Slashdot Mirror
China Enforces Even Stricter Regulation On Games
eldavojohn writes "Chinese gamers have a pretty hard life. From crackdowns on 'undesirable' games to bans on gangster games to delayed World of Warcraft expansions, they suffer. The worst part is that in order to qualify for operating in China, you face a maze of conflicting bureaucracy and regulation. Well, it just got a little worse. Now, if you want to operate, you need to hire a 'specialist' to oversee content, and you need to 'enhance socialist values' in your game. They also want to limit in-game marriages and how many player-versus-player combat sessions one can engage in. The circular issued from China's Ministry of Culture contained all the vague verbiage giving them easier reign over who operates and who doesn't. It's a large market, but is it worth the gamble to game developers?"
The funny thing is, by reading Slashdot, one gets the impression that the CCP (and thus the gummint) has clamped down on everything.
Yet, I know people who travel there regularly and they state, you can get anything you want as long as you know where to go or who to talk to. Much is readily available in stores which is supposedly banned.
China may pass laws, but the enforcement is a whole different matter.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
I disagree with your assertion. China, with its definite nationalism and its growing corporatism, really is starting to look a lot more National Socialist than socialist. There are some facets of historical fascism that China does not match, but not even all of the reputedly fascist regimes had all of those facets. For instance, strong racism was more of a specialization of Nazi Germany. Fascist states likely Italy and Vichy France, pretty much followed the German lead on racism. Spanish fascism was much less racial and more of a religious/corporatist alliance.
The great hallmarks of fascism are totalitarianism, nationalism and coordination of the economy by cooperating with big business instead of taking it over. There is also a concept of strength being its own goal. China does not really have a long history of corporations like the West does, but once it does have this sort of basis, it could well turn into something very close to the structure of the fascist countries of the 20th Century. Certainly, China is very much looking to increase its strength in as many ways as possible, and is certainly not against doing so at the expense of other nations.
Needless to say, with a country as big as China and the fact that it is rapidly becoming a gigantic market that the old fascist countries could never dream of being, China's system may well merit its own label, but I think fascist is certainly a more accurate term than communist, or even socialist. After all, as someone pointed, there are socialist states and parties that are democratic and not overly nationalist.