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Cyber cafés were once a social hub for China’s twenty somethings – and, for authorities, a convenient way to monitor what Chinese citizens were doing online. But as usage of smartphones and tablet devices expands, internet cafés are becoming the collateral damage in the battle to get the country online.
网吧一度是中国二十几岁年轻人的社交中心。而对于中国政府来说，网吧还是监控中国公民网上所作所为的方便途径。但随着智能手机和平板设备的使用不断普及，网吧正成为网民争夺战的间接牺牲品。
“Several years ago, we were able to get tens of thousands of [renminbi] a day, but now we are only able to earn several thousand,” says Mr Liu, who runs an airy café with around 30 computers in Beijing’s central Chaoyangmen district of offices and shopping malls.
刘先生（他拒绝透露全名）在北京市中心的朝阳门商圈经营着一家网吧，该网吧通风良好，配置了大约30台电脑。刘先生说：“几年前我们一天的收入能有几万元（人民币），但如今每天只能赚到几千块钱。”
The spread of cheap smartphones and tablets in China has reached the point that Mr Liu – who refused to give his first name – and many other internet café owners say they worry they are increasingly irrelevant to most Chinese, much like video rental shops have become in the US and Europe.
中国廉价智能手机和平板电脑的普及，已令刘先生等网吧老板开始深感忧虑，他们担心对于多数中国人来说，网吧日益变得无关紧要，就像录影带出租店在欧美的遭遇一样。
Research by Tencent, the Chinese social networking and gaming company, found that the number of internet cafés in China fell between 2011 and 2012 after rising consistently since 2004. Around 10,000 closed their doors for good last year, leaving the nation with 136,000 licensed cafés. Data for 2013 are not yet available.
根据中国社交网络及游戏企业腾讯(Tencent)的研究，中国网吧的数量在2011年到2012年间有所减少，此前自2004年以来网吧数量始终在上升。去年，中国有大约1万家网吧关门大吉，剩余的注册网吧数目为13.6万家。目前，2013年的相关数据还未公布。
That decline comes as the percentage of Chinese with smartphones has more than doubled from 20 per cent in 2012 to nearly half this year, according to data from market researcher Canalys. Home broadband use has also risen, to 191m last year, a threefold rise from five years prior, according to research by CLSA, the brokerage.
根据市场研究机构Canalys的数据，伴随这一趋势而来的是，今年中国智能手机人群所占比例较2012年的20%提高一倍以上，到达到将近一半的水平。而根据经纪公司里昂证券(CLSA)的研究，去年中国家庭宽带用户也增长到了1.91亿，是此前五年的三倍。
While bad news for owners, it is a welcome development for users as authorities have frequently used cafés as a way to monitor online behaviour.
尽管这对网吧老板是个坏消息，互联网用户却十分欢迎这一变化，因为网吧被中国官方频繁地用做监控网络活动的途径。
Activist groups point out that cafés are required to check and log users’ state identification, and police have been known to pressure some cafés to log the sites users visit or install surveillance cameras.
有社会运动团体指出，网吧需要检查和登记使用者的身份证件号码，而众所周知警方还向部分网吧施加压力，迫使它们记录用户访问的站点或安装监控摄像头。
“The authorities have used surveillance mechanisms in . . . internet applications on phones, but the sheer amount of information and the fact that it’s quite new makes it difficult to implement systems that are as effective,” says Maya Wang, a researcher in Human Rights Watch’s Asia division. “There is this infrastructure invested in surveilling these internet cafés.”
人权观察(Human Rights Watch)亚洲分部研究员阿莲(Maya Wang)表示：“当局在手机的互联网应用程序中植入了监控机制，但巨大的信息量以及智能手机刚出现不久的事实，使得在手机上实现同样有效的监控系统十分困难。而对于这些网吧，官方则已投资建设过此类基础设施。”
The decline of the cafés, however, has more to do with changing technology than with the fact that dissidents avoid them.
不过，比起异见人士不去网吧上网的因素，网吧的衰落与技术变革的关系更大。
Those who still use cafés are those too poor to own a phone or are looking for company as they play the online multiplayer games that are massively popular, particularly with young men.
仍在使用网吧的有两类人，一类是穷得买不起手机的人，另一类是想寻找同伴一起玩网络游戏的人，这种游戏极受欢迎——尤其是受到年轻人的欢迎。
It was a year ago, says a long-time staff member at a café near the centre of the city of Wenzhou, that business started to go downhill for them and the other cafés in their district. The only ones in the city still doing well are those in industrial areas, frequented by poorer migrant factory workers.
一位长期在温州市中心附近一家网吧工作的员工表示，他们网吧和同区其他网吧的生意一年前开始走下坡路。该市生意依然不错的网吧全部位于工业区，那些网吧的常客是相对更贫穷的外来务工人员。
While availability of smartphones cheaper than $100 has put the handsets within reach of more people, not all those phones are on fast 3G connections. CLSA estimates that while 3G use nearly doubled between 2011 and 2012, it still stands at only 233m users in a nation of 1.3bn.
市场上出现价格低于100美元的智能手机之后，更多人能够买得起手机了，然而这些手机并不是全都能连上高速3G网络。里昂证券估计，尽管2011年到2012年间中国3G用户将近翻了一番，在这个13亿人的国度中，3G用户人数仍然只有2.33亿。
But while cafés are monitored particularly closely, the Wenzhou worker says he has his doubts that users of mobile internet will be that much freer.
不过，前述温州网吧员工表示，尽管在网吧会受到非常密切的监控，但他怀疑移动互联网用户是否会有大得多的自由度。
“The government’s control on using internet is very strict,” he says.
他说：“政府对使用互联网的控制是非常严格的。”
