China has a new poster-boy for its radical efforts to curb what
it says is a growing social scourge - internet addiction.
"Surfing is bad for you," says Yang Yang, a lanky 17-year-old,
dolefully, as he describes for the cameras how his obsession with
computer games destroyed his relationship with his father, undermined
his performance in school examinations, and led to declining social
standards among his peers.
"This is our social crisis. I really want to go back to
how my family used to be, pure and simple, but there's no going
back. Who's going to solve this crisis?"
Yang is about to embark on his second round of treatment for
internet addiction at a military-style boot camp, one of several
methods the Chinese government is using to tackle what it claims
to be a massively growing problem.
His case has been taken up by politicians at the current, annual
two-week gathering of the country's parliament, the National People's
Congress, who this weekend took his case to China Central Television,
the mouthpiece of the ruling Communist Party.
"Youth internet addiction has become a very serious social
problem," said Li Chong'an, the deputy chairman of the NPC
legal committee, who is calling for tighter enforcement of the
rules banning under-18s from internet cafes and for a rating system
for games.
"Yang Yang, as an adolescent, seems able to go to any internet
cafe with no questions asked - the owners are breaking the law."
Last week, the government announced that in addition to previous
crackdowns on unregistered internet bars and the under-18 ban,
no new cybercafes would be allowed to open for the rest of the
year.
It blames a wide range of juvenile delinquency, from theft to
rape and robbery, on online gaming, pornography, and cyber "sex-chatting".
In one case, a game player killed another in an argument over
a game, while cases are recorded of unemployed young men playing
until they drop dead from exhaustion.
But rules are only one solution to the problem. The government
is also resting its hopes on clinics and aggressive boot camps
such as the one in the Beijing suburb which Yang Yang attends.
It is run by army medical officers from the Beijing Military
Hospital, who take teenagers through a rigorous programme of exercise,
khaki-clad drills and therapy, beginning with a sergeant-major's
6.15am wake-up call.
"So far we have cured about 70 per cent of the young addicts
we have treated," Tao Ran, the centre's director said last
night. "We give them military drills to build their confidence
and good habits."
China has more than 130 million regular internet-users, according
to government surveys, a figure that puts it behind only the United
States. Mr Tao estimates levels of addiction as up to 10 million.
"Internet addicts in China are as many as 10 years younger
than those in the West," said a report by the Chinese Academy
of Sciences. "They are more susceptible."
Mr Tao's regime is a classic mixture of carrot and stick. The
military style reflects the commitment to discipline which underlies
the Confucian approach to education from ancient times, and has
been reinforced under Communism by regular school yard mass exercises.
At the same time, there is a nod to the western-style therapy.
"We combine medical and psychological treatment together
with the education of children and their families," Mr Tao
said. "We reckon 20 to 30 per cent of these young people
have depression or a compulsive order.
"In my experience 90 per cent of their family show inadequate
personal care for their children. They give them too much in the
way of material possessions, but not enough respect and understanding."
Although state-run, the centre charges hefty fees, around 10,000
yuan (£650) a month to the ambitious middle-class parents
who send their children there. Among its more controversial methods
are the use of drug therapy and acupuncture and mild electric
shocks to "stimulate" positive nerve impulses.
In one more imaginative move, boys, who make up the majority
of those attending, play a "live" version of Counter-strike,
one of the many games to which teenagers are addicted, as a way
of helping them "distinguish between real and virtual worlds".
Internet addiction is a growing problem not only in China but
across Asia. Blame is widely attributed to parents' obsessive
pushing of their children to ever greater academic success.
But in other countries more western cures such as family therapy
are given greater prominence.
The Chinese approach, coupled with the element of propaganda
surrounding the cases of young people like Yang Yang, lead critics
to believe it has a broader aim of instilling ambiguity about
the internet and the freedom it brings.
"I do believe they want to fight this internet addiction,"
said Julien Pain, of Reporters Sans Frontières. "But
with the Chinese government always behind this justification there
is also the will to control political speech.
"If you have thousands of small illegal cybercafes it is
very hard to know who posted what, who downloaded what on the
internet."
