Tried, tested, shut down By 2019, China’s central authorities were stating explicitly that they were not happy with the idea. They issued formal clarifications that scores could not be used to penalize citizens and that only formal legal documents could serve as grounds for penalties. Pilot cities quickly followed suit: Wenzhou, having made ambitious plans in 2014, made a full 180 degrees and in 2019 released an encouragement-only scheme instead. Rongcheng issued a revision in 2021 that required voluntary application and could only issue rewards. Many other scoring plans never materialized at all.