China’s war on pornography was launched in 2004. In this post, I will provide quotes and links from 2004 to 2011 so we may track the progress of China’s porn combat. There was a lot of material for this topic so I restricted it to one pull quote per year.
In July 2004, Danwei reported, “Xinhua quotes an unnamed official who says China is going to wage a ‘people’s war against porn’: Pornographic activities have been rampant online in recent years, and have severely damaged social style, polluted the social environment, and harmed the physical and psychological health of the young people, said the official, who is also a state councilor and minister of public security.”
In 2005, Arts Technica.com reported, “The Chinese government regularly censors Internet content in an effort to diminish the distribution of politically subversive material, but now the communist state is expanding its control and targeting Internet pornography web sites as well. According to a Chinese government official, 221 people have been arrested, and almost 600 web sites have been shut down since March in a crackdown on ‘obscene’ Internet content.”
In 2006, Why We Worry.com reported, “Chen Hui was sentenced to a life in jail on Wednesday for having created the largest porn site in China… Xinhua News Agency said judges at the Taiyuan Intermediate People’s Court in Shanxi province gave the life sentence to Chen Hui and handed down terms of 13 months to 10 years to eight others after they were convicted of profiting from pornographic dissemination.
“Chen, 28, and his accomplices started the Qingseliuyuetian (Pornographic Summer) Web site in 2004, and opened a further three porn Web sites, attracting more than 600,000 users.”
In 2007, Spam Fighter.com reported, “Virtually, 5,000 websites were shut down, 270 culprits detained, and more than 160,000 of harmful materials was seized in the one month long assault that China made on online pornography, as reported by state media.
“Despite a drastic drop, cyber porn is still a concern,” Public-Security Vice Minister Zhang Xinfeng said this while calling for extra efforts for bringing the domestic cyber porn under control, and blocking its overseas sources.
In 2008, the Financial Times reported, “China has vowed to drive on with its multi-ministry crackdown on online pornography until after the Beijing Olympics, extending a campaign that last year led to the detention of 868 people and the deletion of 440,000 prurient postings.
“Publicly prudish Communist party leaders bill the action as a vital part of a wider drive to ‘purify’ the internet by eliminating immoral or politically dangerous content.”
In 2009, English People.com reported, “China shut down or blocked more than 140,000 mobile WAP sites offering pornography for mobile phone users in a five-month crackdown, an official said Monday.”
In 2010, Natural Order Guild.com reported, “China’s anti-pornography campaign shut down more than 60,000 pornographic websites this year, with police investigating almost 2,200 criminal cases, the state-run Xinhua news agency reported Thursday. Wang Chen, director of the Information Office of the State Council, said at a news conference that some 350 million pieces of pornographic and indecent internet content were eliminated, according to the Xinhua report.
“Overall, the campaign included 2,197 criminal cases involving 4,965 people who violated Chinese law by disseminating pornography via the internet or mobile phones, the news agency said. Of those, 58 people received prison sentences exceeding five years, the report said.”
Then in August 2011, The Wall Street Journal reported, “Beijing’s war against pornography is infamous for producing an inordinate amount of collateral damage… Despite the sledge-hammer strategy, sex scholar Katrien Jacobs says in an interview published Tuesday by the Web magazine Danwei, China’s guardians of public morality are losing, badly…”
Is anyone surprised?
As a comparison — since 1990 (a period of more than twenty years compared to the eight for China’s war on porn), China arrested 30 high profile democracy advocates with others on watch lists similar to America’s list of state enemies, which has about 21,000 names of known or suspected terrorists on it. “Both U.S. intelligence and law enforcement communities and foreign services continue to identify people who want to cause us harm…” Source: CBS News.com
China’s list has nineteen names of people to be arrested on entry to China; fourteen that are to be refused re-entry and nineteen to be dealt with “according to the circumstances of the situation”.
Compare those numbers with the numbers of China’s alleged lost war waged on porn and what does that tell us? From the numbers, it appears that the Chinese people have spoken with their actions that say pornography is desired more than democracy.
And let’s not forget that in 1982, the U.S. Supreme Court added child pornography as another category of speech excluded from First Amendment protection. In addition, the US Congress made this a crime that might lead to a life sentence in jail.
Return to China’s Porn War – Part 2 or start with Part 1
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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of My Splendid Concubine [3rd edition]. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the lusty love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.
Finalist in Fiction & Literature – Historical Fiction
The National “Best Books 2010” Awards
Honorable Mentions in General Fiction
2012 San Francisco Book Festival
2012 New York Book Festival
2012 London Book Festival
2009 Los Angeles Book Festival
2009 Hollywood Book Festival
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iLook China 
It’s a lost war. I could walk on Nanjing Road after 11pm and find a few pimps with videos of their girls on the phones. I dont really see how deleting images on the net is going to solve anything.
Also, China is a major artistic nation. Even in the ancient days of the Warring States Period, the Chu were known as skilled artisans. I’ve read in books that suggest it might’ve been Chu craftsmen that made the famous terracotta warriors for the Qin emperor. Their buidings are very artistic in architectural design. Their paintings focus on the scene as opposed to the western style which focuses on the person. What I dont understand is why would they attempt to stop what some consider art?
On a side note, the list of people barred from China doesnt include westerners that have had a run-in with the immigration does it? I’m just curious if my 2nd attempt will require more than a simple visa agent or if they’ll even let me through customs.
Merlin,
There is no way to know if a Visa to go to China will be accepted or not. Since you will have to go to the closest Chinese consulate and apply for a Visa to enter China, if they reject you, then you will know. However, even if you land in China and they decide not to let you through customs, all they do is put you on the next flight back to the US, so it might be wise to buy an open ticket that can be easily transferred to another flight.
From what I’ve read, if you land in China and are asked as you go through customs to show them a credit card, you are on the way home without setting foot outside the terminal.
This also applies to the US that now has this no fly list with tens of thousands of names on it. I’ve read of people with the same name that were not the real person on the list but because they had the same name, they were banned.
That’s a bit extreme to put everyone with the same name on a no-fly list. Reminds me of my Pakistani business professor years ago. He was contacted by the FBI and interrogated numerous times after 9/11.
Thanks for the tip about the credit card. That’s kinda why I was considering going indirectly.
I have thought about Japan. I’ve always wanted to spend a day or two to visit my 2 friends near Kyoto. I see on some travel sites that the cheap airfare for June will be going through Narita, so I thought about just going there and then grab the ferry from Osaka. The ferry is only 2 nights to China.
If that is not a feasible option, there’s always the land borders from HK, Vietnam, Mongolia, etc.
Just want to go back and telecommute or something. I’m finishing a degree online, so I can go anywhere there is internet. If I can manage to find a job that will take me even though my degree is a work in progress, it’d make my day because I’d be getting my foot in the door. Once the degree is in hand, my next goal is pushing for Japan. I am curious about their lifestyle and diet as I’ve heard Japanese are healthy even though they eat seafood with rice, and live on a radioactive fault line.
Merlin,
If you are planning on visiting Japan, I recommend that you read “Getting Oriented: A Novel about Japan” by Wally Wood.
http://www.amazon.com/Getting-Oriented-Novel-about-Japan/dp/1463525281/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1334267813&sr=1-1
Thanks for the suggestion. I’ve always loved japanese animation because it contained a life lesson in the story.
Also, one reason why I am holding back on my own book is because like the author said, “The reader needs to be impressed by the characters. Otherwise, they’ll throw it away.” At my part time catering job for a pizza restaurant, I have had a few ask me about China. When I give them the 2-3 minute summary, they are busy texting their friend and walking away saying, “Oh. Sounds fun.” China was beautiful, the drugged lady that took me for a walk in the park was crazy (and amazing), and trying to sleep in jail while 2 guys were playing find the stick are not eye poppers? No need to answer. Apparently a romance involving a vampire and a highschool girl is better.
Anyways, thanks for the suggestion. Sounds like a good book.