The reality of the situation: When I was in china over a few months in 2007/2008, I spent a lot of time in internet cafes. What would happen is that I'd go in, and ask to use the internet. They'd ask me for a passport. I'd say I didn't bring mine. They would then take out a card with a chinese persons face on it (i.e, an already registered internet card with some random person on it), and type those details in. I could then go do what I wanted. They had several of those cards with various people on them. This was true in 4 or 5 different cities. I never showed my passport and they never insisted that I leave.<p>So, even though they build in these mechanisms, there is little enforcement, and the internet cafe owners are more interested in making money than in following some government regulation.<p>By the way, when we say internet cafe here, in china, it's not usually like a 10 seat cafe. It's usually a pretty big hall with 100-200 computers, you can smoke in there, and it's usually packed with people.