Mass Shutdown of Chinese Internet Cafes

The government of a northern Chinese province has ordered hundreds of internet cafes closed as part of a nationwide crackdown provoked by a fatal fire in Beijing last month.

An officer at the public security bureau in Hebei province, a densely populated and urbanised area that surrounds Beijing, said that 528 cafes were ordered closed immediately on the grounds that they were fire hazards.

The cafes had "serious safety problems," the Beijing Morning Post reported on Monday. It said the government had checked 3,813 internet cafes in Hebei since June 17 and had found 2,892 "hidden dangers that could lead to fire" - including blocked exits and unclear security signs.

Twenty-five people were killed on June 16 when a fire broke out in Beijing's unlicensed Lanjisu internet cafe. Most of those killed were college students there for an all-night session playing video games. The owner of the illegal cafe had locked the doors and barred most of the windows. Two teenage boys, aged 13 and 14, have been arrested on suspicion of starting the fire.

Since then, the Chinese government has used the fire as a rationale to crack down on internet cafes both licensed and unlicensed, and provincial and local governments have stepped in line. In Shanghai, for example, authorities closed 244 internet bars that did not meet safety standards.

China, which is extremely sensitive about political discussion and dissent, maintains stringent governmental control over internet content even as it encourages the use of the network for economic purposes. At legal internet cafes, users' web surfing is tracked and attempts to reach forbidden sites are logged.

According to government figures, mainland China had 33.7m internet users at the end of last year, and 12.5m computers connected to the internet. The ministry of culture says only 46,000 of the country's 200,000 internet bars, or wangba, were legally registered before the fire.

The ministry says that from July 1 to August 31, unlicensed cybercafes will be shut down and owners prosecuted. No new internet bars will be allowed to open during that period. Legal cafes have to reregister by October 1 and will have to pass safety inspections.

In recent weeks, the country's state-run media have brimmed with articles on internet cafes and what to do about them. Today, the China Women's News outlined ways to build cleaner, brighter facilities to prevent fires and what it called untoward activities. And the China Consumer Journal ran an entire page of debate about the issue: "Internet bars: should we just ban them all?"