The first connection of the mainland of the People's Republic of China with the Internet was established on September 20, 1987 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 of net users in the world.[1] The first email attempt was successfully sent out on September 14, 1987 with the contents "Across the Great Wall, we can reach every corner in the world" (越過長城，走向世界).[2][3] In the past decade, the Internet has emerged as a new cultural phenomenon in mainland China, much like in the West.
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China had 485 million Internet users by June 2011.[4] It is projected that China's Internet population will hit 718 million by 2013, accounting for 52.7 percent of the total population.[5]
A majority of broadband subscribers are DSL, mostly from China Telecom and China Netcom. The price varies at different provinces, usually around US$10 – $20/month for a 1M DSL with unlimited downloads.
As of June 2011, Chinese Internet users spent an average of 18.7 hours online per week, which should result in a total of about 472 billion hours spent online in 2011.[4]
Broadband makes up the majority of Internet connections in China, with 363.81 million users at this service tier. The price of a broadband connection places it well within the reach of the mainland Chinese middle class. Wireless, especially the mobile phone Internet access has developed rapidly. 277 million are accessing the Internet via cell phones. The number of dial-up users peaked in 2004 and since then has decreased sharply.
By the end of 2009, the number of Chinese domestic websites grew to 3.23 million, with an annual increase rate of 12.3%, according to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.[6] As of first half of 2010, the majority of the Web content is user-generated.[5]
The first four major national networks, namely CSTNET, ChinaNet, CERNET and CHINAGBN, are the "backbone" of the mainland China Internet. Later dominant telecom providers also started to provide Internet services. Public Internet services are usually provided by provincial telecom companies, which sometimes are traded between networks. Internet service providers without a nation-wide network such as the Information Highway could not compete with their bandwidth provider, the telecom companies, and often run out of business.
The interconnection between these networks is a big concern of Internet users, since Internet traffic via the global Internet is quite slow. However, major Internet services providers are reluctant to aid rivals.
The June 2007 CNNIC report states that 54.9% Internet users are male, 57.9% are unmarried, and 51.2% are under 25 years old. The majority of Internet users have at least a college diploma. Among the users, 36.7% are students, and 25.3% are enterprise staff. 33.9% users earn more than 1500 yuan a month, however, if student users are left out, this percent goes rises to 53.6%. By the end of 2010 China had over 300 million mobile internet users.[7] China's Internet is highly internally referential, with fewer than 6% of China's websites linking to outside the country.[8]
In 2003, Internet activists and journalists led an online uprising that eventually forced the abolishment of the Custody and repatriation procedure, and the establishment of the constitutional committee in the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress.[9] In June, 2006, New York Times reported the online throngs and Internet hunting fought corruptions but also led to violence.[10]
Most users go online to read news, to search for information, and to check email. They also go to BBS or web forums, find music or videos, or download files.
Chinese-language infotainment web portals such as Sina.com, Sohu, and 163.com are quite popular among Internet users. For example, Sina claims it has about 94.8 million registered users and more than 10 million active users engaged in their fee-based services. Other Internet service providers such as the human resource service provider 51job and the electronic commerce web sites such as Alibaba.com are less popular but more successful on their speciality. Their success led some of them to the make IPOs.
Because the PRC government blocks many foreign websites, many homegrown copycats of foreign websites have appeared.[11]
| China | Share of searches (%) |
|---|---|
| Baidu | 54.6 |
| 17.7 | |
| Alibaba | 8.7 |
| Yahoo | 7.9 |
| Sohu | 7.9 |
| TENCENT | 2.8 |
| SINA | 0.7 |
| ZHONGSOU.com | 0.6 |
| Bing Search Engine | 0.3 |
| 372.com | 0.2 |
Baidu is the leading search engine, while most web portals also provide search functionality. Google China has also entered the Chinese market.
Although Chinese write fewer e-mails, they enjoy other Internet communication tools and form their communities based on different interests. Bulletin boards on portals or elsewhere, chat cvrooms, Instant messaging groups, blogs and microblogs are very active, while photo-sharing and social networking sites are growing rapidly. Some Wikis such as the Baidu Baike are "flourishing"; the Chinese Wikipedia cannot be accessed from mainland China. But since 2008, the government unblocked the Wikipedia, but blocking off other certain areas that is sensitive to the government.
The rapidly increasing number of Internet users in China has also generated a large online shopping base in China. A large number of netizens have even been branded as having an "online shopping addiction" as a result of the growth of online shopping; according to Sina.com, Chinese consumers with Internet access spend an average of RMB10,000 online annually.[12]
Driven by prevalent Internet usage and the increase online retail sector, online payment services have also grown rapidly. In 2009, the online payment utilization rate reached 24.5%, with 94.06 million users and an annual growth rate of 80.9%.[13]
Although restrictions on political information remain strong, several sexually oriented blogs began appearing in early 2004. Women using the web aliases Muzi Mei (木子美) and Zhuying Qingtong (竹影青瞳) wrote online diaries of their sex lives and became minor celebrities. This was widely reported and criticized in mainland Chinese news media, and several of these bloggers' sites have since been blocked in China to this day. This coincided with an artistic nude photography fad (including a self-published book by dancer Tang Jiali) and the appearance of pictures of minimally clad women or even topless photos in a few mainland Chinese newspapers, magazines and websites. Many dating and "adult chat" sites, both Chinese and foreign, have been blocked. Some, however, continue to be accessible although this appears to be due more to the Chinese government's ignorance of their existence than any particular policy of leniency.
The Golden Shield project was proposed to the State Council by Premier Zhu Rongji in 1993. As a massive surveillance and content control system, it was launched in November 2000, and became known as the Great Firewall of China. However, the blocking of websites can be circumvented and is generally ineffective at preventing the flow of information to determined individuals. The effectiveness of the project is the limitation on access it creates for the majority of users who are not technologically savvy or intent on seeking information. Some argue that it is more effective at providing a Chilling effect rather than actually blocking content.
The Internet has provided some interesting tactics for the dissemination of news. In contrast to some early fears that the fluidity of web content would make it easy to rewrite history and strengthen the hand of the government, the opposite appears true. One common tactic in publishing sensitive topics is to post the article on a newspaper website, and then comply with government orders to take it down. By the time the article is removed, people will have read it negating the point of the censorship order.
However, in fear of closure, online service providers sometimes hire moderators known as big mama to monitor user-provided content. Nevertheless, some officially supported websites such as the Strong Country Forum hosted by the People's Daily are less restricted than others in discussing sensitive topics.
Forbes magazine featured an article entitled “Cracks In the Wall (Feb. 27, 2006):
Amnesty International notes that China “has the largest recorded number of imprisoned journalists and cyber-dissidents in the world.” The "offences" they are accused of include "communicating with groups abroad", "opposing the persecution of the Falun Gong", "signing online petitions" and "calling for reform and an end to corruption".[14]
The Baidu 10 Mythical Creatures, initially a humorous hoax, has become a popular and widespread internet meme in China.[15][16] These hoaxes, ten in number, reportedly originated in response to increasingly online censorship and have become an icon of netizens' resistance to it.[17][18]
The State Administration of Radio, Film, and Television issued a directive on 30 March 2009 to highlight 31 categories of content prohibited online, including violence, pornography and content which may "incite ethnic discrimination or undermine social stability". Many netizens believe the instruction follows the official embarrassment over the "Grass Mud Horse" and the "River Crab". Industry observers believe that the move was designed to stop the spread of parodies or other comments on politically sensitive issues in the runup to the anniversary of the 4 June Tiananmen Square protests.[19]
The size of China's Internet advertising market was RMB 3.3 billion in the third quarter 2008, up 19.1% compared with the previous quarter. Baidu.com Inc, Sina Corp and Google Inc. remain the Top 3 in terms of market share. Key-word advertising market size reached RMB 1.46 billion, accounting for 43.8% of the total Internet advertising market with a quarter-on-quarter growth rate of 19.3%, while that of the online advertising site amounted to RMB 1.70 billion, accounting for 50.7% of the total, up 18.9% compared with the second quarter.[20]
Currently, Baidu has launched the CPA platform, and Sina Corp has launched the advertising scheme for intelligent investment. The moves indicate the market trend of effective advertising with low cost. Online advertisements on automobiles, real estate and finance will keep growing rapidly in the future.[20]
as of July 2011
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