Over the
past decade there has been an explosion in the use of Information and
Communications Technologies (ICTs) in the People's
Republic of China
. As the largest developing country
in the world, China faces a severe
digital divide, which exists not
only between China and developed countries, but also among its own
regions and social groups. Like many other indicators of
development, wide gaps exist between Chinese IT "haves and have
nots." The existence of these gaps is well established. Though
published literature gives a general picture of the
digital
divide in China growing, along with other development
measurements such as
per capita GDP.
In some cases, however, that there is some evidence to suggest that
the ICT gap may, in fact, be narrowing. This trend has implications
on China's future development.
In the international context: by the middle of 2000,
America had 164 million
computers with the average availability below 2 people;
Germany, 30.6 million
computers with the average availability below 3 people — while the
corresponding figures for
China are 15.9
million and almost 80 respectively. In 2001, 10 percent of China’s
population occupies more than 35 percent of its national Internet
subscribers.
Overview
Having experienced rapid political, economic, and social change,
China’s
telecommunication sector has been growing at annual rates of
between 30 and 50 percent for the past ten years. However, like
most
developing countries, the
national telephone density and the Internet- user rate remain
relatively low: only 23 percent and 2.18 percent respectively in
2001. Moreover, the digital divide among regions and social groups
inside China is severe.
The term
digital divide
refers to the gap between those with regular, effective access to
Digital and
information technology, and those
without this access. It generally encompasses both physical access
to technology hardware and, more broadly, skills and resources
which allow for its use. It can refer to both international as well
as domestic disparities in access to information technology. Since
the implementation of China’s Tenth Five Year Plan (2001-2005), the
PRC has stressed the importance of information technology in its
economic development. There is an optimism within the government
that the "Internet and information technology (IT) are crucial
factors for building international economic competitiveness and
overcoming interregional development gaps at home." The plan
classifies the building of an information society as key to China’s
economic development and modernization, with the belief that the
development of IT will naturally pull the economy in the least
prosperous areas out of poverty.
Statistics show that many parts of rural China are being left
behind while the urban areas reap the benefits of the internet and
IT. The
China
Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) has released
statistics which show continuous annual growth in internet users;
yet "such growth has been a predominantly urban phenomenon". The
majority of China’s internet users are located almost exclusively
in China’s big cities. Furthermore, there is little economic
incentive for Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to expand into
regions with low purchasing power and/or population densities.
Thus, it is left to China’s government to bridge the ever-expanding
gap of the digital divide.Another digital divide is that between
the richer and poorer members of Chinese society, which is
exacerbated by the comparatively high cost of Chinese internet
access.
Broadband
Slowing
broadband growth in China is
creating a gap between the country's digital haves and have-nots.
The rate at which China's citizens are installing broadband
internet lines is slowing, despite the fact that the vast majority
of the country's population still has no
internet connection. The slowdown will
entrench a digital divide, because broadband is approaching
maturity in the big cities while the rural markets remain almost
untapped. The number of broadband subscribers in China more than
doubled in 2004, but the pace of growth had slowed to only 38 per
cent by last year. The slowdown means that almost 90 per cent of
Chinese households do not have broadband.
Household
broadband
penetration in China stood at 13 per cent by December 2006. The
steady broadband growth will push household penetration to 21
percent by 2010, equivalent to 106 million subscribers, but this is
nowhere near market potential. The lack of competition between the
main operators is a major factor, because it keeps prices higher
than necessary and hinders uptake. China's fixed line telecoms
operators have been looking to broadband expansion to replace
revenues lost to new technologies, such as mobile phones. However,
weak broadband growth will mean shrinking revenues for these firms.
Broadband firms have been advised to generate more revenue from
content and to continue expanding their infrastructure in smaller
cities. But disagreements between government regulators handling
broadcasting and communications are slowing the growth of
IPTV, one of the potential content services that can be
offered over broadband.
Statistics
The tables and pictures below show the geographical distribution of
internet access in China. Internet density ranges from a high of
30.4% in Beijing to as low as 3.8% in the province of Guizhou. Just
as startling as the differences in penetration rates is the vast
disparity in the number of websites per person (table 2). Finally,
the image of worldwideweb users in China portrays a graphic
representation of the digital divide. We can infer from these
statistics that users come from a relatively privelaged strata of
the population, dwelling in highly urbanized settings and
concentrated in the prosperous Eastern regions.
Regional Distribution of Internet Access
The current situation of telephone application and Internet use
indicates the severity of the digital divide among regions in
China. Traditionally, China’s regions have been divided into three
categories according to their geographical location and
administrative divisions: Eastern, Central, and Western. The
Eastern region possessed the largest segment of total Internet
users, and the Central and Western region possessed the smallest
fraction respectively, more than two times lower than the Eastern
region.
Most researchers found that there is a close linkage between
geographic features and telecommunication application; this linkage
shows that geographic accessibility relates significantly to
telecommunication access. Generally, the geographic feature of each
region from East to Central to West is marked by plain, hill and
mountain respectively. The second factors are demographic
indicators; the population density of these regions appears
inversely opposite their geographical elevation: the Eastern region
has the highest population density, followed by the Central region,
while the West, the most geographically elevated, has the lowest
population density. The third factor is the level of economic
development in these regions, which paints a similar picture: the
level of economic development is closely related to Internet
access.
In particular, Internet users concentrate largely in metropolitan
areas. The latest statistics by the
China Internet Center show that
Internet users in
Beijing account for 12.
39 percent
of the national total; Shanghai accounts
for 8.98 percent, while the corresponding figures for Tibet and
Qinghai
Province in northwestern China are 0.0 percent and
0.31 percent, respectively.
Comparison of East/Middle/West in China internet
development
| .. |
Penetration Rate |
Domain Name Number/10,000 People |
Website Number/10,000 People |
| East |
14.0% |
44.5 |
12.2 |
| Middle |
6.5% |
7.9 |
2.0 |
| West |
6.9% |
8.2 |
1.8 |
| Nation |
9.4% |
22.0 |
5.9 |
Concentration of WorldWideWeb Users in China
Urban-rural areas
China’s
telecommunication
development is severely imbalanced between its rural and urban
areas. Due to low population density and geographical
disadvantages, rural areas experience a comparatively extremely
high cost of investment in
ICT
infrastructure. By the end of 1998, China’s rural areas had
about 70 percent of the national population but only 20 percent of
its total number of telephones. Compared to an urban telephone
density of 27.7 percent, the rural telephone density of 2.85
percent is 10 times lower than urban telephone density in
1998.
Nevertheless, the situation of ICT development in rural China has
improved gradually, thanks to general economic development and to
the influx of ICT investment in rural areas. In 1998, the number of
new telephone subscribers reached 6.913 million in rural areas, a
38.7 percent increase over 1997. The growth rate was two times more
than that in urban areas. By the end of 1998, total telephone
subscribers in rural area had reached 24.78 million; among them
were 20.62 million rural household subscribers. Compared to
telephone development, the urban and rural gap of Internet use is
astounding: merely 0.3 percent of all Internet users live in the
countryside, and the urban network dissemination ratio is 740 times
that of rural areas. In fact, the Internet is largely concentrated
in urban areas. While commercial Internet access is now available
in over 200 metropolitan cities from every Chinese province, most
rural areas have not yet been networked. Where rural areas do have
access, connection speeds are lower (employing earlier technology)
than in the cities. This speed gap will grow even larger as new
broadband technologies reach the cities. Access to new technologies
such as broadband show pronounced divisions (
U.S. Internet Council), especially between
urban and rural areas.
Income levels
According to the OECD, income is a key factor in PC and Internet
access. Access rates between the lowest and highest brackets range
from country to country within the OECD –from 3 times more likely
to 10 times more likely. The latest CNNIC survey indicates that 65
percent of China’s Internet users earn an annual income of more
than 6000 yuan; in contrast, the Internet uses who earn less 6000
Yuan annually only share 15 percent of total Internet use. Although
the non-income users do share 20 percent of Internet use, this fact
may not undermine the importance of income because this 20 percent
is more likely to represent students who usually receive a high
living subsidy from their parents. Study of telephone subscription
of farm households in rural China also proves that farm households
with higher annual incomes are more likely to subscribe to a
telephone than are low-income-level farm households.
Education levels
Differences in education levels are also highly correlated to PC
and Internet access: those with higher levels of education are more
likely to have ICTs at home and/or at work. Education is closely
correlated to income, which obviously facilitates the purchase of
ICTs and inclusion in the work environment. However, when income
levels are taken into account, those with higher educational
attainment will have higher rates of access. 91 percent of Chinese
Internet users have a high school or above degree. A ZEF study on
telephone access in rural China shows that heads of farm households
with a primary level of education were more likely to subscribe to
telephones than those without any level of education.
Gender divide
In China, a gender-based digital divide appears to be much smaller
than education- and income-based divides. According to the latest
CNNIC report, 39 percent of Chinese Internet users, in July 2001,
were women. Compared to the figure in July 2000, there was an 8
percent increase in women Internet users. This implies that women
are catching up in Internet access.
Factors contributing to the increase in the divide
China is facing the problem of digital divide due to imbalance of
diffusion of ICTs infrastructure, high online charges,
insufficiently trained staff, imperfect network legation, and
information resource shortage in the
Chinese language.
Insufficient infrastructure is a huge problem for achieving
connectivity in rural areas, especially in the Western regions.
There is currently a lack of incentive for telecommunication
providers to invest in broadening their Western networks, mainly
due to a lack of purchasing power and low population densities in
these areas. The work of market forces push Internet Service
Providers to “shy away from investing in these regions that show
little promise of short-term profits.”
Even if a rural area achieves the infrastructure for connectivity,
high costs of internet-compatible computers remains a problem in
rural areas. CNNIC touts that 26.6% of internet users have a
monthly income of less than RMB 500, which is close to the average
urban income of RMB 523. However, the average real income for the
rural population is as low as RMB 187, deeming it impossibly
expensive for the average rural person to access the
internet.
For those who cannot afford computers, inadequate funding and
geographical coverage for
public
libraries which could provide shared internet access is another
factor. Those without computers are also facing a new limited
access to Internet Café’s. The Ministry of Culture and the Ministry
of Information Industry have both issued a notice forbidding the
opening of any new internet bars for the year 2007.
Illiteracy is a major problem that contributes to the digital
divide between the rural and urban areas. It is “not unusual to
find districts and towns with 20% of the population not being able
to read or write properly, and less than 5% of children attending
school”. It is necessary that the government undertake efforts to
improve education in the Western regions if it wants to build its
information society and bridge the digital divide.
Factors contributing to the reduction in the divide
The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in China is running
a 2.5 million dollar project for taking internet access to rural
areas of China. Also, the ‘Go West’ project in the Tenth Five-Year
Plan (2001-2005) calls for the improvement of infrastructure in
Western regions. Although it mainly aims at improving
transportation infrastructure, approximately one million kilometers
of new fibre-optic were laid alongside the installation of
satellite telecommunications facilities between the years
2001-5.
Telecommunications policies and reforms
Under its unique macro-economic and political environment, the
China has adopted a special
telecommunications policy and strategy
for telecommunications reform. As a fundamental and strategic
industry, the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications (MPT) of
China has monopolized telecommunication operations for more than
four decades. Recognizing its incapability of monopolizing the huge
market and of meeting increasing demand, China launched a
telecommunications reform that has been aimed at full competition.
As the result, the basic telecommunication market advanced from a
monopoly to a
duopoly, and it is now being extended to pluralistic
competition. In 1994,
China Unicom was
formed and allowed to build and to operate nationwide cellular
networks. To promote fair competition in the paging service, the
paging sector of
China Telecom was
split in 1998 to form
Guoxin Paging
Ltd.
Aiming at a deep reform, a new round of reform was launched in
1998. The basic idea was to form a fair market by breaking up CT
and at the same time to strengthen Unicom through market
restructuring. China Telecom Hong Kong,
China Mobile Group, Jitong, and China Net
Communication were formed. Competition has taken place among
state-owned institutions.
With the goal of completely separating government and enterprise
functions, the Ministry of Information Industry was established in
1998. MII became a neutral regulator by taking over the regulatory
functions of MPT, while ceding the functions of enterprise. MII was
organized into departments responsible for policymaking,
administration, market regulation, and internal affairs.
In parallel with reform and reorganization, the China also gave
high priority to the legislature work and industrial supervision of
telecommunications. In 2000, Regulations of Telecommunications of
the People’s Republic of China and the Administrative Methods of
Internet Services were promulgated, a centralized telecommunication
regulatory body was created, and the development of China’s
telecommunications and industrial administration were put on the
track of the rule of law.
To further accelerate the ICT development, the national 9th
Five-year Plan established an information and telecommunication
industry as one of the crucial industry. With the reform as the
driving force, China’s telecommunications developed steadily and
rapidly throughout the ninth five-year plan period. The 10th
Five-year Plan period will continue to make it a basic national
policy to further China through science and technology, to push
industrialization by virtue of the IT development and to explore a
path for IT development suited to the national conditions.
In addition, the China’s accession to
WTO is
generally recognized as an external drive force to deepen and
accelerate the telecommunication reform, because the domestic
telecommunication market has gradually opened up to foreign
investors and competitors.
DOT Force
According to the
Okinawa
Charter on the Global Information Society, the
Digital Opportunity Task
Force (DOT Force) looked into activities aimed at eliminating
this threat to global development. Although China did not take a
part in the
G8 conference, China formed its own
DOT Force strategy. Generally speaking, the DOT Force was a
comprehensive systems engineering project. All of the stakeholders
including the Chinese government, state-owned enterprises, private
companies, research institutes and universities have played a role
in trying to bridge the national digital divide.
First it created a national strategy of
informatization. China has formulated the
policy of national informatization construction to promote
upgrading and optimizing of Chinese industries while realizing
industrialization and
modernization. In the ninth and tenth
five-plan, China gives priority attention to the important role of
the information and communication industry. Meanwhile, a series of
important informatization application projects represented by
Golden Card, Golden Bridge and Golden Gate have been initiated one
after another, which have strongly promoted the informatization
construction. Social informatization was drew up as the strategic
initiative underlying the whole modernization drive to achieve
leap-frogging social and economic development.
Second is the online and enterprise online program that was
initiated in the mid 1990s to mobilize the governments at all level
online to facilitate information access for all citizens. The aim
of the program was that 30%, 60%, and 80% of all levels of
government would be online by 1998, 1999, and 2000; 100 large
conglomerates, 10,000 midsize firms, and 1,000,000 small firms to
be wired within 2000. These
e-government program not only allow people to
promptly obtain information on government policies, regulations,
law and enterprise services, but also is a crucial initiative drive
to bridge the domestic digital divide between the information
"haves" and "have nots" nationwide.
Third is a special expenditure for bridging the digital divide
among regions. It was clear that bridging the digital divide was
difficult without special expenditure from national budgets. China
has not only invested heavily in the creation of the
telecommunication infrastructure, but also the universal
telecommunication access in rural and remote areas. To bridge the
widening Internet-connection gap between rural and urban areas,
China has recently launched the "Every Village has a Phone" and
"Gold Farm Engineering" project, which promoted telephone access
and Internet application in rural areas. 5,000 networked telephones
have been installed in rural areas, and more than 200 agricultural
websites have been created. In particular, great efforts have been
made to accelerate the construction and improvement of the IT
infrastructure to satisfy the socio-economic needs of western
regions of the country. China has drawn up a series of favorite
policies to encourage the domestic and foreign investors
participate in the investment and building of the information
industry in the western regions. Moreover, especial efforts have
been made by the government to cultivate a number of promising IT
industries in the western regions.
Fourth is the action to narrow down the digital divide that caused
by the difference in education and gender. China supported colleges
and universities to educate people how to use ICTs and how to
benefit from the ICT application. After networked universities and
important institutes, China initiated long distance education
facilities in less developing region, in particular, the rural and
west regions. For instance, under support from
Australia and the
World
Bank, the
Ningxia launched a distance
learning center (DLC) recently, which will help promote development
and poverty reduction in this western province of China by
introducing the use of information and communication technology to
promote distance learning as well as information and knowledge
dissemination. Using state-of-the art
distance learning technology, the DLC
allows participants from across China, and other
East Asian countries, and even other continents,
to share information and learn together without leaving their
hometowns.
Fifth is the state allowed the
private
sectors to provide information services. This policy
significantly helped the spread of
Website development and
Internet cafés throughout the country. As
a result, the severe competition from the private sectors
undermined the monopoly of state-owned
Internet service providers and
brought the cost of Internet access down to an affordable level for
a large proportion of the population and a rapid increase in the
number of Internet users.
See also
International rankings
References
- Dong Fu. The Internet in China (In Depth), Research Department,
Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. September 2000
- Lin, Rong. Seizing the Opportunity to Cross Digital Divide,
Text of a speech at Asia Society 's annual session held in India
China Reform Forum, China Reform Forum, Bangalore, March 13,
2001
- Understanding the Digital Divide, OECD 2001, OECD Publications,
2rue Andre Pascal, 75775 Paris Cedex 16, France.
- Giese, Karsten. "Internet Growth and the Digital Divide". China
and the Internet. RoutledgeCurzon, 2003. Pg. 30
- The Growth of the Chinese Internet market
- China Internet Network Information Center. "Statistical Survey Report on the Internet
Development in China". Jan, 2007.
- China Internet Network Information Center. 18th "Statistical Survey Report on the Internet Development in
China". July, 2006
- Giese, Karsten. “Internet Growth and the Digital Divide”. China
and the Internet. RoutledgeCurzon, 2003. Pg. 43
- Barr, David F. SR Telecom Inc. Canada. Integrated rural
development through telecommunications, 1999
- Ke, Bingsheng; Xiaohui Zhang, RCRE, The Development of ICT and
Its Impact on Rural Economy in China, 1999
- Wang, Wensheng. “Impact of ICTs on Farm Households in China",
ZEF of University Bonn, 2001
- Giese, Karsten. “Internet Growth and the Digital Divide”. China
and the Internet. RoutledgeCurzon, 2003. Pg. 46
- Xinhua News Agency, 6th March 2007
- Xinhua News Agency, 27th December 2000
- Giese, Karsten. “Internet Growth and the Digital Divide”. China
and the Internet. RoutledgeCurzon, 2003. Pg. 46
- Gao, Ping ; Kalle Lyytinen, Transformation of Chinas
telecommunications sector: a macro perspective, Telecommunication
Policy 24 (2000) 719-730
- Digital Opportunity for All: Meeting the Challenges, Report of
the DOT Force, 11 May 2001.
- Press, Larry. California State University, William A. Foster,
University of Arizona, Seymour E. Goodman, Stanford University, The
Internet in India and China
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