The situation in Hong Kong is not much better than that of mainland China, with ‘obscenity’ and ‘indecency’ defined in a rather unsatisfactory manner. The COIAO states that ‘a thing is obscene if by reason of obscenity it is not suitable to be published to any person’; and ‘a thing is indecent if by reason […]

In comparison, Hong Kong has since the mid-1980s adopted a far more complicated scheme regarding the regulation of pornography. The Control of Obscene and Indecent Articles Ordinance (COIAO), enacted in 1987, regulates indecent and obscene articles. The mere possession of obscene or indecent publications is not a crime in Hong Kong. The COIAO only bans […]

In addition, the authorities in mainland China have devised many legislative measures for strict control of websites and their content. The first was issued in 1997 by the Ministry of Public Security, that is, the police, and is still in force (Ministry of Public Security Decree No. 33). It lists nine categories of prohibited online […]

Effective control by governments on the availability of pornography seems quite impossible, especially in the digital age, when online pornography can spread far and wide via websites, emails, or peer-to-peer networks. Experience outside mainland China has shown that the regulation of online pornography raises different challenges to preventing its circulation offline. Instead of applying strict […]

Enacted in 1997, the above-mentioned CL provisions prohibiting the dissemination ofpornography do not specifically address the online situation. Another important piece of legislation, the Law on Administrative Punishments for Public Order and Security (LAPPOS), however, has taken the online scenarios into account. Article 68 of the LAPPOS stipulates that anyone who produces, transports, duplicates, sells […]

Article 367(1) of the CL gives a rather vague definition of obscenity, stating that obscene articles are books, motion pictures, videos, audio-tapes, or pictures that appeal to the prurient interest, contain graphic depictions of sexual conduct, or explicitly publicise pornography. Articles 367(2) and (3), however, expressly provide that two types of works are not to […]

Currently, the Criminal Law (CL) in mainland China devotes a section listing the criminal offences involved in the production, sale, or dissemination of obscene articles, with profit-making acts subject to higher penalties. Article 363(1) of the CL specifies three levels of punishment for profit-making acts of producing, duplicating, publishing, selling, or disseminating obscene articles. At […]

Chinese parents and children seldom discuss issues such as sexuality and pornography. For hundreds of years, however, ‘spring books’ consisting of explicit drawings of sexual activities have widely circulated in private as a kind of instrument for informal sex education. Pornography has officially been banned for centuries in China (Zhang 2005:11). In late imperial China, […]

As a geographical concept, Greater China consists of mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau. Mainland China has been under the rule of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) since 1949 and is internationally known as the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Taiwan, or the Republic of China, is a separate political entity under the rule […]

Mei Ning Yan Introduction In this chapter I examine the regulation of online pornography in mainland China and Hong Kong. I first describe and explain the relationship between mainland China and Hong Kong in the context of ‘One Country Two Systems’. This sets the scene for an in-depth discussion of the situations in mainland China […]