China’s party state is multiplying disciplinary and regulatory actions that amount to a top down shake up of China’s urban economy and society. This received only limited attention due to the events in Afghanistan dominating the news. The most notable were a succession of societal announcements, which are due to intensify control and eliminate any informal or grey zones that have long coexisted with CCP authoritarianism. To cite just a few examples, they include restricting teens (in the world’s most digitalized society) to three hours of video games a week, banning tutoring schools, which are very common in East Asia, "rectifying" the mass entertainment industry, and going after LGBT behavior or looks. These are all themed challenges to a civil society that had already been rendered politically passive but nonetheless kept important areas of free behavior, including pre-Covid mass tourism abroad.
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