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Chinese newspaper labels gaming ‘spiritual opium’ and calls out Tencent, fanning fears of a crackdown
- The report from Xinhua-affiliated Economic Information Daily marks a strong attack on the country’s gaming industry and its leading player
- However, the piece shows few signs that it represents the government’s official stance
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A newspaper affiliated with China’s official news agency, Xinhua, has published a report calling online gaming “spiritual opium” that is harming the country’s teenagers and singled out Tencent Holdings, China’s largest video game operator, as a source of the problem.
The piece, published on Tuesday in the investigation section of the Economic Information Daily, marks a strong attack on the country’s gaming industry and its leading player. Coming amid Beijing’s ongoing discipline of China’s Big Tech, the report is fanning speculation that gaming could be the next target following private education. Tencent, which relies on gaming for nearly a third of its revenue, lost over 10 per cent in the morning session in Hong Kong.
In a March speech to representatives of the country’s health care and education sectors, Chinese President Xi Jinping commented on gaming and said addiction to video games is a concern for the psychological health of the youth, Xinhua reported then. Off-campus tutoring, which Xi had called a “social problem” in the same speech, was soon crushed.
The Economic Information Daily report, based on the newspaper’s survey of students at a junior middle school in Sichuan province, shows few signs that it represents the government’s official stance. Previous investigations by the Beijing-based newspaper were wide-ranging from local waterway congestion to wasteful packaging with few stories on the technology sector.
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