His online chat programs sit idle. His condoms stay wrapped. People are no longer approaching Denny to pay for sex. It has a reputation. China is undergoing the harshest anti-vice campaign the government has mounted in years, and the crackdown is taking a toll on the economy of Dongguan, a southern city of more than eight million people.
Now, the red-light industry here is blushing a deep pink. Nightclubs and massage parlors, whether in five-star hotels or shadowy alleys, have been shuttered. Taxi drivers who once thrived on commissions from brothels are grappling with shrinking wallets. Some landlords are having a hard time renting out apartments, as prostitutes leave town or decide not to return from Lunar New Year vacations.
So severe is the crackdown, and so large is the sex industry in Dongguan, that police officials in nearby Hong Kong have expressed worries about a potential flood of displaced prostitutes arriving there. The campaign appears to be the latest element in a broad push by President Xi Jinping, the chief of the Communist Party, to expunge the image of corruption associated with Chinese officials.
The nationwide campaign began on Feb. The next day, the party chief of Guangdong Province, which includes Dongguan, ordered the city to shut down its entertainment sites for three months. Police officers raided some saunas, nightclubs and karaoke bars, the kinds of places that have a reputation for iniquity across China.
International brand-name hotels have not been spared. The local Sheraton has a foot massage parlor on the fifth floor that has been shut down, and the spa next to the hotel has police seals on its doors. The Ministry of Public Security has ordered police departments across China to carry out similar clampdowns. A joke making the rounds goes that to curb a recent surge in bird flu Mr.
