China on Monday published new guidelines to improve its social credit system as part of ongoing efforts to promote high-quality development.
The guideline, issued by the General Office of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and the General Office of the State Council, includes 23 measures and makes systematic arrangements on the building of a social credit system.
"We aim to establish a social credit system covering all types of entities, featuring unified rules and regulations, and being jointly built and with shared benefits, so as to promote deep integration of the social credit system into all aspects of social and economic development. It will provide strong support for building a unified national market, maintaining a fair and orderly competitive market environment, and promoting high-quality development," said Zhao Huaiyong, director of the Department of Finance, Banking and Credit Construction at the National Development and Reform Commission.
The commission will play a leading role in building the social credit system and work with various regional and departmental authorities to implement the guidelines and advance the system for government departments, business entities, social organizations, citizens, and judicial and law enforcement systems in an integrated manner.
"We aim to build a unified credit information recording, collection, sharing, publicity, and credit repair and credit evaluation system. We will improve the good-credit incentive mechanism and the bad-credit punishment mechanism, make vigorous efforts to foster a credit service market, and deepen the extensive application of credit in market trading activities," Zhao said.
China accelerates efforts to improve social credit system
A high-level mediation team from the African Union (AU) Commission has been dispatched to Juba, capital of South Sudan, to try to ease the rising tensions between President Salva Kiir and First Vice President Riek Machar, and help resolve the current political crisis in the country.
Riek Machar and several senior officials have been detained since clashes erupted in January between the South Sudan People's Defense Forces and the opposition fighters.
Machar was accused of instigating violence in Nasir in the northern part of the country.
The mediation team says it plans to engage Machar, but that meeting is yet to take place.
The AU is urging South Sudanese political leaders to resolve the current disagreement through dialogue.
Machar heads the largest opposition group that has an armed wing in the country, known as SPLM/A-IO.
South Sudan's government says it's still investigating Machar for being allegedly involved in clashes between government troops and armed civilians affiliated to SPLM/A-IO in Nasir.
"The mandate of the RTGoNU (the Revitalized Transitional Government of National Unity) is simple; that we stop war, we form a revitalized government of national unity so that we return security, sustainable peace in the country," said Martin Elia Lomuro, South Sudan's Minister of Cabinet Affairs.
Meanwhile, Machar's party members are calling on president Kiir to order the release of their leader.
The group argues that the arrest of Machar means the 2018 peace deal which ended five years of violence in the country has partially collapsed.
The government reaffirms its commitment to the implementation of the 2018 peace deal.
It says Mr. Machar is in conflict with the law and that the implementation of the peace deal should not be used as cover to commit crime. However, until now, South Sudanese law enforcement agencies have not charged Machar with any offense in a court of law.
South Sudan, which became independent in 2011, signed a peace deal in 2018 that ended a civil war between forces loyal to Kiir and Machar. Nearly 400,000 people died in the civil war.
Relations between Kiir and Machar, who have dominated South Sudan's politics for decades, remain strained. The clashes and latest political tensions between the two leaders have unsettled many citizens and the international community.
AU dispatches Panel of Wise to address ongoing instability in South Sudan
