Complete Net Cafe Shutdown After Beijing Fire

lunchlady doris writes: "The BBC has this story that tells of a fire in an internet cafe in Beijing that killed 24 people. The mayor responded to this tragedy by shutting down all 2,400 cafes in the city, most of which are operated illegally. Only 200 cafes will be allowed to reopen, pending municipal regulation. Needless to say, the netizens of Beijing are pissed and see this as a move to quash the limited access to the net that the Chinese people currently have."

Comments

Try burn something else

[sebol]

Lets try to burn 1 microsoft's office at China
check whether all microsoft's office in China closed or not

Excuses

[juliao]

The Chinese government has always had a problem with internet cafes. Especially because they are anonymous, surfing from a cafe is quite different from surfing from your own home. If you surf from home, you can be held liable for what you download and what you access. At a cafe, you can never be sure about who does what. And that, of course, drives any control-freak internal intelligence agency quite mad.

Of course they could have shut down most of the cafes before, since they were illegal, but that would expose them to international pressure and make them look like tyrants deemed to deny freedom and anonymity.

Now, they have the perfect excuse. Under the banner of "think of the fires", they can close down most of the cafes and start imposing strict regulations and control on the remaining ones. If any of the remaining ones fails to comply, they can always audit them for fire regulations compliance, and subsequently shut them down.

And what will the international community say? Nothing. What can you say?

Any kind of totalitary regime comes with its own risks. Abuse of power comes to mind as a prominent one. The Chinese government will always leverage their existing power in order to maitain and obtain more power. Frankly, I don't know how a one-billion-people country can be ruled. I don't even know if a democratic regime as we know it would ever work there. But I'm sure that it can't be much worse than it already is.

Re:Clear things up

[Wizard of OS]

It might not be directly an action against civilians' Internet access, but do you have any idea why the door was locked at the time of the fire?

Unfortunately, China is one of the countries where internet access is very strictly regulated. If I recall correctly (but correct me if i'm wrong), everything is being monitored by the government, I might even recall that they only open up small parts of the internet to prevent people from seeing anything that isn't in line with the government's opnion.

I'm always very cautious when communist-bashing is concerned (this happens most of the time out of nationalistic feelings), but we must face the fact that there is no freedom of speech in China. That's the reason that places like this internet-cafe exist, with all safetly-risks that come with that.

Shutting down these 'illegal internetcafe's' for safety-checks is not an issue of free speech, the fact that they exist is.

Knowing the chinese...

[SkyLeach]

they probably started the fire and shot the people specifically to give them the "excuse" to regulate which shops are allowed to be open. Thightly under the government's control of course.

My experiences in China

[Ryu2]

I'm really not surprised to be reading about this and wouldn't put it past those Chinese to do it. Anyhow, I'm an American businessman in the import-export business, so as you might guess, my frequent travels take me to many places around the world, on every continent.

I wanted to share my experience in the "great" country of China.

So, I was in Shenzhen China last December for about a week on business. A bit of background: Shenzhen, like Hong Kong and a few other places, is a "Special Economic Zone" that the Chinese government set up to try and give foreigners the illusion that China really ISN'T a drab, decaying fascist state that's economically languishing behind the rest of the world. Here, rules are relaxed and capitalism is encouraged, not surppressed. Well, let me tell you this, if this is China's best, then I'd hate to see the worst.

Anyways, when I stepped off the train from Hong Kong (which was no paradise itself, as that place has gone down the shitter since the Brits left) I was shocked. The whole place smelled like a combination of vomit and dog shit that had been left out in the sun for a day or so. And it was probably BECAUSE there was vomit and dog shit all over. I almost retched, and I've certainly been in some sketchy places in my travels but NOTHING like this.

People spit everywhere. Trash litters the streets. I found myself looking DOWNWARD much more than looking FORWARD when I walked.

Noise pollution is endemic. It doesn't help that their infernal language consists of abrupt rapid fire tones that is a cacophony for any human ear to bear. How do they speak and listen to that shit without going crazy all day long is beyond me.

Anyways, Chinamen stink -- literally. There is no concept of personal hygiene whatsoever. Meetings with even top officials were hourlong sessions of having to endure hot sweaty bodies and rancid breath eminating from mouths missing a few teeth. Geez, at least use deodorant for crying out loud.

The hypocrisy, corruption, and double-standards from the highest levels of government on over are the norm at the same time China opens up to the world. Foreigners get charged as much as five times for transportation, lodging, food, and everything else.

Traffic is horrible. Rules are non-existent except for at traffic lights: red means to go fast, green means to go REALLY REALLY fast.

The Chinese people themselve are pretty apathetic and everyone just wants to get out of that hell hole, so you see smuggling rings shipping people out hidden in truck beds and ships, all too often with tragic results.

The whole country, in my assessment is a lost case. Even the cheap labor can be found in Southeast Asia or Mexico. Same goes for pirated stuff -- SE Asia and Eastern Europe will keep on churning them out.

Anyways, the one redeeming quality were the girls. I paid 100 yuan (about $12 US) for a great fuck, with a 16 year old who seemed quite new and "unblemished" if you get my drift. Boy, was she tight, made all the right noises, sucked and fucked all night long and let me cum all over her. Much better than even the vaunted Thai whores, and worlds apart from anything in Las Vegas or in Europe. Best bargain I have EVER found in my life!

So yeah, screw the hell hole that's China. It's a lost cause of a country suspsended by a hollow facade of so-called new capitalism that's just show more than anything.