Game Over for China's Internet Cafés

China is beginning to take notice of its young, fat underbelly, the new generation that cares more about getting to the next level of an online video game than getting to the next level in life. It's the generation that would rather have their heads in front of a monitor than in a textbook. It's the generation that would rather chat up a girl using MSN or QQ than chat up a girl face to face. It's the cigarette-smoking, cell-phone toting, cyber generation. They have already pissed off their parents. Now they're pissing off their government.

The Minister of Information Industry reports that that there are 113,000 internet cafés in China. Most of these cyber spots are loud, smoked-filled stomping grounds for China's youth who would otherwise be home or on the street. The first known internet café in China appeared in Shanghai in 1995, and cost nearly 20 yuan per hour of web use ($2.50), more expensive than most cafés in the Western world. As the cafés became more numerous, and China's telecommunication infrastructure more established, the price of an hour of internet dropped substantially. Nowadays, the standard rate for cyber cafés in Shanghai is 3 yuan per hour.

In China's larger chain internet cafés, regulating content is fairly simple. The government can easily filter undesirable material, block certain words from being searched for and restrict web sites that are not deemed appropriate by the state like porn sites, certain violent online game sites and of course, the BBC. But the smaller mom and pop cafés are harder to control and as a result, these are the ones being shut down. While no exact statistics are kept on the closure of internet cafés, the Guardian reports that thousands of these smaller cafés have been closed in the last 4 years.

In January, Chinese President Hu Jintao called for a "healthy online culture" in his country and promised to take the necessary steps to accomplish this goal. For Beijing, the ban on new internet cafés in 2007 represents a major component of China's aim to cure its mounting internet problem. We will see in the coming months whether no new cyber cafés will prevent further youth from addiction, or whether it will simply make the existing cafés a bit more crowded.