The digital panopticon: China’s Social Credit System and the postmodern surveillance state

This paper examines China’s Social Credit System as a fusion of Confucian moral governance and algorithmic surveillance, analysing its implications for authority, social order and individual autonomy. Employing a qualitative, theory-driven approach, the research interprets official documents, policy statements and Xi Jinping’s speeches, applying Foucault’s concepts of ‘panopticism’, biopower and governmentality to assess how the system engineers compliance and reshapes notions of trustworthiness. The findings suggest that although the SCS purports to enhance social harmony, it operates as a sophisticated instrument of ideological reinforcement, extending state power into everyday life through a pervasive structure of incentives and punishments.