*Much has been written about China’s digital identity and social credit system 🇨🇳🇨🇳* However, there is a minimal understanding of how China’s population identity and social credit system have evolved over the decades and where its pvt sector tech titans, such as Hikvision, SenseTime, etc, fit in. -> Many don’t realise that as early as 2005, China began implementing an RFID-based citizen ID programme, which was used for hotel check-ins, public transportation, and driver’s licence issuance -> This was followed by the rise and use of facial recognition tech by 2015, supported by the Government’s dedicated “Internet Plus” programme, which laid the ground for the much-debated Social Credit System, which has shown serious positives and negatives -> That has now evolved to create a blockchain-based RealDID system with which China has used blockchain to drive population-scale data identification and management systems *And this is when we are yet debating how our system is the global best.* The problem is that when we think of the world, like Bhavish Agarwal of Ola, we probably believe the world excludes China. .. *Thus, in the 34th edition of my China-centric newsletter*, _*Decoding the Dragon*_, I take you through the crazy rise of China’s citizen identity programme and its implications for domestic and international audiences, and the world’s reactions to it. *Read it all here:* https://t.ly/FcrXB