ANALYSIS: China extends control with online gaming crackdown

BEIJING (AP) — Hugely popular online games and celebrity culture in China are the latest targets in the ruling Communist Party’s campaign to encourage the public to fall in line with its vision for a powerful, more wholesome country.

The message? Play less, study and work more.

Rules that take effect Wednesday cut the amount of game time children are allowed by more than two-thirds to three hours a week. That coincides with a campaign to curb what the party sees as unhealthy attention to celebrities online.

“Adolescents are the future of the motherland,” the Press and Publications Administration said in a statement Monday accompanying the game rules.

The measures add to a drumbeat of initiatives under President Xi Jinping over the past half-decade that are aimed at prodding the public and companies to align with the party's political and economic goals.

“This appears to be part of China’s push to ensure that the government is front and center in all aspects of its citizens’ lives,” said Paul Haswell, who heads law firm Pinsent Masons' technology, media and communications practice for the Asia-Pacific region.

Xi has called for a “ national rejuvenation ” to restore China to its rightful place as a global leader with the ruling party directing areas from economics and technology to culture, education, religion and society.

“The party is the leader of everything,” says a document on “Xi Jinping Theory in the New Era of Chinese Socialism” issued in 2018.

China’s few remaining dissidents have been jailed or intimidated into silence.

The party is rolling out a system known as Social Credit to track every individual and company in China and punish missteps ranging from dealing with business partners that break environmental...