My Take | China needs to be wary of growing social trust deficit in the AI era

It is a difficult job to assess public perception changes in China. For one thing, the country is so vast and rife with inequities that there are always different and contrasting views. On top of that, there are no regular, independent surveys to measure public opinion on political and social topics.

The proliferation of social media in recent years has offered a peek into what’s happening “underneath” society when it comes to Chinese psychology. For instance, despite the state’s apparent dislike, the mentality of “lying flat” gained popularity among young Chinese after they found their hard work was unlikely to pay off amid economic downturns and social ossification.

This summer, there’s a noticeable new trend: the public has started to show growing mistrust in institutions providing fundamental public services, such as hospitals, schools and railway operators.

When a man on board a train defied an order and broke a window in the carriage to get some fresh air, the overwhelming majority of Chinese online commentators hailed him as a “hero” and called for open defiance against unreasonable rules. In this case, the train operator issued a statement explaining the technical reasons for keeping doors and windows shut, even if it restricts the circulation of fresh air. It is a concern to see that people no longer have faith in public rules, and that there is a growing us-vs-them mentality on a wider range of issues.

The phenomenon is raising questions about the effectiveness of Beijing’s conventional approach to controlling information, which is based on an assumption that the state, including state media outlets, ministries and local government agencies, can dictate what’s right and what’s wrong. The public passively waits for “information feeds” from the state.