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C H A P T E R 1 2 China in Cyberspace Nigel Inkster AS WITH MUCH ELSE ABOUT CHINA, the speed and intensity with which the country has developed Internet usage has taken the world by surprise. The Internet first came to China in 1994 in a project linking some three hundred physicists. By 1998, two years after Internet accessibility became available to the general population , China had just over two million users. By the end of 2010 this number had risen to 420 million, 346 million of whom had broadband connectivity.1 With such high Internet penetration, there are an estimated 50 million bloggers and an estimated 800 million microbloggers via cell phones, which have become a pervasive medium of communication. Between 1997 and 2009 the Chinese state spent RMB 4.3 trillion ($630 billion) on Internet infrastructure construction.2 The rapid evolution of China’s Internet culture makes any attempt to chronicle it vulnerable to equally rapid obsolescence. But underlying this evolution are some more persistent themes: the struggle by China’s leadership to maintain control of information flows while trying to accommodate public pressure for greater transparency and accountability. Further, China has an uneasy relationship with the United States, which perceives Chinese behavior in the cyber domain as aggressive. US concern for China is matched by China’s concern over perceived US efforts to maintain dominance in the cyber domain. Both perceptions constitute one of a number of issues that continue to dog this important relationship. The Evolution of China’s Internet If China’s leaders were nervous about the implications of unrestricted access to information for its population, this did not inhibit the Communist Party from enthusiastically promoting the Internet as an indispensible adjunct to achieving China ’s overriding strategic goal of economic modernization. There was from the outset an awareness of the risks of unfiltered access, but it is likely that ignorance among China’s leadership of how the Internet operated led them to underestimate these risks. In the mid-1980s Jiang Zemin, then minister for the electronics industry—and 191 192 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . China in Cyberspace one of the few members of the Chinese leadership who understood how modern computers worked—talked about the importance for China of developing modern IT capabilities on the basis that such capacities constituted ‘‘the strategic high ground in international competition. . . . The discrepancy between China’s level and the world’s advanced level is so great that we have to do our utmost to catch up.’’3 The benefits to China’s modernization program of developing Internet connectivity have been considerable. The Internet shrank the enormous distances and geographic barriers that had proven such a challenge for China’s development in the past. Internet connectivity proved particularly important in rural communities, enabling farmers to access up-to-date information about production techniques and market conditions, and promoting better standards of health care. Unsurprisingly, Internet access has been a major feature of China’s education system. A recent study by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) revealed that 40 percent of middle schools, 70 percent of high schools, and 60 percent of vocational schools are now connected to the Internet.4 A June 2010 white paper produced by China’s State Council Information Office, the state entity primarily responsible for the Internet, made it clear that rapid nationwide expansion of the Internet and mobile telephone penetration is a strategic priority for China and critical for China’s long-term global competitiveness.5 China’s indigenous information and communication technology (ICT) industries have already established themselves as a major component of China’s economic growth. Although accurate figures are hard to come by, it is estimated that China’s overall ICT industry has grown at between two and three times the speed of China’s overall gross domestic product, with the software industry alone accounting for RMB 584.2 billion—US$ 86 billion in 2008.6 Lenovo has become the fourth-largest manufacturer of PCs on the planet. The advent of IT and Internet connectivity has brought particular benefits to a country whose language up until that point had seemed like enough of a barrier to raise questions about whether a romanized written language should take the place of traditional Chinese characters. Before the era of PCs and laptops, Chinese documents could only be produced using typewriters that were effectively mini printing presses, requiring extensive specialist training. The advent of software programs that permit word processing and...

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