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Chinese Force Mass Closure Of Net Cafes
Chien Andalusia writes "According to this article from the BBC, the Chinese authorities closed 12,575 net cafes towards the end of 2004. Due to the expense of computer hardware, net cafés have become very popular in China in recent years. The laws governing such cafés are very strict, especially in relation to minimising the amount of exposure children can get to the internet. For example, no net café is allowed to open within 200 metres of a middle or elementary school. The article also briefly discusses other restrictions imposed on Chinese net cafés."
Well I for one did some tests when I was studying. Part of an introductory politics course was asking people on the streets for their opinnions. I did sneak in a lot of knowledge questions about the questionable sides of society like the procentage of richest people who hold 10% of the total wealth and the procentage of the people who hold 10% lowest. The replies ranged quite far, but the ammount of people who came even to right orders of magnitude were depressignly low. So unfortunately I do have to side with the grandparent.
Sorry for pool english.
Net cafes in China are mostly **GAME** cafes. that's why there is a restriction that no net café is allowed to open within 200 metres of a middle or elementary school.
In June 2002, a net cafe in Beijing is burned by 3 middle school students for game playing conflicts, 25 people died.
I just wish you guys to know that closing net cafes has nothing to do with free-speech or free information or other free shits.
I just hate the blind prejudice and stupid arrogant expressed by some people while talking about something they knew nothing about.
Becuase of the difference in cultural, you American sometimes cannot understand Chinese people. Something we think normal you think crazy. The reason to restrict build net cafe 200m away from school is that too many kids go to net cafes after school and spend too much time on computer games or internet surfing. Many parents complain about this. Another reason for closure is the porngraphy information. Viewing and keeping these pictures on pulic machines is prohibited in China. This is the same in pulic libraries in US.
You seriously have no idea what you are talking about.
Together, we will drive the rats from the tundra.
A lot of these net cafe are poorly constructed without proper safety facilities. A fire swept through an illegal net bar killing 24 and sending another 13 to hospital in 2002.
http://www.edu.cn/20020618/3059163.shtml
Not many businesses in China respect the safety standards that the western world take for granted. There are many ways, including bridery, to get around the safety inspections. So occasionally the government has to do some massive crack down. For one, to try to control the internet to please the critics in the communist party. Also, nobody would bride the safety inspectors if the government does not show that they are serious about the safety standards. A few weeks later these net cafe would be re-opened. And everything goes back to business as usual.
Content censoring is always there. But that's not the only reason they close down these net cafe. Money is the reason.
A sig is redundant.
China-philes...
The word actually is Sinophiles
China cannot embrace a completely 'open' western style of democracy as trumpeted by the United States, it's an impossibility with their current population numbers and the land predicament that they're in.
China has around 70% the arable land that the United States does yet it has around 4 times the population (give or take). With numbers of people like that and the sheer logistics of feeding them all, a more heavy handed form of 'population control' is needed above and beyond lightly recommending how people do things. This is why you've seen policies such as the 1 child rule and a general aversion to completely opening up internet access to the public. Some would say that this keeps them in a state of ignorance, but honestly we as Americans have absolutely no idea what it would be like to have that many Americans running around.
Imagine this country with say.. 2.4 billion people walking around. It'd be a nightmare and if you think that the government of the US, if faced with the task of controlling and moving society along with that many people around, wouldn't impelement hard core big brother control, you have another thing coming. Free is a great idea when you have sea to shining sea and amber waves of grain, things get a bit hairer when famines could potentially kill HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS people and cause unrest on a scale never seen before by man if the dinner plate isn't filled. Also keep in mind that people are generally stupid and impulsive when they get into large groups (regardless of beliefs). This fact about human behavior has the potential to produce some pretty disasterous results.
People like to point out that India is the world's largest democracy. What they fail to mention is that India also has one of the longest lived and highly adhered to caste structures ingrained into the very fabric of their society. So yeah, they're democratic but at the same time everyone is 'assigned' a place that they cannot move from, so you're back to rigid control of thoughts and ideas in one form or another. The benefit that India has is that their generally effective use of education still bolsters innovation.
China does what it has to do to get the job done. No more, no less. I don't like the fact that they're communist. I don't like that fact that they censor and propogandize everything, but looking at it objectively, I can understand the effectiveness of the method.
I was in China not too long ago (2003 - beginning of 2004) and teaching English. One thing that was interesting was the stuff that I heard about Falun Gong. How supposedly people from Falun Gong had poisoned local beggars, it was a cult.
In the states, you never hear these rationales for the crackdowns against Falun Gong. They're not even brough up to be discredited, which makes me wonder if they're true or not?
More to the point, is the American gov't not explaining China's good reasons for cracking down on Falun Gong so that it keeps their citizens feeling superior to the Chineese? "Oh, we have religious freedom and they don't" etc. When the worst abuses against religion happened during the Cultural revolution, or currently against those religious groups with separatist ambitions (or who just don't want their land exploited by the influx of the ethnic Han majority) such as some Muslims in Xinjiang, Buddists in Tibet, etc.
A while ago, there was the whole issue of the Chinese embassy bombing in Belgrade by accident.
The Chinese line was that it was deliberate and pointless. The American line was that it was an accident. The London guardian at one point ran a piece on how the Chinese embassy had been quite likely rebroadcasting radio signals from Serb forces in violation of the laws governing embassies (neutrality) and how the bombing run that hit the embassy was the only one which didn't go through the NATO chain of command, but came directly from the CIA.
And how much did we in the states hear about this second, more likely explanation?
There were a few internet sites blocked in China. And it was hard to tell which ones were deliberate and which ones were accidental since there seemed to be very little set policy on the matter. China may censor, but it seems to lack the rigid efficiency and formality that one imagines when they think of the USSR or Nazi Germany. The place is anarchy and clannish with an authoritarian frosting. Things like the status and power of your family, and which powerful people you have pissed off and how respectfully you criticize power have a huge amount to do with what you can get away with.
The cultural revolution is over. The boys in power in China are mainly concerned with protecting their power and sometimes increasing it.
And despite the attempt at censorship, there was a lot of information about government corruption which managed to leak out anyways. (Chinese gov't billionaires, Political elite getting away with murder, etc. )
If there's one thing I learned in China, it was how deftly the US government manages to control the information which reaches the majority of its citizens, despite the existance of a 'free press.'
___
It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
For a scholarly look at this issue read Edward Herman & Noam Chomsky's...
I will just post a parallel comment, to point out that Chomsky is an expert in the field of Linguistics, and thus his non-linguistic works are not 'scholarly' but, rather, are polemical.
I'm posting this because the 'other' main reply seems to have turned into a redbaiting/reaction-to-redbaiting thread.
Chomsky simply isn't a qualified expert outside the field of linquistic. Just a verbose idealogue. He leverages his knowledge of rhetoric quite well.
"What's the frequency Kenneth?"
The most direct translation from pinyin (wang1 ba2) of a public house providing net access is called a "net"() bar()".
What chinese people do there in "net cafes"?
99% of them play games! Yes, from half-life to online games (You can't believe how those online games sucks here in China, I'd never put my fingers on 'em.)
For what I know, the net cafes that the government forced to close is bearly 10% of the total numbers of net cafes in China. That's really a small amount of them.
So, if you got angry for some communist government once again block there people from so called freedom and democracy and so on, I hope the information I provided can help you a better sleep tonight.
As you've already guessed that I'm from China and right now sit in front of my own computer posting on Slashdot with adsl connection for about 10$ per month (really can't complain much about the low bandwidth).
Oh yes, A long list of sites are blocked. But, hey, isn't the duty of every government to control their people? They are the governments, they are the same. The government controlled the media? WE THE NEW GENERATION DON'T READ NEWS!
I surf the internet almost everyday. There are millions of teenager and young students like me in China doing the samething. We do have freedom, limited through. But there should be a process, shouldn't it?
Don't like the Chinese government? I can't help and sometimes I'm pissed off by it either. But please, you kindly western people, please try to understand China a little bit more before make any
judgements. There are truth about us that you should know, and I'm willing to share too.
PS: Please excuse me for any gramma or spelling mistake.