China Clamps Down on Pop Culture in Bid to ‘Control’ Youth

And as Beijing encourages more births to battle a looming population crisis, Peng told AFP these measures are also an effort to show prospective parents that it is “safe for them to raise their children” in China.

The quality of youth, the Party has determined, is being threatened by the entertainment and culture consumed by China’s youth.

Controlling what China’s youth see, hear and read has long been the policy, with strict internet censorship and crackdowns in recent years on men wearing earrings, tattoos or “vulgar” hip hop lyrics.

Now, this control is being expanded to what young Chinese play too.

Regulators have ordered China’s top gaming firms to rein in “unhealthy tendencies”, and hundreds of firms have vowed as a result not to publish content that promotes “money worship” or is “politically harmful”.

The Party is pushing a very different role model for children — President Xi himself, whose political thought was introduced this term to primary school students.