China closed over 1,575 Internet cafes in 2004 as part of a nationwide crackdown on Internet porn and other Websites the government deems suspicious or subversive. And it’s estimated the government may have shuttered many more thousands before the crackdown began officially.
“From October to December in 2004, eight ministries including the Ministry of Education, Ministry of Public Security, and the Ministry of Justice, launched a nationwide campaign to close these illegal businesses, which were mainly located nearby primary schools and middle schools,” said China Daily after the totals were released.
That paper also said public security organs in that time broke almost 6,000 criminal cases related to student and teacher safety and arrested over 200,000 persons.
The official New China News Agency said February 13 that the crackdown was started in the interest of “a safer environment for young people in China,” but numerous reports since have pointed to the government’s concern with violent online games and with Websites promoting dissent from government policies and behaviors.
Even before the crackdown began officially last July, reports varied as to how many cybercafes the Chinese government – at the national and regional levels alike – had shuttered. One report suggested the government closed 8,000 of the facilities as of May 2004.
"Some unlicensed Internet cafes, especially in some townships, counties and areas joining town and country, still need to be clamped down on, and some local governments do not impose severe punishment on those cafes who allow the entry of juveniles," Minister of Culture Sun Jiazheng said in a May 2004 report by the official government agency Xinhua. "We must take utmost resolutions and make utmost efforts in the clean-up campaign to achieve our anticipated goal,” Sun continued, “for Internet cafe management has an important bearing on the healthy growing of juveniles."
“[T]he government controls what the public can see online and blocks access to Web sites deemed pornographic or subversive,” said the Associated Press. “Internet cafes are banned near schools and the hours that children can use them are restricted.
The crackdown didn’t just involve porn sites. A number of Chinese-based Weblogs, including Blogbus.com, were shut down at about the same time, after Blogbus.com published a letter and an essay critical of the government.
China’s Internet population – 87 million, with an estimated half of its Netizens 24 years old or younger – is believed to be second in volume only to the United States.
“China welcomes the Internet, as it helps the economy leapfrog into the 21st century, but at the same time it is worried about the way it enables people to access information that is considered subversive,” the Sydney (Australia) Morning Herald said of the cybercafe closures. “In reaction, the government has cracked down hard on Internet cafes, closing down many, and is also monitoring online traffic for content that might be deemed politically sensitive.”
