Yeah I'm no CCP supporter but sick of the bad takes on this. China has no national credit reporting system and it's very difficult to enforce civil court judgments across city/provincial lines. "Social credit" systems are mainly intended to help with this problem. The person in the article is in trouble for not paying his debts, not political activity or having the wrong friends.

I'm sure the CCP would love to use social credit as another tool of repression, but for now they're having enough trouble getting a normal credit reporting system going.