At group discussions of the on-going annual session of the Ninth National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), CPPCC member Wen Kegang raised the cyber cafe problems again.

"Don't let Internet 'net' up our children," he said, using the same vivid language as he did at the last annual CPPCC session.

Children are vulnerable to Internet trash and temptation. Some have even given up their study, immersed themselves in cyber cafe, chatting or playing games. Some have even gone so far as to fall prey of temptation and committed crimes.

His views were echoed by CPPCC member Xu Wenbo, the initiator of the civilized network project.

He said that Internet has indeed provided a colorful platform for access to information and for exchanging ideas and developing potential skills and for entertainment. But it has also brought about some negative effects.

He quoted statistics as saying that there are more than 1,900 cyber cafes in Beijing, mostly illegal, and among the 1.71 million primary and middle school students, 300,000 have had the experience of surfing the Internet and 100,000 have been addicted to Internet surfing or e-games. Most of the cyber cafes are poorly furnished and the environment is harsh, very harmful to children's health.

During the current annual sessions of the CPPCC National Committee and the National People's Congress (NPC), the Central Committee of the China Democratic League (CDL) urged efforts to make laws and regulations bite on Internet management.

The CDL Central Committee also called for tightening control over the contents of Internet information through technical means and for opening websites of public welfare in nature.

The CDL Central Committee voiced its support for building campus websites and stressed the need to give full play to the functions of websites in education, entertainment and exchange of healthy information.

( March 7, 2002)