JISCMail - CYBER-SOCIETY-LIVE Archives

Communists caught out by net revolution
Chinese struggle to control online boom
Taiwan and China: special report

John Gittings in Haidian, Beijing
Wednesday May 17, 2000
The Guardian

The Chinese internet revolution is causing a dilemma for the Communist party, which is torn between trying to spearhead online developments and trying to slow them down.

This week the latest stern statements on Taiwan can be seen on the People's Liberation Army's own website. Beijing has also launched a 24-hour news site called One Thousand Dragons which promises to carry one thousand items a day.

With the number of internet users already close to 10m, e-commerce is beginning to boom and websites are exploring everything from online mahjong to fashion advice and gossip on film stars.

The independent sites are more cautious about news coverage. Last week the head of a new government-sponsored Internet Information Management Bureau said that new rules will limit sites to using material from the official press.

"News is a really sensitive area," says one executive from an independent site. "We ask ourselves all the time how we can develop without being shut down. It's like playing a game with no rules. They just come back later to say you can't do it."

The internet explosion is the latest phase in a computer revolution which is little more than five years old. Zhongguancun, in north Beijing, is known as China's Silicon Valley. It has engulfed Haidian, a village of brick and mud houses where street sellers still cry out their wares.

Until the 1980s most of the surrounding land was farmed by peasants. Now Zhongguancun has launched phase two of an expansion plan. Where students from nearby Beijing University used to cycle along paths between the fields, billboards now advertise new internet sites.

Some experts warn that the high growth rate of software companies cannot be maintained but there is still a huge potential demand among China's emerging urban middle class. The number of internet users is expected to double to 20m within the next two to three years.

At lunchtime in Haidian, the Beijing Silicon Valley Computer Plaza is coping with the rush. Outside the five-storey building, touts offer cut-price software while personal computers are loaded onto handcarts and pedicabs.

Increasing demand

"Two years ago, people didn't know what the internet was," says Yu Hongyan, the general manager of the Zhaodaola website. Taxi-drivers would say: 'Internet, is that a new hotel near the airport?'"

Zhaodaola - the name means "I've found it!" - is backed by a US company owned by the rightwing evangelist Pat Robertson. It calls itself a "lifestyle portal" and is now about to launch an e-commerce business.

"A person has to spend much time looking for something, whether it be a job, a friend, a house or a lover," says Ms Yu, who appeared on a recent front cover of the Beijing magazine China Today to illustrate how women's lives have been transformed. "People in China are aiming for a better life. We are entitled to the quality you get in the US and Japan. We are targeting the 20 to 35-year-olds and trying to attract more women. That's why we have a special channel called 'Real Women?' as well as another one called 'Macho Men'."

Across Beijing from Zhaodaola's headquarters is the media monitoring company SinoFile, which scans up to 500 newspapers for mainly commercial clients. It is about to go online. "Bill Gates is the number one hero," says its chief operations officer, Yang Zhi. "Everyone is becoming web aware: it's like a new drug."

Ms Yang's career reflects the rapid shifts in values since the Cultural Revolution, when she was sent to the countryside while her parents - both famous translators of Chinese literature - were imprisoned in Beijing. In the 1980s she studied in the US, returning with a PhD to help set up an institute for the study of ancient civilisations but left academia to found SinoFile in 1992 with her Canadian husband, David Jacobson.

While the new internet revolution gathers pace, the Chinese leadership is divided on whether to tighten or loosen controls.

In January new rules published by the state secrecy bureau imposed tough security checks banning the discussion or transfer of all "secret information" - a term which is very loosely defined.

In the same month, regulations came into force requiring foreign firms to register the type of encryption software which they used, in theory making it possible for the government to monitor all internet transactions. But secrecy checks are now being ignored and encryption requirements have been eased to conform to World Trade Organisation regulations.

After months of conflicting signals, Beijing has finally allowed the first China-based web site to go public overseas. Sina.com, China's most popular site, is now listed on the Nasdaq exchange. Other companies complain that the authorities left it too late for them to cash in on the worldwide hi-tech shares explosion.

Even if the current bubble bursts, the internet tide seems unstoppable. Provincial Communist party bosses now list web development as a top priority - though they often have little idea what it means.

"The party has stayed in power because it is a 'vanguard force'," President Jiang Zemin told this year's National People's Congress. "To continue to be so, senior cadres must equip themselves better by learning internet technology."