Province acts to curb rise in Covid Delta variant

Beijing imposed restrictions to contain a fresh outbreak of the Delta variant of Covid-19 in the south-eastern Fujian province, with measures including mass testing, suspended transport services and closures of bars and cinemas. There were at least 22 new local cases recorded in Fujian province on Monday. In Putian, a city of 2.9 million people in the province, schools have been closed, and anyone leaving the city must return a negative Covid test.

On the second floor of a nondescript concrete building in north-east Beijing, the Youyou internet cafe is less than half full. It’s quiet and dark, and the customers are all adults, sitting on brown sofas in front of screens set up for hours of comfortable online gaming.

Minors aren’t allowed in, and a poster on the glass entrance reads: “The whole society together cares about the healthy growth of underage teens.” Under new regulations from the Chinese government, minors are limited to just a few hours of gaming a week, with tech platforms ordered to enforce it. The intervention is just one of a recent rush of directives from Beijing aimed at reshaping society. The slew of regulatory overhauls has been swift and dizzying. In recent months, Chinese authorities have come for e-commerce, social media, the $100bn private education industry, artists, celebrities and reality television, affecting individuals from the Alibaba boss Jack Ma to the actor Vicki Zhao.

Last Wednesday, regulators tightened their grip on ride-sharing companies, and separately invited Tencent and NetEase – two internet giants in China – “for a talk”. The terms of the conversation – relayed by Xinhua news agency, the official state media outlet – name-checked traits being targeted in other areas of the pop culture crackdown, including what has been pejoratively described as “sissyness”, and homosexuality.

The push comes at a time when many among Chinese intelligentsia are expressing their fear of the sort of tight control reminiscent of the pre-reform days. The crackdown is having a global impact, too. China is now one of the world’s biggest markets. As offending industries and individuals have been targeted, stock markets have turned skittish, major brands have scrapped deals with celebrities, and foreign film producers and actors have struggled to navigate the increasingly sensitive market.

In response to concerns about specific moves against the social media accounts of K-pop artists – a hugely successful music genre – China’s embassy in South Korea said the crackdown was not targeted at any particular country.

Some say these moves were unsurprising and inevitable. Prof Peixin Cao of the Communication University of China, an institution that has trained much of the country’s TV talent, said: “Recently, there have been frequent occurrences of illegal, wrong or unethical behaviours by celebrities and entertainers in the economic, political and personal fields, which made me feel that the government … [should] put forward new requirements and norms.”

Cao said there had long been calls from parental groups and social science researchers for an intervention into the “negative impact” of the industry on children but the industry had used its economic power and media influence to ignore them.

Recently, the National Radio and Television Administration asked Chinese media to “resolutely resist showing off wealth and enjoyment, hyping up gossip and privacy, negative hot topics, vulgar ‘internet celebrities’ and the bottomless appreciation of ugliness, and other pan-entertainment tendencies”.

But the regulator was also clear that the measures were designed to create an atmosphere of love for the party and the country, as well as respect for morality and art. It asked producers to include political and moral conduct as criteria in the selection of guests and performers.

In some ways, this reflects the party’s long and complicated relationship with popular culture. “On the one hand, the party represents the people and wants culture to be popular,” said Michel Hockx, director of the Liu Institute for Asia and Asian Studies at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana. “On the other hand, they really don’t approve of what the people seem to like.” The party’s stance on culture and whom writers and artists ultimately serve was laid out in a speech by Xi in October 2014. The arts should “serve the people and serve socialism”, Xi told a forum of artists and writers.

But the changes the authorities wish to pursue may not be easy in today’s China, where economic opening and societal change have rewritten parts of the unspoken social contract between the rulers and the ruled.