China’s crackdown on its technology sector has moved from corporations to consumers. On Monday, state media revealed new rules for online gamers, limiting under-18s to one-hour windows on weekends and bank holidays.

Online gaming giants such as Tencent and NetEase will be forced to enforce the restrictions with an “anti-addiction system” that involves verifying real names and government documents. The regulations will affect 110 million video-gaming children who, while not a substantial source of revenues to gaming companies, are potentially the lucrative next generation of online spenders.

It is hard to say nobody saw this coming. At the start of August, the state-run paper Economic Information Daily called video games “spiritual opium” and declared that children were hopelessly addicted. In 2019, the government announced a cyber-curfew on under-18s playing online games after 10pm; Tencent, the country’s biggest gaming company, recently said it would deploy a “midnight patrol” facial recognition system to enforce the ban.

Chinese media presented the latest move merely as an attempt to “effectively protect the physical and mental health of minors”. Plenty of parents would no doubt agree. But the fortunes of China’s other big internet companies suggests this is far from the only motivation.

For almost a year, Xi’s administration has been on the warpath against Chinese corporations. Last November, it scuttled the $US37 billion ($51 billion) IPO of financial technology giant Ant, turning its billionaire founder Jack Ma from a rock star into a recluse overnight. It cited financial stability, an explanation that might have carried more weight had the incident not fired the starting gun on a widespread crackdown on China’s most successful companies.

Since then, Beijing has used a toolkit of financial penalties, competition investigations and new regulations against its biggest consumer internet companies. Alibaba - the e-commerce giant founded by Ma - was fined the equivalent of £1.4 billion ($2.6 billion) for abusing a dominant market position. Food delivery app Meituan faces its own fine on similar grounds, while Didi, the taxi app known for chasing Uber out of China, has been hit with regulatory crackdowns for having the temerity to choose New York’s stock market over Shanghai’s.

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It has not always been like this. Chinese internet companies were once seen by Beijing as a necessary counterweight to Silicon Valley’s influence, working with the state to censor unpalatable phrases and allow security services to monitor citizens. Its Great Firewall kept Facebook, Google and YouTube out, allowing the domestic social media industry to thrive. In 2003, online gaming was recognised as an official sport.

By most measures, this was a success. While other home-grown technology initiatives faltered, Alibaba and Tencent are now among China’s biggest companies. The breakneck growth of online shopping and spending helped to boost China’s GDP figures. Mirroring much of Silicon Valley’s inventions, down to the charismatic and powerful founders, these companies have become the closest thing within the Middle Kingdom to capitalist ideals.