Working in China's video game industry must be daunting. One minute you think you have the momentum, the next minute the behemoth is worth less than a liquor company (open in new tab). Due to the Chinese government's crackdown on technology and long-standing suspicion of video games as a medium, China's domestic gaming market is notoriously tricky to navigate (open in new tab), even though companies like Tencent and NetEase are major international players.

No wonder, then, that Chinese gaming companies have cautiously welcomed a recent editorial in the state-run People's Daily. The article, titled "Exploring the value of the electronic gaming industry in depth is an opportunity we can't afford to miss," found by Reuters tech correspondent Josh Yeh (opens in new tab) (via The Gamer (opens in new tab)), calls for China to pay more attention, indicating a possible sea change in the government's hostile attitude. Chinese gaming stocks rallied sharply on the news.

If this suggests a softening of the Chinese government's attitude toward gaming companies, it is not hard to see why. The article frames the discussion in the context of great power competition between the United States, its Asian ally, the European Union, and China. The European Parliament gives video games "extremely high economic, technological, cultural, and even strategic value.

So the good news is that the Chinese government is preparing to relax its control over the domestic video game industry. The bad news is that the reason may be solely because it would be a useful tool in the rapidly developing rivalry between China and the West. Of course, this is nothing new. During the Cold War, both the US and the USSR poured money into filmmaking (opens in new tab) as a way to win hearts and minds. What is different now?

At any rate, China will probably never fully liberalize its video game industry and allow it to blossom into a hundred flowers. The People's Daily editorial concludes with a warning against video game addiction and a call for "improvement and implementation" of regulations aimed at curbing it. Then again, maybe it doesn't really matter anymore, since there will be few Blizzard games (opens in new tab) left to play in China that require less sleep in the not-too-distant future?