China hands out red card to British football video game

Published on Friday 10 December 2004 00:07

CHINA has banned the British computer game Football Manager 2005, saying it violated Chinese law by referring to Taiwan and Hong Kong as separate countries.

A notice on the culture ministry’s website said the game contained "content harmful to China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity ... [that] seriously violates Chinese law and has been strongly protested by our nation’s gamers".

The game, launched on 5 November, is not sold in China and has no Chinese-language version. But government departments have been ordered to search for the game on line and seize copies found in software markets, cyber-cafs and news-stands that sell pirated software.

There was no immediate comment from the game developers, Sports Interactive, or the publisher, Sega Europe, which says the game is its all-time biggest seller.

The ban underscores how sensitive China is to any perceived slight to national prestige as its global economic and political clout continues to grow.

China lays claim to self- governing Taiwan, and recovered Hong Kong from Britain in 1997. The culture ministry said the game also contained references to Tibet, which Chinese troops occupied in 1951, and Macau, a Portuguese colony handed over in 1999.

Foreign firms making everything from mobile phones to packaged food have fallen foul of official sensitivities.

China this week banned a Nike commercial showing the basketball star LeBron James in a mock video game, battling and defeating a kung-fu master, two women in traditional Chinese attire and a pair of dragons. It was deemed blasphemous to Chinese culture.