economics. In this role, Smith has followed economic stories down the muddy back roads of Oklahoma to buy 100 barrels of oil; she's traveled to Pune, India, to track down the man who pitched the country's dramatic currency devaluation to the prime minister; and she's spoken with a North Korean woman who made a small fortune smuggling artificial sweetener in from China.

See stories by Stacey Vanek Smith

Echo Wang

Cardiff Garcia

Cardiff Garcia is a co-host of NPR's The Indicator from Planet Money podcast, along with Stacey Vanek Smith. He joined NPR in November 2017.

See stories by Cardiff Garcia