The government reach into their people lives make the West look like a picnic…..
And folks?
China is looking to extend its reach around the planet….
The new rules also reflect the government’s intensifying push for companies to jettison what the Chinese Communist Party says are unhealthy influences, especially among teenagers and children.
“Some teenage kids just won’t listen to their parents’ discipline, and this policy can control them,” said Lily Feng, a company worker in Shenzhen, southern China. She said her 10-year old daughter was less interested in online games than Douyin, the Chinese equivalent of TikTok, but added that the new limits set a good example. “I think this is the right policy; it amounts to the state taking care of our kids for us.”
Last week, the Chinese government initiated a crackdown on teen celebrity worship and fan clubs, warning that celebrities’ pursuit of online followers was warping youths’ value. China’s Cyberspace Administration on Friday banned ranking celebrities by popularity.
Online gaming has been one of the most vibrant and profitable sectors of China’s internet industry, generating billions in revenue from players who pay to take part in online quests, wars and adventures. But there have signs of growing official pressure for the companies to step more strictly in line with the demands for cultural conformity from Xi Jinping, China’s leader.
China’s Ministry of Education in April ordered online gaming companies to ensure that minors could not play from 10 p.m. each school night. In early August, the share prices of Tencent Holdings and other big Chinese video game companies fell sharply after a Chinese newspaper called their products “spiritual opium.” The article singled out Tencent, which owns “Honor of Kings,” a hugely popular game in China….
Hong Kong……
With each passing day, the boundary between Hong Kong and the rest of China fades faster.
The Chinese Communist Party is remaking this city, permeating its once vibrant, irreverent character with ever more overt signs of its authoritarian will. The very texture of daily life is under assault as Beijing molds Hong Kong into something more familiar, more docile.
Residents now swarm police hotlines with reports about disloyal neighbors or colleagues. Teachers have been told to imbue students with patriotic fervor through 48-volume book sets called “My Home Is in China.” Public libraries have removed dozens of books from circulation, including one about the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Nelson Mandela….
Tonga….
It’s the “gulag” that I’ve often thought about in the nearly five years since I left Tonga. Whenever I read another story about Beijing’s globe-spanning Belt-and-Road Initiative, I think of the blue-jumpsuited men. And the headlines about China in the South Pacific just get more frequent. Only recently, China was trying to buy the region’s dominant telecom company, scaring Australia into bidding for it, too.
Tonga’s chain of nearly 170 tiny islands, most of them uninhabited, doesn’t look like much to the average outsider and that’s why it’s such a perfect example of Beijing’s strategy.
No country is too small, and no small country’s affairs too trivial for China to concern itself with in its march for new global order, a “community of common destiny”—defined by cooperation with Beijing. At the same time, Tonga, even among the scattered island nations of the Pacific, also stands out symbolically. Tonga was the only nation in the region that escaped colonization by the West, and its status as one of the world’s last monarchies affords it special recognition. In 2015, one of the Hapsburgs of Europe attended King George VI’s coronation, as did Japan’s then-crown prince and princess who are now emperor and empress. The U.K. even touts the Tongan royals’ ties to the House of Windsor….