August 2, 2002

The Chinese Columbine

Continued from page 1

By Henry Jenkins

On the one hand, the government sees the high-tech sector as central to China's long term economic interests, especially since joining the World Trade Organization last year. For example, the Shanghai schools now require all nine-year-olds to learn basic Internet skills. On the other hand, anti-computer rhetoric proliferates.

Parents worry that their kids stay out all night at the local cyber cafes and fall behind in their studies. In a country that places high value on family and community, the Internet is also perceived as socially isolating. One distinguished Chinese news anchor claimed that the Internet was preventing young people from developing a meaningful relationship with television, costing broadcasters a generation of potential consumers. The impact of Western "media trash" is feared not only by state authorities but also by members of the public, anxious to preserve cultural traditions virtually eradicated by the Cultural Revolution and only now regaining ground.

Seeking to protect youth from pornography, violence, superstition, and "pernicious information" (i.e. Western news), the state imposed strict new policies several years ago. No one under 16 can enter an Internet cafe unless accompanied by a teacher, and 16 to 18-year-olds can only go online after school hours or during vacations. Cafe owners are held legally responsible for the material their patrons access. The computers are directly linked to police headquarters, and an alarm rings when patrons access an inappropriate or prohibited Web site.

Of course, these restrictions only apply to "legal" Internet cafes. By some estimates, 50 to 90 percent of the cyber cafes in Beijing operate underground and have become the center of a thriving youth culture where teens come to play videogames, watch porn, and access western news. The Lanjisu Cyber cafe, the unlicensed operation where the tragedy occurred, offered a typical discount-students could go online all night for roughly $1.50. When the cafe had reached full capacity, they simply locked their doors. When the outer door burst into flames, the patrons had no escape.

Where does blame lie? Could our own culture warriors have resisted pointing out that the two boys involved were gamers? Could liberals have resisted observing the inconsistency of draconian social regulations combined with neglect of illegal operations? Doubtful.

Asked about whether media influences contributed to their misconduct, many Chinese acknowledge some concern. Yet, they were reluctant to find systemic causes for such an unprecedented act, noting the low rate of juvenile crime overall. Most Chinese explanations focus on the boys' broken and tragic home lives. Additionally, they had been treated with indifference by school authorities and neglected by their neighbors. These troubled boys rapidly became poster children for the breakdown of social ties within the dwindling courtyard communities, which many see as symptomatic of urban China's modernization and privatization.

The fires and the resulting crackdown can both be read as complex social and political reactions to rapid change. Whether understood as a product of the breakdown of traditional culture and community or of the uneven regulation of the emerging cyberculture, the incident reveals points of tension in the way that China is dealing with the combined forces of modernization, westernization, and commercialization. In such a charged context, the Chinese government has become increasingly reactive. Unable to respond to all trouble spots, they shift attention abruptly, literally and metaphorically putting out fires where they must and turning a blind eye when they can. The government was certainly using the fires as a pretext to reign in the emerging cyberculture, but they were also reassuring the public that they were ready to confront and master their own future shock. As in most moral panics, they acted because they were expected to do something, even if it were wrong. And when governments reach that state, they usually choose the wrong actions.

I wonder, how differently would this issue have played itself out in the United States?