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China Closes 1,600 "Internet Bars" 381

Posted by CmdrTaco from the you-think-we-got-it-bad-here dept.
Kujila writes "According to a Chinese Reuters article, China has closed close to 1,600 "Internet Bars" (probably the equivalent of 'Internet Cafes' stateside) and inflicted up to $12.1 million worth of fines upon the establishment owners. The Internet Bars were apparently letting young children pay to play violent and adult-only PC games. China inspected a grand-total of 1.8 million bars, and ordered about 18,000 of those bars to "to stop operation for rectification," It's estimated that 18% of China's Internet population is composed of minors."
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China Closes 1,600 "Internet Bars" More

China Closes 1,600 "Internet Bars"

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  • I have an idea (Score:5, Funny)

    by PacoTaco ( 577292 ) on Sunday October 31, 2004 @10:06AM (#10678501)
    Someone needs to start a "shut down by China" list so the rest of us can find the good stuff.

    • Re:I have an idea (Score:3, Interesting)

      by gustgr ( 695173 )
      I belive slashdot should create a Topic called "China", with a little red flag as Icon. Last month we have seen a lot of China's stories, indeed most of them are about China shutting something down.

    • That's less than point one percent 0.1 % (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 31, 2004 @11:51AM (#10679029)
      While all I see is all this cringing about how horrid and totalitarian this is, it is easy to see from the figures that this is less than point one percent of the bars they checked which was a staggering 1.8 million. Holy smokes. Even if they just sell a coke or two, there's some commerce going on there.
      And what were these guys shut down for? For allowing children to play adult games in public. Oh, that would be fine in the US right? Bullshit.
      Now I think it is totally hypocritcal for Americans to get on a soap box about such a miniscule figure when the US puts content filters on millions of PCs in schools and libraries that prevent birth control and alternative political information from reaching students. And the US shuts down net cafes with just as much gusto as the Chinese. The double stardard is attrocious.
      But you have to wonder. I mean didn't we just see an article in which hundreds of Slashdot posters defended in public the use of the term "ricer". Clearly there are some real double standards about what is appropriate when it comes to anything Asian.
      William Randolf Hearst would be proud of all you asian haters making fools of yourselves in public. But remember, what you reap is what you sow.
      • This an excellent post and to see it modded down as a troll baffles me.

        Can someone without a pro-usa axe to grind please mod this up.

      • And what were these guys shut down for? For allowing children to play adult games in public. Oh, that would be fine in the US right? Bullshit.

        Wrong. We have allowed children to play CounterStrike in Internet cafes for years.

        And the US shuts down net cafes with just as much gusto as the Chinese. The double stardard is attrocious.

        Oh? Prove it. I've *never* heard of an Internet cafe in the U.S. being shut down by the government because children were playing violent computer games. (they may have bee

        • Taught there. (Score:5, Insightful)

          by PsiPsiStar ( 95676 ) on Sunday October 31, 2004 @04:23PM (#10680467)
          I can't find which games, in particular, were banned. The original article is pretty poor.

          Here's a slightly longer perspective.
          http://english.people.com.cn/200205/ 17/eng20020517 _95869.shtml

          I was an English teacher in Nanjing from 1 year ago to about 6 months ago.

          If you'd been to China recently, you'd know it isn't at all socialistic. Newspapers don't paint a very clear picture of things. It's somewhere between oligarchic, fascist and anarchic. But it's not socialistic at all. It used to be Maoist, distinct from Marxist Lenninist and also distinctly different from the socialistic governments of Europe. But China has changed a lot recently.

          Anyway, if you're 16 you can do whatever you want in a netbar. Watch porn. Play CS. Whatever.

          It's fair that the previous poster brought up the notion of standards. The US has to live by the same standards it applies to other nations. In China there's no age limit on alcohol or cigarette purchases. In the US, there is. Does this make the US a totalitarian state? I don't think it does. What has happened here is as 'totalitarian' as a rigid enforcement of the US movie rating system. And it's hard to tell from the article what the situation is on the ground. Sometimes, 'crackdowns' are ignored by business owners, who comply as superficially as possible. It's hard to tell how seriously people are taking this.

          Of course, the US is more tolerant of violence than some cultures. Other non Judeo-Christian cultures are a lot more tolerant of sex.

          • Anyway, if you're 16 you can do whatever you want in a netbar. Watch porn. Play CS. Whatever.

            In that respect, yes, China is less totalitarian than the U.S., as they allow things like porn at a lower age than we do...

            But how about free-speech restrictions [cnn.com] (can you talk about Tianenman there?)? Forced prison-labor camps? Childbirth restrictions (1 child per woman, last I checked)? These are not the policies of a non-totalitarian society.

            In China there's no age limit on alcohol or cigarette purchases.

  • So what ! (Score:5, Informative)

    by shancock ( 89482 ) * on Sunday October 31, 2004 @10:10AM (#10678515)
    That is .009% of all the bars checked. Maybe they were selling booze or crack also. Who knows. I'm sure .009% of any 1.8 million sites anywhere may need 'rectification'. This is much ado about nothing, unless we are concerned about the civil rights of minors in China not being able to play some video games. This is in China, where there are many more serious human right problems than this.

    Again....so what!
    • This is much ado about nothing, unless we are concerned about the civil rights of minors in China not being able to play some video games.

      Well, and the ability of the population at large to access information freely through 'internet bars'.

      Does nobody here even think of the possibility that these adult games might be being used as a pretext for a crackdown on free access to information?

      • Well, and the ability of the population at large to access information freely through 'internet bars'.

        Does nobody here even think of the possibility that these adult games might be being used as a pretext for a crackdown on free access to information?
        Sure, if the storry was about USA internet cafes, I would imediatly think about used as a pretext.

        With which right do you asume that every action of an authority in China is: antidemocratic, anti human rights, anti free information?

        Isn't USA the country w

    • I always make stupid mistakes but... (Score:5, Informative)

      by cubeleo ( 782919 ) on Sunday October 31, 2004 @10:22AM (#10678564)
      18000/1800000 = .01 .01 * 100 = 1% Isn't that right? I'd say 1% is a lot more significant. More than a few outliers. Less of a "struck by lightning" or "winning the lottery" type proportion.
      • Read the whole post, they closed 1,600, not 18,000. The 18,000 figure is the ones ordered to "stop operation for rectification," which isn't explained but is clearly differentiated from those which were closed. Probably means they were temporarily closed until they got their act together.
      • 1,350,000,000 Chinese. (Give or take.)

        18,000,000 bars checked. (One for every 75 people.) That's not bad. That would be the equivalent of 3.9 million bars in the U.S.*

        18,000 bars need "rectification." That probably means they were fined and told to do X, Y, and Z. Only 1% of bars needed to be rectified. These bars remained open.

        1,600 bars were completely shut down. That means out of all the bars, 0.0089% were shut down. One out of every 1,000 were fined/rectified. 1 out of every 11,250 were shut down. Wh
        • Its 1.8 million bars, not 18 million. 1 bar for every 750 people, equivelent to 390,000 bars in the US 1% of bars needed rectification (1 out of every 100) .089% were closed (1 out of every 11,250)
      • Uh, I think you've got one zero too many in that first number. So, the figure is under 0.1%, which is less significant by an order of magnitude.
    • So THAT'S where you get crack...!

  • Good movement from China's Gov. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by gustgr ( 695173 ) <gustgr@gma[ ]com ['il.' in gap]> on Sunday October 31, 2004 @10:10AM (#10678516)
    i completelly agree with China's Government behavior. I support children and teenagers having contact and learning with the computer, but playing violent games is far from what the word learning really means.

    This young kids should be learning to read source code and hack it, or how to use the internet to do interesting research. Playing this kind of game just alienate the kids making them dumbasses (all right, I know slashdot is also alienating and prejuciail to my health, but I can't avoid it).
    • There is a group of people who are supposed to do all the things you want the Chinese government to do, they are called PARENTS! You don't need the government to do their job.

      • Re:Good movement from China's Gov. (Score:5, Insightful)

        by gustgr ( 695173 ) <gustgr@gma[ ]com ['il.' in gap]> on Sunday October 31, 2004 @10:20AM (#10678554)
        If this group of people could solve anything effectivelly we wouldn't need to worry about drug and alchool problems, just to mention a few. Children do not know what is good for them, and if the parents cannot handle them I believe the Gov. should take the responsabilities.

        • Re:Good movement from China's Gov. (Score:4, Insightful)

          by KublaiKhan ( 522918 ) on Sunday October 31, 2004 @10:28AM (#10678584) Homepage Journal
          The government should *not* take the responsibility. It never works.

          A better idea would be parenting classes, offered freely, and perhaps mandatory for first tiem parents.
          After all, before there was the nice government to take care of us, how the hell did kids get raised, anyway?

        • Re:Good movement from China's Gov. (Score:3, Insightful)

          by Anonymous Coward
          Children do not know what is good for them

          Neither do most adults, as a matter of fact. Maybe we should pass laws saying adults can't play "violent video games". You guys wouldn't mind that, would you? Additionally, I see absolutely nothing wrong with children playing violent games. Violence is a part of the human psyche and, if expressed in a harmless way, can be very beneficial. In any case, the last thing I want for myself or my children is some prudish government telling us what we can and can't pla
        • Children do not know what is good for them, and if the parents cannot handle them I believe the Gov. should take the responsabilities.

          You think the government knows what's best for them?

          NewsFlash: The government only knows what is best for IT.
        • Your telling me that you think the government has "effectivelly" solved drug and "alchool" problems?
      • Then why do nearly all countries have age limits on purchasing cigarettes, alcohol and DVDs? Parents cannot control their children 100% of the time, so Governments must place limits on what retailers can sell this demographic, and the Government must also punish those retailers that do not follow the rules, or go against their spirit.
    • Maybe we should learn them how to write first. My apologies if you are dyslexic, but even then you could have someone look at your signature first.
    • This young kids should be learning to read source code and hack it, or how to use the internet to do interesting research.

      Absolutely! We need to carpet-bomb China with Gentoo install CDs immediately! Then they can use their bandwidth for something useful, like downloading the latest and greatest source code, instead of silly talk talk stuff.

    • Re:Good movement from China's Gov. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by ctr2sprt ( 574731 ) on Sunday October 31, 2004 @11:03AM (#10678724)
      Or they might have shut down the bars because people were using them to express pro-democracy viewpoints on blogs, bypass the Great Firewall, etc., and the whole "save the children" story is a complete fabrication.

      Don't take anything China says at face value. This is not a free country we're talking about here. They release only that information which makes them look good to other countries, and if they haven't got any suitable information to release, they will make something up.

      • Thank you for your sanity. Only a loon would equate Chinese society and Western society.

        In the USA long after the Patriot Act was enacted, huge numbers of demonstrators packed the streets to protest the Iraq War. The American government, reflecting the will of the American people, defended their civil right to protest.

        By contrast, if huge numbers of demonstrators packed the streets of Beijing to protest the rape and slaughter of Tibetan nuns [tibet.org], then the Chinese police and the regular Chinese people would k

    • I was attracted to computers by videogames. The first thing I ever did with a computer (besides a console game system, specifically the Atari 2600) was play video games... I believe my first time :) was autobahn on the Apple //c or ][c or IIc or however they labeled that thing. I just didn't have the attention span for programming then, but since it's become (on some scale) a required part of my work and hobbyism involving computers. Games aren't all bad and no one has ever shown a direct link between viole
      • Hmm. autobahn on the Apple, GTA4? ... they're not quite the same thing are they?

        Perhaps if your first introduction to video games was Halflife, GTA, or similar, you wouldn't have grown up to be the well-rounded individual you are today.

        Unfortunately the only way we have of checking whether this link is true is to allow kids to play the games, watch the movies, read the sicko internet sites, and then see (when you're a pensioner) whether Kubrick's vision of a clockwork-orangesque world comes true.

        Me? I th
    • I completely disagree. Rarely is someones first experience with computers programming them.

      I dont mind children seeing the potential of computers. Its exciting and motivating. Children are not too stupid to understand what is fake and what is not. I for one to not believe violent games desensitizes anyone. I played them for years and years, and when I saw a guy shot in the head in front of me, i was very sensitive to it.
    • Excellent troll. Bravo. I'm surprised people couldn't see that your post is funny.

  • This is news? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Ann Elk ( 668880 ) on Sunday October 31, 2004 @10:11AM (#10678525)

    Wouldn't the exact same thing happen in other countries (including the U.S.) if businesses were making adult-only games available to children?

    • Re:This is news? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by a_hofmann ( 253827 )
      The article states that 1.8 million internet bars have been inspected between February and August, of which 1600 where shut down.

      That's a quite staggering number of inspections, and it leaves me wondering about the vast resources at hand for governmental control in China.

      On topic, I don't think such measures to be effective. Restrictive law cannot replace proper education, as people can always work around law.
      • That's something like 10,000 a day. If a single person were able to check 10 a day they'd need 1000 people in the field.

        1.8 million/6 months = 300,000/month

        300,000/30 days = 10,000/day

        With a population over 1.3 Billion, that doesn't seem so staggering.
      • It is quit normal for goverments to inspect all kinds off things. Food regulations in all the food preperation areas two times per year. Every person getting onboard an aircraft. Every car every couple of years. And so on and so on.

        China is huge. I am slightly more puzzled about the huge number of internet bars. Even with a billion residents it seems high. But then they might not have home internet so have a higher demand for internet cafes. Since most responsible goverments check bars anyway for food regu

    • Probably, although here the only adult-only games are pornographic in nature. Shutting down a venue for allowing kids to play violent games requires passing a law, because video game ratings are not mandatory. Well, they're mandatory if you want to sell your game at wal-mart, but other than that...

  • Not to be flamebait or anything.... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by KublaiKhan ( 522918 ) on Sunday October 31, 2004 @10:14AM (#10678534) Homepage Journal
    But it seems that this is what happens when a country is allowed any sort of say in what constitutes "acceptable" use of anything. It's more or less well known that China's been firewalling off various chunks of the internet for years [ can't let those subversive ideas in, y'know, the citizenry might get a notion to revolt ] and this would just be more of the same.

    Keep in mind, however, there are some parts of the United States that have a similar mindset. I mind me of the Maine library association....there were grants given out to give them internet access, but with a catch, that they had to have filtering software installed. Of course, many people cried "censorship!" and let slip the dogs of protest, but in the end, the puritans fought harder to keep all the corrupting influences from our youth, etc, etc.

    Forgive my rambling...I'm not caffeinated yet. ^^;

  • 1.8 million internet bars (Score:4, Insightful)

    by bani ( 467531 ) on Sunday October 31, 2004 @10:20AM (#10678555)
    china's population is approx. 1.3 billion.

    1.8 million internet bars means approx. 1 internet bar per 721 population.

    to put that in perspective, a city of 30,000 would have 41 internet bars...

    i'd like to know what counts as an "internet bar" though. anyone know what a typical chinese "internet bar" is like?

    • Re:1.8 million internet bars (Score:5, Informative)

      by Cyberblah ( 140887 ) on Sunday October 31, 2004 @10:30AM (#10678602) Homepage
      I doubt it was "typical", but when I was in Xian this summer I saw a rent-a-terminal type internet place (there was no bar or food being sold, although there was a KFC next door) on the bottom floor of a large computer market. There were dozens of machines, about half of them were in use, and most of them were playing either Counterstrike or Diablo, and a few were plying Warcraft 3.
    • A typical internet bar is a loud video arcade where a lot of teenagers are playing MMORG's and downloading mp3's. When you log into one of those machines, you get this huge menu of all of the games that you can play, and they are really cheap , (about 10 cents/hour).

      There is no way one could operate in the United States. Almost all of the software used in the internet bars is pirated, and anyone in the US who tried to set an internet bar up in the United States would get instantly shut down for copyrigh

  • Nice pretext... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 31, 2004 @10:22AM (#10678566)
    With the dictators in Beijing bent on preventing access to independent (western) news, having smut as a pretext to close down internet cafes is pretty welcome. Probably the crime was actually to let customers read the New York Times. In China communists eyes, that is high treason. After all, they have their Great Firewall to prevent access to porn, haven't they?

    • Re:Nice pretext... (Score:2, Informative)

      by nomadic ( 141991 )
      With the dictators in Beijing bent on preventing access to independent (western) news, having smut as a pretext to close down internet cafes is pretty welcome. Probably the crime was actually to let customers read the New York Times. In China communists eyes, that is high treason. After all, they have their Great Firewall to prevent access to porn, haven't they?

      It's not about communism; China really isn't communist anymore. They're extremely capitalistic, and also extremely authoritarian, with an unhealt

    • Re:Nice pretext... (Score:2, Informative)

      by tek314159 ( 730705 )
      Let me preface this by saying that I'm an American living in China now, and have been for the three of the last four years.

      Internet cafes are rarely about reading anything. In all my visits to internet 'bars', I've only seen a handful of people reading articles, or news websites. They're all there to chat, play online games, or look at smut.

      Closing 18,000 bars barely affects anyone. There's an internet bar on practically every block, so those that have been closed probably were doing something wrong. It's
    • Probably the crime was actually to let customers read the New York Times. In China communists eyes, that is high treason.

      I guess China wants to limit access, only allowing specific brands of fabricated news.
  • You've got to be kidding me? I dought there are more than 100 full time internet cafes in the entire US. Not counting the 6 that are opening and closing in any particular state at any giving moment. I've only ever seen one stable one in the entire down town Minneapolis area, and that one only makes money because they have a bakery.
    • Your analogy to Minnesota is somewhat faulty. In Minnesota, a large percentage of the population can afford a PC and hae easy access to high speed internet. Compare that to China and I think you will see why there are more bars there than in Minnesota. Hell, even in Japan which is the 2nd biggest economy on Earth, it really isn't uncommon for people not to have PCs, even if they can afford a cheap one. Thus there is usually 1 small internet cafe in every town.
      • It has less to do with what one can afford than with what kids do for kicks on a Saturday night. I think there was something or other here on /. for some time back about a similar phenomenon in South Korea (can't be bothered to search now). Some kiddies go to the movies or sneak into the pub, in China they go to the Internet café to play "adult" games. Hence a large number of Internet cafés.

        Add to that all the tourists in China. While most tourists do not want to spend all their time in front of

  • That's sort of scary if you think about it, as the rest of the world matures, they will be poised to take over due to the sheer quantity of 'young adults' in their prime condition to fight a war.

    • Good thing they don't have the economy or technology to arm them all with modern weapons, eh? :)

      • Dont bet on it...the chinese have a relatively advanced home grown missle capability and are becoming more advanced all of the time. They have the money to buy and European nations, especially France are willing to sell them high technology and dual use items. A war with China sometime in the next 50 years is a very real possibility if things keep going the way the are...an aggressive and ambitious China, widening trade defecit, increased competition for scare natural resources, and two powerful militaries

    • That's sort of scary if you think about it, as the rest of the world matures, they will be poised to take over due to the sheer quantity of 'young adults' in their prime condition to fight a war.

      What's scary is the prospect that my tax dollars might have paid for the school that was supposed to teach you basic math.

      Think about 18% one more time, and how much that is. Consider how old people generally live to be.

      A histogram of China's age structure looks quite similar to those of western countries.

      • You forgot to factor in the fact they have more citizens then any other country on earth. ( and one that has specifically stated they hate us all and want to take over )

        Then throw in the 18%... You should then see my point.

        Also, most developed countries are top heavy currently. You seem to have forgot that.
        • i'm too tired to look up the average mass of a chinese citezen, the ratio of the main components of the mixture we call a human body, the heat of vaporization and boiling point of those materials, and the amount of energy released by an average nuclear bomb so ill approximate it

          18%*lots*good amount of heat [is less than] lots more energy*lots of bombs

  • Doesn't sound much special (Score:4, Informative)

    by grumbel ( 592662 ) <grumbel+slashdot@gmail.com> on Sunday October 31, 2004 @11:02AM (#10678717) Homepage
    While 1'600 sounds like a pretty huge number, the closing and the fines itself doesn't sound so much special if it is really true that they let children play adult games. After all in germany similar things[1] have happened and I am sure that if young children would use internet cafe to watch porn the US authorities wouldn't be much pleased either.

    [1] http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/33234

  • You believe them? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by HangingChad ( 677530 ) on Sunday October 31, 2004 @11:10AM (#10678764) Homepage
    If you believe the official news coming out of China, then you probably also believe Fox News really is fair and balanced and that the new Iraqi Information Minister, Dick Cheney, is telling the truth about what's going on in Iraq.

    We don't know why they shut them down. More likely because some of the users were finding their way around the government approved web sites.

  • Or is China starting to get worst all of a sudden? The Chinese people need to stand up for themselves. A revolution is in order.
    • They laready had one. Once a commie, always a commie.
    • if there's ONE thing they don't need is another 'cultural revolution' or crap like that. (ie. smashing shit for the sake of smashing shit while some top guys play smoke and mirrors on millions of people, while they just used it to get rid of some rivals.. the worst kind of 'revolution' there is)

      however.. as i'd take it be almost certain that in just about _every_ internet bar over there minors get to play cs & other killing games, it makes the reasoning for shutting down these particular 1600 a bit fis
  • If I was rectified by the Chinese Government, it could be quite uncomfortable. No sitting for months for those Cyber Bar proprietors.

    Not trolling, just having a laugh people. Sounds like a nasty situation for the Chinese populace.


  • China inspected a grand-total of 1.8 million bars, and ordered about 18,000 of those bars to "to stop operation for rectification"

    That's Chinese for "bend over and spread 'em."

  • They get to make their own rules of what is morally acceptable and what isn't.

    We don't have the right to dictate our concept of morality to them. ( nor does it work in reverse.. )

    Let them make their own decisions. Now, when you discuss the fact they restrict others from leaving that don't agree, we have something to talk about, but we don't have a right to demand they follow our values....

  • Question... (Score:4, Funny)

    by KrackHouse ( 628313 ) on Sunday October 31, 2004 @11:45AM (#10678994) Homepage
    How do you say Patriot Act in Chinese?

  • Two wrongs don't make a right (Score:3, Interesting)

    by wheelbarrow ( 811145 ) on Sunday October 31, 2004 @01:48PM (#10679658)
    There is a reaction that quickly happens every time Slashdot has an article on China's suppression of free speech and association. Apologists for China always trot out past transgressions committed by the USA government. How is that relevant? Does a bad act comitted by the USA give China a 'free' bad act? Aren't Tianenman Square and Kent State both wrong on fundamental moral principle? Why would anyone use one to excuse the other?

    I think most people are uncomfortable making moral judgements these days. I'm not. I judge this action by China to be wrong. This is true whether you hate George Bush or not.
  • Don't you get it, this is exactly the reason why countries around the world dislike the United States.

    Democracy is good, but its not for everyone.

    If you're forcing democracy down its throat, you're only gonna end up harming yourself. Just like how the Bush Administration is trying to push democracy in the Middle-East.

    The people are not ready yet!

    Other forms of government can be just as effective. So they are different, well thats culture for you!

    And China' ain't bad, they are opening up, I've

  • WTF? (Score:5, Informative)

    by Epcoatl ( 822683 ) on Sunday October 31, 2004 @04:31PM (#10680506)
    This is my first post, so please gentle. I am Chinese-American who emigrated to the US at a very young age and has since then returned as a study abroad student. I have been in many a "wangba" [Chinese for internet cafe] and I want to put all of this non-sense in perspective: 1.)Dissidents don't usually frequent wangbas because doing something politically insensitive in a wangba doesn't just endanger yourself, it endangers the owners and potentially the other patrons. 2.)It's mostly kids at these wangbas, doing exactly what the government says it's cracking down on: downloading porn and playing CS [and they were scary good at the latter; I'm a fairly competent CS player, but in this tiny ass village in Southwest China without even a single paved road I got my ass handed back to me by these 13 year old kids] 3.)The Great Firewall is about as effective as the regular Great Wall was, which is to say, it's not terribly effective. I would have to say I've been to two dozen different wangbas all over China, and it's hit or miss whether or not I can access the so called prohibited sites. New York Times was okay in most places, ditto with CNN. All the Tibetan Independence sites [I tried out of curiosity] were much more frequently blocked, and Amnesty Int'l is similarily more difficult to access. This leads into my fourth point... 4.)There are 1.8 million [that's million] of these wangbas all over China. 1.8 million. The way the Chinese government is set up, with it's extremly heirarchical (sp?), top-down, Central to Regional to Provincial to Local structure, the only way the government can manage to keep track of all of those 1.8 million internet bars is through one of those ubiquitious government "anti-something" campaigns, and even then only for a very short period of time before the various levels of the heiarchy return back to their normal state of resistance/grudging cooperation with each other. Basically, not only was the number of 18K bars shut down ridiculously small, there's a good chance, now that the government anti-smut/anti-video game violence/anti whatever campaign is over, that a good deal of those bars shut down would open themselves up, with the implicit approval of the local authorities, without so much as an iota of "rectification" carried out. This is just the way the Chinese government works, in all it's magnificently inefficient glory. 5.)Contrary to the generally libertarian impulse here in the US, I would have to say that a vast majority of the Chinese people would expect the government to creat and enforce morality laws. Whether you agree with it or not, or if you think that that isn't the "natural" and correct way for a government to act, it's what the Chinese expect the government to do for them. They have a very different set of implicit expectations for what a government does and what it's responsible for, and especially what its role in society is. I haven't been closely following this latest anti-violence/anti-smut campaign very closely, but I would hazard a guess that the campaign was mostly either received with a lukewarm welcome or total indifference. If the government goes over the bounds and uses this campaign as an excuse to shut down some wangbas or other internet meeting places for allowing access to politically sensitive information, then a great majority of the population would see that as an acceptable trade-off for dealing with the preceived problem of underage access to porn and violent games. This is simply how the society and the culture are in China. I'm not saying if it's right or wrong, but I'm just saying that's reality, and in reality, [here comes the really overextended metaphor] a boiling hot sulphur spring might seem like perfect hell for you but I bet the thermophile organisms that thrive there can't imagine any other way to live.

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