BEIJING--China has passed harsh new restrictions on Internet cafes, banning minors and demanding operators register users and keep records of what information they access on line.

The regulations, which take effect Nov. 15, impose tougher safety standards and requirements for licensing businesses that provide computers and Internet access to users who pay by the session. Smoking is to be banned, no cafe can open within 200 meters of a school, and all must close by midnight.

And though the rules were prompted by a deadly fire in an Internet cafe, they also point to long-held fears among China's communist leaders that the Internet could nurture subversion.

According to a copy of the regulations issued by the official Xinhua News Agency, operators must post a sign warning users not to access sites or download information about a long list of subjects, many of them politically sensitive.

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Some banned areas are almost too broad to be defined, a common feature in the Chinese legal system that allows prosecutors to define public information as state secrets. [...]

Operators must keep records of users and the sites they access on record for two months and provide the information on request to police and regulators. Violators face fines of up to 15,000 yuan (US$1,800).

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While China wants to develop the Internet to aid its growing economy, it has taken unprecedented measures to keep it from becoming a resource for free exchange of information and ideas. China has more than 45 million Internet users, most of whom gain access from connections at home or in the office. Already, China operates a special force to police the Internet for content deemed subversive. Unknown scores of Web sites are blocked due to their content and such Internet staples as the search engines Google (X.GGL) and AltaVista (X.ALV) have been shut off to users in China because they permitted access to information on the banned Falun Gong spiritual movement and other sensitive topics.

Many of the regulations, including the requirement to register information users access, were already in force in Beijing.