According to official statistics, over half of children in China are short-sighted, and rates appear to be on the rise.

The recent crackdown on internet companies is another step in this re-emphasis as Xi promotes his vision of “common prosperity.” As Bloomberg reports, this policy – “one where the interests of investors take a distant third place to ensuring social stability and national security” – has enormous consequences, and has already wiped billions of dollars off the value of some of China’s biggest tech companies.Īhmad also mentions the underreported issue of myopia in relation to the restrictions. The revival included introducing “Xi Jinping Thought” into the national curriculum, from primary school up to university, so that “teenagers establish Marxist beliefs”, according to guidelines released by China’s Ministry of Education in 2018.

In short, Beijing wants people to spend less time eyeing celebrities and content that could draw away their admiration. Analysts also predict that live-streaming and video apps will see greater government regulation to tackle “internet addiction,” in a national Marxist revival under Xi Jinping’s leadership. These restrictions are also taking place amid a wider crackdown on China’s entertainment industry, which include punitive measures against online fan clubs and celebrity fan culture (such as the sale of merchandise and websites which rank celebrities), and on tech firms such as Tencent and DiDi. (Console gaming remains a relatively tiny part of China’s enormous gaming scene.) Some 743.5 million people play games in China, according to market research firm Niko Partners, of which around 110 million are under 18. The rules impact every game published in China that can be downloaded or accessed online, affecting mobile games and PC games. If a child exceeds the time limit, a window pops up, leaving little choice but to stop. Many online games in China require ID registration, and for minors signing in, the system logs the time spent playing. These are by far the severest restrictions on game-playing of any country where internet access is widely available. Those under the age of 18 can now only play for one hour, between 8pm and 9pm, on Fridays, weekends, and public holidays. “We found out at the same time as everyone found out.” Xinhua, China’s national wire service, had just announced new limits on the time that Chinese children could spend playing online video games. “We didn’t know anything beforehand,” she says.

A manager at a games publisher in Shanghai, Zhu and her colleagues were blindsided.

Online games laws