Fake China

China is about to re-create itself on a massive scale. This July, the Beijing Cyber Recreation District (CRD), a state-owned enterprise, will launch the first of several "“virtual Chinas" planned for popular online realms known as massive multiplayer online role-playing games. The first "virtual China," which they call "Dotman," will be found inside Entropia Universe, ...

China is about to re-create itself on a massive scale. This July, the Beijing Cyber Recreation District (CRD), a state-owned enterprise, will launch the first of several "“virtual Chinas" planned for popular online realms known as massive multiplayer online role-playing games. The first "virtual China," which they call "Dotman," will be found inside Entropia Universe, a 700,000-player gaming world run by the Swedish technology firm Mindark. Capable of hosting 150 million avatars, or virtual citizens, it will be the largest virtual nation in the world.

China is about to re-create itself on a massive scale. This July, the Beijing Cyber Recreation District (CRD), a state-owned enterprise, will launch the first of several "“virtual Chinas" planned for popular online realms known as massive multiplayer online role-playing games. The first "virtual China," which they call "Dotman," will be found inside Entropia Universe, a 700,000-player gaming world run by the Swedish technology firm Mindark. Capable of hosting 150 million avatars, or virtual citizens, it will be the largest virtual nation in the world.

"We are re-creating China," says Robert Lai, CRD’s chief scientist. "The real China is only a piece of land. We believe that there must be a China in the virtual world and the real world. In the virtual world, people can live a better life that’s more entertaining, more fun."

But China’s rulers have a notoriously authoritarian attitude toward technology, and Beijing’s Internet censorship regime is highly advanced. "The virtual world is much more free, but you also must have some regulations," Lai says. The virtual China will feature many aspects of the real China, including culture, history, and, yes, Chinese law.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Beijing hopes the "virtual China" will mostly emphasize business opportunities, serving as a vast online marketplace where consumers from around the world can buy merchandise (think T-shirts and toys) directly from China. But with hundreds of millions of users, how easy will it be to police? Not very, according to Xiao Qiang, director of the China Internet Project at the University of California, Berkeley, who says any virtual China could quickly become a forum for political dissent. "Even business or entertainment sites [can] instantly become something quite political," says Xiao.

That possibility doesn’t worry Lai. "We focus on business, fun, and life," he says. But it seems unlikely that Beijing will tolerate any more fun in the virtual China than it does in the real one.

Joshua E. Keating was an associate editor at Foreign Policy.

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