China Cracks Down on Internet Cafes

China has increased restrictions on internet game cafes. They've clamped down on anti-government slogans or displays and are now barring teenagers from them completely. Gamasutra reports: "'With the development of the Internet, there has been some harmful and illegal content,' said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao. 'The Chinese government has adopted some management measures so as to limit the immoral and harmful content, especially for young people.' Chinese regulation of Internet content has become controversial in recent weeks due to popular search engine Google's acquiescence to Chinese censorship of its results in exchange for official license to operate in the country."

Comments

Tied up nicely

[voice_of_all_reason]

Looks like all the worries over a cold war between the aging US and up-and-coming China just fizzled out. It's like the Chinese had the enemy in their sights, pulled the hammer back, then just turned the gun around and blew their head right off.

Freedoms of religion, speech, and commerce mean nothing to the common Chinaman. Take away their Starcraft and you'll have instant civil war.

Re:Tied up nicely

[oni]

a) it's the koreans who are known for playing Starcraft
b) "chinaman" ??? the 19th century called. They want their trite racism back.

Re:Tied up nicely

[Oniko]

Uhhh.... riiight. You know, the word just means "black" in Spanish, so I'll just refer to every black person I see as a "negro". It's not the preferred nomenclature, but by that logic, it's hardly derogatory...

...with the exception of the very, very overt connotations of rascism and the association with social discourse from periods in which rascism was considered acceptable. A "chinaman" is a buck-toothed, slant-eyed, can't-pronounce-'r's (which is actually a japanese linguistic trait), culturally backwards, laundry-washing creature found in the imaginations of westerners and shirts from Abercrombie & Fitch, and most chinese really don't like it.

CCP is out of touch

[DigiShaman]

Again, they are out of touch. Every Chinese I've spoken with doesn't give a damn about Taiwan. To them, they are just another country. The Chinese just want to live their life free from oppression. The Taiwan issue is only regarded as a government problem, not an issue with the Chinese citizens.

Here is the problem at heart. Capitalism is winning the hearts and minds of the Chinese over communism. As such, the CCP is very jealous and is grasping at straws to maintain power and control via micro-management solutions. Yes, the CCP is imploding.

Now excuse me while your captain obvious takes a break.

Re:CCP is out of touch

[hackwrench]

I'd be much happier if the U.S. (and anyone else who dosn't) would learn the difference between capitalism and democracy.

Re:CCP is out of touch

[SteroidG]

I'm not sure how many Chinese have you been talking to or where they come from, but in my experience, the Chinese from at least the northern provinces (north of Yang Zi river, within China or overseas) tend to see it rather differently. To me, the impressions is more like: Taiwan is another province of China, it'll be back to China sooner or later. Surprisingly enough, I find the same thing to be true for some of the Taiwanese I know too.

I think you underestimate how much patriotism the Chinese, especially the Han Chinese has.

P.S The reason I can't include southern provinces is because I can't understand some of their dialect, therefore have much less conversations with them.

Re:CCP is out of touch

[evangellydonut]

Captain Obvious is Captain Idiot! some idiotic white guy who thinks he knows all that just 'cuz he's talked to some chinese of unknown origin...

Vast majority of mainland chinese considers Taiwan as a province. Call it brainwashing, call it national pride, call it whatever, just don't go off running your mouth as if it were a fact. Most Taiwan-Taiwanese doesn't like KMT. So here in the US, there's a distinction of "taiwan-taiwan", "mainland-taiwan", and "mainland" chinese. And why did you drag Taiwan into this anyway? totally irrelevant from this discussion.

Mainland Chinese haven't developed a large enough middle class to realize or understand "free from oppression." The distinction between "communism" and "capitalism" in the current Chinese society are just difference in words. Official CCP's stance's been "a market driven economy with socialistic flavor" for the past several decadesn now. And as the government moves towards more capitalism and away from communism, you are now seeing lots of social-unrest from the farmers. The biggest fear is one hand, you have know-nothing farmers who are poor and consists of 80% of the population wondering where's the money they've been promised (I think something like bottwom 75% holds 15% of the wealth or some staggering number I read recently), while 20% of the remaining population slowly becoming self-aware and demanding more rights, including freedom of speech. CCP isn't strong enough to deal with both issues right now, and if they come together, you'll have a social-upheval that'll set back 1/6th of the world's population back to the late 70s, and then what?

If the economy is fully market driven instead of central-plan, China would've crashed back in the late 90s and you would've seen a global economic meltdown far worse than what took place. If China's economy suddenly becomes market driven now, all the major banks of China will be in trouble due to bad-loans of the 90s, and you'll have even more social-unrest. Given its size, history, and current situation, the CCP is doing an amazing job keeping things together. I'm not saying what they are doing is all good-and-dandy, and all for the good-of-the-people, but sometimes some things are a necessary evil.

India's facing similar problems as China... the poor are wondering where's all the wealth gone. They are, however, the only successful democracy with annual per-capita income of under US$5k...

Losing the Mandate of Heaven

[paladinwannabe2]

I feel that the Chinese Government has been in an interesting position for some time- in order to compete with the developed nations they need educated, intelligent workers, they need technology, and they need communications. However, an intelligent, informed, communicating populace is much harder to control than a population that has no phone lines, can't read, and never learned to question assumptions or think critically.

They are trying to keep a tight grip on everything while the world is changing around them. Already their system is more capitalistic than communistic in many respects- but it is a totalitarian capitalism. The Communist party has the power and they are afraid to let the reins of power go. Most Chinese in power have a few skeletons in their closets, and I feel many of them are worried that if they lost control, they would be arrested, tried, and executed.

I'm curious how China will look like in 20 years. I'm thinking they will either become the next United States or be involved in a bloody revolution. Maybe even both.