Recently, some retail counters were set up on the streets of several Chinese cities. The public could borrow anything they needed from these counters and return them as they pleased, with retailers standing beside the counters. The result based on a 24-hour experiment showed that more than 95 percent of the borrowed items were returned to the counters, and in Zhengzhou, central China's Henan Province, and Dongguan, south China's Guangdong Province, the rate was 100 percent.

Four years ago, Alipay launched a credit test campaign by doing similar experiments in Hangzhou, east China's Zhejiang Province. Locals were allowed to get what they wanted from unstaffed supermarkets and pay for the goods voluntarily. The credibility rate was 62 percent.

A decade or so ago, experiments on umbrella, vegetable stalls and so on showed very low credit.

The jump from 62 percent to 95 percent within four years is encouraging from every aspect.

In order to solve the problem of credit on Taobao, an e-commerce platform, Alipay was created in 2003. Several years later, Alibaba set up Sesame Credit, which gives credit scores to consumers, who can use the scores to use bicycles and taxis and stay in hotels without paying deposits.

With these developments, from unstaffed supermarkets and retail counters to shared bicycles and other conveniences based on a high credit rating, the public is increasingly feeling the value and progress of personal and social credit in Chinese society.

(This is an edited excerpt of an article originally published in Beijing Youth Daily on June 11)