Although sociologists may worry about the asocial behaviour of China’s youngsters , there’s at least nothing illegal about it.
The virtual money — called the QQ coin — is sold by Tencent, one of China’s biggest Internet community operators
HONG KONG: Jimmy Wu, 22, lives in a virtual world: he spends at least 30 hours a week playing online games, and he even has a virtual home and a virtual pet for whom he buys virtual accessories using virtual money.
Although sociologists may worry about the asocial behaviour of China’s youngsters like Wu, there’s at least nothing illegal about what he does. The virtual money that he uses — called the QQ coin — is sold by Tencent, one of China’s biggest Internet community operators, for subscribers to QQ, China’s most popular instant messaging service (like MSN Messenger).
It’s a sort of a micro-payment arrangement, and so long as it’s used only to buy virtual merchandise on the QQ portal — as it was intended — no laws are being transgressed.
But earlier this month, China’s central bank gave expression to concerns that virtual money in China needed to be regulated, and that the bank would issue guidelines next year on virtual transactions.
The central bank’s cautionary note came after public prosecutor Yang Tao’s comments that the QQ coin was “challenging the renminbi’s status” as the legal tender in China.
QQ coins are evidently being used to pay for third-party services, including on gambling and pornography portals, which are illegal in China. There have also been reports that virtual coins are beginning to be accepted for other services that require online payment; in other words, the QQ business ecosystem is gradually evolving into a ‘parallel economy’, and is conferring de facto ‘legal tender’ status to its coins.
Tencent, a Hong Kong-listed company, has emphasised that it does not support transactions made with QQ coins “solicited via dubious operations”. Its QQ platform has over 22 crore active users, mostly college- and high school students.
And if the number of third-party services that accept QQ coins increases, more of its coins will be needed for circulation, which is good news for Tencent, even if it pushes into the grey area of regulation.
The subject of China’s virtual economy has been agitating some of the country’s keenest minds in recent times. Commentaries in economic journals have speculated on whether the profileration of QQ coins would result in Tencent becoming a ‘virtual central bank’. There are even scholarly expositions on whether conditions are ripe for ‘virtual inflation’.
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