Digital divide in China
Encyclopedia
Over the past decade there has been an explosion in the use of Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) in Mainland China
. As the largest developing country in the world, China faces a severe digital divide
, which exists not only between Mainland 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, the United States 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 the People's Republic of 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.
The gap caused by the digital divide in China is beginning to close. The percentage of the Chinese population using the internet has been increasing dramatically each year. In the year 2000 only 1.7 percent of the Chinese population were internet users. By 2010 that percentage had increased to 31.6 percent of the population. This data shows that the gap separating China and the rest of the world is closing. However, the digital divide among Chinese citizen remains strong. Many Chinese citizen are faced with the issues of the digital divide because of their income,education, or location.
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.
growth in Mainland 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 Mainland 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.
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.
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.
.
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.
The cost of internet usage in China is much higher than other nations. Many minimum wage workers in China cannot afford access to internet because the cost of having the internet is about 10 percent of their wage. The cost of internet usage in China as a percentage of income is 18 times the cost in South Korea and 51.5 times the cost in Japan. This data shows that because the cost of the internet is so high in China, many Chinese citizens cannot afford the internet. The digital divide in China is directly related to income.
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.
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 Ninth 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 Tenth 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.
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 Asia
n countries, and even other continents, to share information and learn together without leaving their hometowns.
Fifth is the state allowed the private sector
s to provide information services. This policy significantly helped the spread of Website development and Internet café
s throughout the country. As a result, the severe competition from the private sectors undermined the monopoly of state-owned Internet service provider
s 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.
International rankings
Mainland China
Mainland China, the Chinese mainland or simply the mainland, is a geopolitical term that refers to the area under the jurisdiction of the People's Republic of China . According to the Taipei-based Mainland Affairs Council, the term excludes the PRC Special Administrative Regions of Hong Kong and...
. As the largest developing country in the world, China faces a severe digital divide
Digital divide
The Digital Divide refers to inequalities between individuals, households, business, and geographic areas at different socioeconomic levels in access to information and communication technologies and Internet connectivity and in the knowledge and skills needed to effectively use the information...
, which exists not only between Mainland 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, the United States 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 the People's Republic of China
Internet in the People's Republic of China
The first connection of the mainland of the People's Republic of China with the Internet was established on between ICA Beijing and Karlsruhe University in Germany, under the leadership of Prof. Werner Zorn and Prof. Wang Yunfeng. Since then the Internet in China has grown to host the largest base...
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.
The gap caused by the digital divide in China is beginning to close. The percentage of the Chinese population using the internet has been increasing dramatically each year. In the year 2000 only 1.7 percent of the Chinese population were internet users. By 2010 that percentage had increased to 31.6 percent of the population. This data shows that the gap separating China and the rest of the world is closing. However, the digital divide among Chinese citizen remains strong. Many Chinese citizen are faced with the issues of the digital divide because of their income,education, or location.
Overview
Having experienced rapid political, economic, and social change, the People's Republic of China’s telecommunication sectorCommunications in the People's Republic of China
The People's Republic of China possesses a diversified communications system that links all parts of the country by Internet, telephone, telegraph, radio, and television...
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
Digital divide
The Digital Divide refers to inequalities between individuals, households, business, and geographic areas at different socioeconomic levels in access to information and communication technologies and Internet connectivity and in the knowledge and skills needed to effectively use the information...
refers to the gap between those with regular, effective access to Digital
Digital
A digital system is a data technology that uses discrete values. By contrast, non-digital systems use a continuous range of values to represent information...
and information technology
Information technology
Information technology is the acquisition, processing, storage and dissemination of vocal, pictorial, textual and numerical information by a microelectronics-based combination of computing and telecommunications...
, 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
China Internet Network Information Center
The China Internet Network Information Center , or CNNIC, was founded as a non-profit organization on June 3, 1997.CNNIC is the administrative agency responsible for Internet affairs under the Ministry of Information Industry of the People's Republic of China...
(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 broadbandBroadband
The term broadband refers to a telecommunications signal or device of greater bandwidth, in some sense, than another standard or usual signal or device . Different criteria for "broad" have been applied in different contexts and at different times...
growth in Mainland 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 Mainland 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
IPTV
Internet Protocol television is a system through which television services are delivered using the Internet protocol suite over a packet-switched network such as the Internet, instead of being delivered through traditional terrestrial, satellite signal, and cable television formats.IPTV services...
, 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 privileged 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 Mainland China. Traditionally, Mainland 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
Beijing
Beijing , also known as Peking , is the capital of the People's Republic of China and one of the most populous cities in the world, with a population of 19,612,368 as of 2010. The city is the country's political, cultural, and educational center, and home to the headquarters for most of China's...
account for 12. 39 percent of the national total; Shanghai
Shanghai
Shanghai is the largest city by population in China and the largest city proper in the world. It is one of the four province-level municipalities in the People's Republic of China, with a total population of over 23 million as of 2010...
accounts for 8.98 percent, while the corresponding figures for Tibet and Qinghai
Qinghai
Qinghai ; Oirat Mongolian: ; ; Salar:) is a province of the People's Republic of China, named after Qinghai Lake...
Province in northwestern China are 0.0 percent and 0.31 percent, respectively.
| Region | Percentage of local population with internet access |
|---|---|
| Guangdong Guangdong Guangdong is a province on the South China Sea coast of the People's Republic of China. The province was previously often written with the alternative English name Kwangtung Province... |
19.9% |
| Shandong Shandong ' is a Province located on the eastern coast of the People's Republic of China. Shandong has played a major role in Chinese history from the beginning of Chinese civilization along the lower reaches of the Yellow River and served as a pivotal cultural and religious site for Taoism, Chinese... |
12.2% |
| Jiangsu Jiangsu ' is a province of the People's Republic of China, located along the east coast of the country. The name comes from jiang, short for the city of Jiangning , and su, for the city of Suzhou. The abbreviation for this province is "苏" , the second character of its name... |
13.7% |
| Zhejiang Zhejiang Zhejiang is an eastern coastal province of the People's Republic of China. The word Zhejiang was the old name of the Qiantang River, which passes through Hangzhou, the provincial capital... |
19.9% |
| Sichuan Sichuan ' , known formerly in the West by its postal map spellings of Szechwan or Szechuan is a province in Southwest China with its capital in Chengdu... |
8.4% |
| Hebei Hebei ' is a province of the People's Republic of China in the North China region. Its one-character abbreviation is "" , named after Ji Province, a Han Dynasty province that included what is now southern Hebei... |
9.2% |
| Hubei Hubei ' Hupeh) is a province in Central China. The name of the province means "north of the lake", referring to its position north of Lake Dongting... |
9.3% |
| Henan Henan Henan , is a province of the People's Republic of China, located in the central part of the country. Its one-character abbreviation is "豫" , named after Yuzhou , a Han Dynasty state that included parts of Henan... |
5.5% |
| Fujian Fujian ' , formerly romanised as Fukien or Huguing or Foukien, is a province on the southeast coast of mainland China. Fujian is bordered by Zhejiang to the north, Jiangxi to the west, and Guangdong to the south. Taiwan lies to the east, across the Taiwan Strait... |
14.6% |
| Shanghai Shanghai Shanghai is the largest city by population in China and the largest city proper in the world. It is one of the four province-level municipalities in the People's Republic of China, with a total population of over 23 million as of 2010... |
28.7% |
| Liaoning Liaoning ' is a province of the People's Republic of China, located in the northeast of the country. Its one-character abbreviation is "辽" , a name taken from the Liao River that flows through the province. "Níng" means "peace"... |
11.4% |
| Beijing Beijing Beijing , also known as Peking , is the capital of the People's Republic of China and one of the most populous cities in the world, with a population of 19,612,368 as of 2010. The city is the country's political, cultural, and educational center, and home to the headquarters for most of China's... |
30.4% |
| Hunan Hunan ' is a province of South-Central China, located to the south of the middle reaches of the Yangtze River and south of Lake Dongting... |
6.4% |
| Shaanxi Shaanxi ' is a province in the central part of Mainland China, and it includes portions of the Loess Plateau on the middle reaches of the Yellow River in addition to the Qinling Mountains across the southern part of this province... |
10.6% |
| Shanxi Shanxi ' is a province in Northern China. Its one-character abbreviation is "晋" , after the state of Jin that existed here during the Spring and Autumn Period.... |
11.3% |
| Guangxi Guangxi Guangxi, formerly romanized Kwangsi, is a province of southern China along its border with Vietnam. In 1958, it became the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region of the People's Republic of China, a region with special privileges created specifically for the Zhuang people.Guangxi's location, in... |
8.0% |
| Heilongjiang Heilongjiang For the river known in Mandarin as Heilong Jiang, see Amur River' is a province of the People's Republic of China located in the northeastern part of the country. "Heilongjiang" literally means Black Dragon River, which is the Chinese name for the Amur. The one-character abbreviation is 黑... |
9.6% |
| Anhui Anhui Anhui is a province in the People's Republic of China. Located in eastern China across the basins of the Yangtze River and the Huai River, it borders Jiangsu to the east, Zhejiang to the southeast, Jiangxi to the south, Hubei to the southwest, Henan to the northwest, and Shandong for a tiny... |
5.5% |
| Jiangxi Jiangxi ' is a southern province in the People's Republic of China. Spanning from the banks of the Yangtze River in the north into hillier areas in the south, it shares a border with Anhui to the north, Zhejiang to the northeast, Fujian to the east, Guangdong to the south, Hunan to the west, and Hubei to... |
6.6% |
| Yunnan Yunnan Yunnan is a province of the People's Republic of China, located in the far southwest of the country spanning approximately and with a population of 45.7 million . The capital of the province is Kunming. The province borders Burma, Laos, and Vietnam.Yunnan is situated in a mountainous area, with... |
6.2% |
| Jilin Jilin Jilin , is a province of the People's Republic of China located in the northeastern part of the country. Jilin borders North Korea and Russia to the east, Heilongjiang to the north, Liaoning to the south, and Inner Mongolia to the west... |
10.0% |
| Tianjin Tianjin ' is a metropolis in northern China and one of the five national central cities of the People's Republic of China. It is governed as a direct-controlled municipality, one of four such designations, and is, thus, under direct administration of the central government... |
24.9% |
| Chongqing Chongqing Chongqing is a major city in Southwest China and one of the five national central cities of China. Administratively, it is one of the PRC's four direct-controlled municipalities , and the only such municipality in inland China.The municipality was created on 14 March 1997, succeeding the... |
7.9% |
| Inner Mongolia Inner Mongolia Inner Mongolia is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China, located in the northern region of the country. Inner Mongolia shares an international border with the countries of Mongolia and the Russian Federation... |
6.7% |
| Xinjiang Xinjiang Xinjiang is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China. It is the largest Chinese administrative division and spans over 1.6 million km2... |
7.7% |
| Gansu Gansu ' is a province located in the northwest of the People's Republic of China.It lies between the Tibetan and Huangtu plateaus, and borders Mongolia, Inner Mongolia, and Ningxia to the north, Xinjiang and Qinghai to the west, Sichuan to the south, and Shaanxi to the east... |
5.9% |
| Guizhou Guizhou ' is a province of the People's Republic of China located in the southwestern part of the country. Its provincial capital city is Guiyang.- History :... |
3.8% |
| Hainan Hainan Hainan is the smallest province of the People's Republic of China . Although the province comprises some two hundred islands scattered among three archipelagos off the southern coast, of its land mass is Hainan Island , from which the province takes its name... |
14.1% |
| Ningxia Ningxia Ningxia, formerly transliterated as Ningsia, is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China. Located in Northwest China, on the Loess Plateau, the Yellow River flows through this vast area of land. The Great Wall of China runs along its northeastern boundary... |
7.0% |
| Qinghai Qinghai Qinghai ; Oirat Mongolian: ; ; Salar:) is a province of the People's Republic of China, named after Qinghai Lake... |
6.8% |
| Tibet Tibet Tibet is a plateau region in Asia, north-east of the Himalayas. It is the traditional homeland of the Tibetan people as well as some other ethnic groups such as Monpas, Qiang, and Lhobas, and is now also inhabited by considerable numbers of Han and Hui people... |
5.8% |
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 |
Urban-rural areas
One of the main factors of the digital divide in China is location. Chinese Citizen that reside in Urban areas are much more likely to have access to the internet than those who live in Rural areas. More specifically, there is an Internet penetration rate of 50% in urban areas of China, but only 18.5% in rural areas of China.China’s telecommunication
Telecommunication
Telecommunication is the transmission of information over significant distances to communicate. In earlier times, telecommunications involved the use of visual signals, such as beacons, smoke signals, semaphore telegraphs, signal flags, and optical heliographs, or audio messages via coded...
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.
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 users who earn less than 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 CNNIC's report from July 2011, 44.9% of Chinese Internet users are women.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 languageChinese language
The Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...
.
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.
The cost of internet usage in China is much higher than other nations. Many minimum wage workers in China cannot afford access to internet because the cost of having the internet is about 10 percent of their wage. The cost of internet usage in China as a percentage of income is 18 times the cost in South Korea and 51.5 times the cost in Japan. This data shows that because the cost of the internet is so high in China, many Chinese citizens cannot afford the internet. The digital divide in China is directly related to income.
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 monopolyMonopoly
A monopoly exists when a specific person or enterprise is the only supplier of a particular commodity...
to a duopoly
Duopoly
A true duopoly is a specific type of oligopoly where only two producers exist in one market. In reality, this definition is generally used where only two firms have dominant control over a market...
, and it is now being extended to pluralistic competition. In 1994, China Unicom
China Unicom
China Unicom or China United Netcom Ltd , is a Chinese state-owned telecommunications operator in the People's Republic of China.-History:...
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
China Telecom
China Telecom Corp. Ltd. is a Chinese state-owned telecommunication company. It is the largest fixed line service and 3rd largest mobile telecommunication provider in the People's Republic of China.-Sectors:...
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
China Mobile
China Mobile Limited is a Chinese state-owned telecommunication company that provides mobile voice and multimedia services through its nationwide mobile telecommunications network, the largest of its kind in the world...
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 Ninth 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 Tenth 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 G8G8
The Group of Eight is a forum, created by France in 1975, for the governments of seven major economies: Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States. In 1997, the group added Russia, thus becoming 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
Informatization
Informatization or informatisation refers to the extent by which a geographical area, an economy or a society is becoming information-based, i.e., increase in size of its information labor force. Usage of the term was inspired by Marc Porat’s categories of ages of human civilization: the...
. China has formulated the policy of national informatization construction to promote upgrading and optimizing of Chinese industries while realizing industrialization and modernization
Modernization
In the social sciences, modernization or modernisation refers to a model of an evolutionary transition from a 'pre-modern' or 'traditional' to a 'modern' society. The teleology of modernization is described in social evolutionism theories, existing as a template that has been generally followed by...
. 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
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
and the World Bank
World Bank
The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans to developing countries for capital programmes.The World Bank's official goal is the reduction of poverty...
, the Ningxia
Ningxia
Ningxia, formerly transliterated as Ningsia, is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China. Located in Northwest China, on the Loess Plateau, the Yellow River flows through this vast area of land. The Great Wall of China runs along its northeastern boundary...
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 Asia
East Asia
East Asia or Eastern Asia is a subregion of Asia that can be defined in either geographical or cultural terms...
n countries, and even other continents, to share information and learn together without leaving their hometowns.
Fifth is the state allowed the private sector
Private sector
In economics, the private sector is that part of the economy, sometimes referred to as the citizen sector, which is run by private individuals or groups, usually as a means of enterprise for profit, and is not controlled by the state...
s to provide information services. This policy significantly helped the spread of Website development and Internet café
Internet cafe
An Internet café or cybercafé is a place which provides internet access to the public, usually for a fee. These businesses usually provide snacks and drinks, hence the café in the name...
s throughout the country. As a result, the severe competition from the private sectors undermined the monopoly of state-owned Internet service provider
Internet service provider
An Internet service provider is a company that provides access to the Internet. Access ISPs directly connect customers to the Internet using copper wires, wireless or fiber-optic connections. Hosting ISPs lease server space for smaller businesses and host other people servers...
s 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
- Internet in the People's Republic of ChinaInternet in the People's Republic of ChinaThe first connection of the mainland of the People's Republic of China with the Internet was established on between ICA Beijing and Karlsruhe University in Germany, under the leadership of Prof. Werner Zorn and Prof. Wang Yunfeng. Since then the Internet in China has grown to host the largest base...
- Social issues in the People's Republic of ChinaSocial issues in the People's Republic of ChinaSocial issues in the People's Republic of China in the 21st century are varied and wide-ranging, and are a combined result of the Chinese economic reforms set in place in the late 1970s, China's political and cultural history, and an immense population...
- Education in the People's Republic of ChinaEducation in the People's Republic of ChinaEducation in the People's Republic of China is a state-run system of public education run by the Ministry of Education. All citizens must attend school for at least nine years. The government provides primary education for six years, starting at age six or seven, followed by six years of secondary...
International rankings
- E-readinessE-readinessE-Readiness is the ability to use information and communication technologies to develop one's economy and to foster one's welfare.There are several benchmarking indices at the macro level, e.g., those calculated by the UNPAN, World Bank, Economist Intelligence Unit etc.Because what appear on the...
Organizations
- Internet Society of China
- China Education and Research Network Center
- China Internet Network Information Center
- EU-China Information Society
Articles
- The Digital Divide: Lessons from the People’s Republic of China Dr. Jonathan Harrington; Troy State University
- Bridging the Within-Country Digital Divide in Education: Improving Education in Western China through Innovative Use of ICTs Zhou Nan-zhao; Chief of APEID, UNESCOUNESCOThe United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations...
- Distance learning project bridges the digital divide in China Rong Jiaojiao; UNICEF - China