Public Radio East serves Eastern North Carolina by providing news, fine arts, and informational programming that challenges, stimulates, educates, and entertains an intellectually curious audience.

© 2026 Public Radio East

Public Radio East
800 College Court
New Bern, NC 28562

EIN 56-1802728
Public Radio For Eastern North Carolina 89.3 WTEB New Bern 88.5 WZNB New Bern 91.5 WBJD Atlantic Beach 90.3 WKNS Kinston 89.9 W210CF Greenville
Donate
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations
US

China Pilots Program Ranking Citizens Based On Shopping Habits, Traffic Violations

NPR
Published November 29, 2016 at 1:33 PM EST
A busy street scene shows a crowd of people rushing to work in central Beijing, April 19, 2007. Beijing's local government is among the three dozen beginning to collect data to rate creditworthiness. (Teh Eng Koon/AFP/Getty Images)
A busy street scene shows a crowd of people rushing to work in central Beijing, April 19, 2007. Beijing's local government is among the three dozen beginning to collect data to rate creditworthiness. (Teh Eng Koon/AFP/Getty Images)

In Hangzhou, China, the local government is testing a social ranking system that scores citizens based on everything from whether they jaywalk to their credit worthiness.

The social credit system determines which services people can get, and what they can be denied. The Communist Party hopes to adopt the system nationwide by 2020.

Here & Now‘s Jeremy Hobson speaks with Jason Bellini (@jasonbellini) of the Wall Street Journal about how the system works.

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

US