Strict internet censorship and arrests of bloggers. It is well known that the Chinese government monitors its citizens online. But the Chinese government is not only blocking certain information, it is also embracing the internet as a medium to spread its own truth.
In the Chinese game War of the Resistance Online players can fight virtually against the Japanese who occupied China between 1937 and 1945. Gamers can create their own avatar and fight against the Japanese troops online as a Chinese soldier, agent or doctor together with others.
Within hours of the game's launch in 2007, 100,000 gamers were online at the same time, and additional capacity had to be deployed to prevent the game from freezing. War of the Resistance Online Like other nationalist internet games, it remained hugely popular in China in the following years.
In an article published this month in the Journal of Contemporary China, Oxford University China expert Hongping Annie Nie shows how the Chinese government entered the arena of online games. In close cooperation with companies, the Chinese government is trying to use the world of internet games to increase its own power base.
Electronic heroin
At the end of the last century, the Chinese government did not like computer games at all. They shared the intense concerns of parents and teachers about the addictiveness of games and the exposure of young gamers to extreme violence and pornography. Online games would be the 'electronic opium' of the modern age.
In the 1990s, government policy therefore led to a series of initiatives to close internet cafes and arcades. Nevertheless, the popularity of internet games continued to increase among young people. Most of the games they played came from abroad, but gradually more and more Chinese companies started developing games.
Anti-Japanese games
Several companies in the Chinese game industry tried to capitalize on growing nationalism among Chinese citizens by marketing anti-Japanese war games.
In the mid-1990s, anti-Japanese sentiment in China ran higher and higher. An incident that caused bad blood was, for example, the visit of the Japanese Prime Minister Hashimoto Ryutaro to the Yasukuni Shrine in 1995. This memorial is controversial because after the Second World War, Japanese war criminals were also housed here. With his official visit, the Japanese Prime Minister created the impression in Chinese eyes that he was denying or even approving Japanese war crimes committed in China, such as the Nanking massacre.
The Japanese war game The Admiral's Decree from 1996 was also not well received, Nie mentions. In this computer game, gamers can be part of the Japanese army that occupied China during World War II to loud cheers.
In response to this game, the Chinese company Kingsoft was the first to come up with the computer game Deployment of Mines in the War of Resistance, as China calls the 1937-1945 war with Japan. The launch deliberately took place at the Tianjin Museum, which commemorates the 1937 massacre by the Japanese army of the people of the Chinese city of Nanking. In this way the nationalistic slant of the war game was once again underlined.
Legitimate opportunities
Nie emphasizes that the history of Chinese war games shows that nationalism in China is not simply imposed from above. However, Chinese government leaders were quick to fan the flames of nationalism in online games. They realized that computer games could be a way to win over a younger generation.
Nie explains that the Chinese government is struggling to maintain its legitimacy. It is no longer self-evident that the Communist Party is leading the country. That is why the Chinese government is committed to ensuring that the Chinese people continue to accept its leadership. Government leaders see the internet as a 'political, ideological and cultural battlefield'.
The Chinese government was very concerned about the content of the many games imported from abroad. Japanese games would twist history in an anti-Chinese direction, while Western computer games would entice youth to embrace democratic principles. Online games were therefore officially classified as a 'cultural product' and therefore had to be approved by the government.
These and other legal provisions meant that foreign companies could no longer just enter the Chinese computer game market.
Profitable teacher
The Chinese government made the development of Chinese games a top priority in government policy between 2003 and 2009. Chinese companies received all kinds of subsidies and tax breaks to develop computer games, as long as they adhered to the government history books. Online games were henceforth official 'teachers of history and culture'.
Ni, for example, finds it striking that the Nationalist armed forces have also been given a place in online games. The Second World War was a brief interruption in the Chinese civil war from 1927 to 1950. Although the communist victors subsequently reviled their nationalist opponents, the nationalist contribution to the fight against the Japanese has been recognized for some years now. The image that the Chinese government now likes to convey – also in online games – is that of Chinese unity against the foreign enemy.
Chinese companies are happy to accommodate the government in this, Nie says, as long as the government support offers them the opportunity to make huge profits.
Incidentally, online games are not only popular with the government as a new opportunity for propaganda. They also cherish the games industry as an economic growth sector, with a turnover of 25 billion Chinese Yuan (more than 300 million euros) in 2009 in domestic sales. The Chinese government realizes that its power certainly also depends on the growing Chinese economy. As long as prosperity continues to increase, people are less inclined to question the political regime.
Too expensive?
But does participating in online war games reinforce feelings of nationalism among gamers? According to Nie, the computer games as a means of propaganda are not an unqualified success.
The profit motive of companies can seriously hinder the image of Chinese unity. Although the online playing field is free to enter, payment is required for the purchase and maintenance of virtual combat equipment. On online discussion forums, gamers complain that weapons, ammunition and other items cost way too much money. “The rich players don't care,” reports a Chinese gamer, “but the poor players really can't keep up.”
For example, online games give a prominent place to the growing gap between rich and poor in China. Not exactly the harmonious society that the Chinese government is shielding from.
Moreover, the Chinese gamers do not always act as one against the virtual Japanese enemy. In the online war games, Chinese youths organize themselves into various Chinese "gangs" that also fight mutual feuds, just as the Chinese communists and nationalists continued to fight each other during World War II. In that sense, online gamers are getting closer to historical reality than the government with its ideal image of Chinese unity. Chinese propaganda in online games therefore does not necessarily fall on fertile ground.