Mapping trust and creditability in the official representation of China’s Social Credit System (SCS)

China’s Social Credit System (SCS) is frequently portrayed and framed as a digital realisation of ‘Big brother’ and total surveillance. It is argued to render China’s modern governing mechanism algorithmic, through sets of credit data accumulated. However, China and the Communist Party of China (CPC) have always been mobilising its vast historical and cultural resources and applying them into the justification and promotion of political and social governance. The cultural value embedded in and shared ideological understanding of trust pertaining to SCS in the Chinese context is under studied and represented. Thus, this paper examines the official representation of trust and creditability embedded in SCS on the Credit China website, under Trust Culture section. It analyses and interprets the collection of state media coverages associated with a broad theme of trust that are selected for and archived on the website. Adopting a mixture of content and critical discourse analysis methods, this paper interprets media coverages on SCS, the historical and cultural meaning of trust in Chinese allusions and the explication of representative characteristics of trust exhibited individually. This paper argues that to individuals and collectives in Chinese society, trust, associated and promoted in SCS, as represented, and communicated through media and official discourses, is a moral virtual and principle that intends to influence individual and nurture social environment though an ideological arena, an apparatus of intensified shared understanding of trust rooted in Chinese culture and histories. Creditability, on the other hand, to both individuals and collective, is regarded as a disciplinary function to regulate, more importantly, local government and businesses behaviours. Technology, inherently embedded in the building of SCS, is a means employed by central government proposed to fight existing corruption within commercial and political sectors.