China urges IT companies to comply with new online gaming regulations

Chinese officials have summoned officials from large companies, including computer giant Tencent Holdings Ltd., to urge them to strictly adhere to new regulations allowing young people to play online games three hours a week, state media reported.

The move came as President Xi Jinping stepped up measures against obscene and violent content and against those that breed unhealthy tendencies, such as the cult of money, to boost youth development, the said on Wednesday. Xinhua official news agency.

Fears are growing that the performance of IT-related companies will deteriorate in the future, as the Communist-led government begins to tighten controls on online games that Chinese media have recently called “electronic drugs.”

There are also fears that Xi is trying to bring back the 10-year Cultural Revolution initiated in 1966 by then-leader Mao Zedong, the founder of modern China, which historians say has killed tens of millions of people in the country. amid political chaos.

Xi, meanwhile, pledged to step up efforts to curb the monopolistic behavior and disorderly capital expansion of the country’s IT companies, including Tencent, operator of the messaging and payment app WeChat, and Alibaba Group. Holding Ltd.

But the Global Times, a ruling party tabloid, argued that the latest regulations were aimed at establishing a market order for fair competition, ruling out speculation that the government would restrict freedom of economic activity.

WeChat is said to have more than a billion users worldwide. In China, many of its users link their bank accounts or credit cards to its cashless payment service.