Cyber cafés were once a social hub for China’s twenty somethings – and, for authorities, a convenient way to monitor what Chinese citizens were doing online. But as usage of smartphones and tablet devices expands, internet cafés are becoming the collateral damage in the battle to get the country online.

“Several years ago, we were able to get tens of thousands of [renminbi] a day, but now we are only able to earn several thousand,” says Mr Liu, who runs an airy café with around 30 computers in Beijing’s central Chaoyangmen district of offices and shopping malls.

The spread of cheap smartphones and tablets in China has reached the point that Mr Liu – who refused to give his first name – and many other internet café owners say they worry they are increasingly irrelevant to most Chinese, much like video rental shops have become in the US and Europe.