Recent Internet developments in the People’s Republic of China: an overview
| Pages | 316-321 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/14684520010350669 |
| Date | 01 August 2000 |
| Published date | 01 August 2000 |
| Author | Jinhong Tang |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management,Library & information science |
Recent Internet
developments in the
People's Republic of
China: an overview
Jinhong Tang
Introduction
Today's world is rapidly being transformed by
the proliferation of digital information
resources available through new distribution
networks (Berry, 1996, p. 21). These global
networks offer interactivity, flexibility,
universal accessibility, and freedom of
expression.
According to the US National Information
Infrastructure Policy, national information
infrastructure (NII) should be accessible to all
citizens (Schaefer, 1995, p. 4). Unlike royal
archives in ancient times, information
resources, including government information,
are national property which should be open to
the public (Stratford and Stratford, 1998,
p. 299). Since NII was launched in 1993,
many countries have followed suit with their
own information infrastructure programmes,
such as Intelligence Island of Singapore
(Moore, 1997, p. 139) and Electronic
Australiana (Middleton, 1997, p. 9). The
global information infrastructure comprises
over 140 countries, including the People's
Republic of China.
Recent Internet developments in the
People's Republic of China
Since the open-door policy of reform was
adopted in China over 20 years ago, the
Chinese government has paid considerable
attention to research and development of
information technology and information
networks (Glasse, 1995, p. 47). A series of
related projects have been launched to spread
these networks (Liu, 1996, p. 175; Raddon,
1997, p. 12). This paper briefly describes
these projects in terms of their emergence,
objectives, significance and problems.
International and domestic environments
The US model of NII is prominent among the
foreign influences on China which created
great interest among policy makers,
researchers and entrepreneurs (Raddon, 1997,
p. 12).
Conversely, economic reform and progress in
China have attracted attention from across the
world (Glasse, 1995, p. 47). The State
Economic Information Centre has achieved
considerable progress in economic information
networks (Tang, 1999, p. 3). In addition to
those networks, the four major networks in
The author
Jinhong Tang is a PhD candidate in the Department of
Information Studies at the University of Technology,
Sydney, Australia.
Keywords
Internet, China, Government, International business,
Information superhighway
Abstract
Points out the emergence of networked society and its
major features. Introduces a series of high-tech projects in
the People's Republic of China in response to networked
society.
Electronic access
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is
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316
Online Information Review
Volume 24 .Number 4 .2000 .pp. 316±321
#MCB University Press .ISSN 1468-4527
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