Spreading telecommunications to developing areas in China: Telephones, the internet and the digital divide

China Quarterly

Volumn , Issue 180, 2004, Pages 1010-1030

  Harwit, Eric ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF HAWAII   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

INFRASTRUCTURAL DEVELOPMENT; INTERNET; MOBILE COMMUNICATION; TELECOMMUNICATION;

ASIA; CHINA; EASTERN HEMISPHERE; EURASIA; FAR EAST; WORLD;

EID: 13944251382     PISSN: 03057410     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0305741004000724     Document Type: Article

References (87)

1. Heather Hudson,When Telephones Reach the Village (Norwood, NJ: Ablex Publishing Corporation, 1984).
2. Ibid. pp. 43-44.
3. These assertions are derived from Andrew P. Hardy, "The role of the telephone in economic development," Telecommunications Policy, December 1980, pp. 278-286
4. Hardy, "The role of the telephone in economic development: an empirical analysis" (Geneva: International Telecommunications Union publication, 1981).
5. According to Hudson, Hardy's analysis found a I% rise in the number of telephones per 100 population in a nine-nation study between 1950 and 1955 contributed to a rise in per capita GDP between 1955 and 1962 of about 3%.
6. E.B. Parker, "Economic and social benefits of the REA telephone loan program" (Mountainview, CA: Equatorial Communications, 1981),
7. cited in Hudson,When Telephones Reach the Village, p. 52.
8. S.N. Kaul, "India's rural telephone network" (New Delhi: Economics Study Cell, Posts and Telegraphs Boards, Ministry of Communications of India, 1981),
9. cited in Hudson,When Telephones Reach the Village, p. 63.
10. D.G. Clarke and W. Laufenberg, "The role of telecommunications in economic development, with special reference to rural Sub-Sahara Africa" (Geneva: International Telecommunications Union, 1981), cited in Hudson,When Telephones Reach the Village, p. 70.
11. Paul Mundy and Jacques Sultan, Information Revolutions (Wageningen, Netherlands:CTA, 2001), p. 105.
12. Morten Falch and Amos Anymadu, Τele-centres as away of achieving universal access - the case of Ghana," Telecommunications Policy, Vol. 27 (2003), p. 31.
13. Hudson, When Telephones Reach the Village, p. 57.
14. Hudson's assertion is based on Kaul's study of India, cited above.
15. Cited in Jack Linchuan Qiu, "Coming to terms with informational stratification in the People's Republic of China," Cardozo Arts and Entertainment, 21 March 2002, p. 158.
16. From "Understanding the digital divide," 2001 OECD Publication found at http://www.oecd.org/pdfIN400002000/M00002444.pdf; quote from p. 4.
17. A further way of evaluating the divide would be either intra-regional or perhaps intra-municipal; however, government statistics do not document or tabulate this diversity in any sort of comprehensive national way.
18. Tang Tinglong, "The development of the Shanghai local telephone service," China Telecommunications Construction, Vol. 1, No. 2 (1989), pp. 43-44.
19. The following historical discussion, unless otherwise noted, is derived from Dangdai Zhongguo de youdian shiye (Contemporary China's Post and Telecommunications Facilities) (Beijing: Dangdai Zhongguo chubanshe, 1993), pp. 283-294.
20. The historian Maurice Meisner refers to the inflation of production numbers during this period as the "wind of exaggeration."
21. Maurice Meisner, Mao's China and After (New York: Free Press, 1999), p. 237.
22. Contemporary China's Post, p. 287.
23. Ibid pp. 344-45.
24. For detail on these policies, see Wang Xiangdong,Xinxihua: Zhongguo 21 shiji de xuanze (Informatization: China's Choices in the 21st Century), (Beijing: Shehuikexue wenzhai chubanshe, 1998), pp. 360-62,
25. John Ure (ed.),Telecommunications in Asia (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1995), p. 16.
26. South China Morning Post, 28 August 1997, China Business Review section, p. 2.
27. In 1995, China had about 859 million rural and 352 million urban residents. From Zhongguo tongji nianjian (China Statistical Yearbook) (hereafter CSY) (Beijing:Zhongguo tongji chubanshe, 1998), p. 105.
28. CSY, 1995, p. 495,
29. China Posts and Telecommunications Annual Report, 1996 (Beijing: "China Posts and Telecommunications" Editorial Group of MPT, 1997), p. 33
30. For percentages of areas connected, Contemporary China's Post, p. 289.
31. For numbers of townships and villages, CSY, 2001, p. 363.
32. Asia Pacific Telecoms Analyst, 5 February 1996. The number of villages is based on the number of "villagers' committees" recorded for the years since 1996, and represents administrative reorganization that reduced the number of villages from the 1985 count. Figure is from CSY, 2001, p. 363.
33. South China Morning Post, 11 June 1998, Business Review p. 1.
34. China Online, 9 March 1999 report.
35. Xinhua Economic News, 6 July 2001.
36. China Daily, 17 October 1999, p. 5;
37. Financial Times Information, 13 February 2003.
38. CSY, 2001, p. 538.
39. Research Centre for Regulation and Competition, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, "Universal service obligations in China's telecom sector: situations, reforms, and implementations," May 2002 paper; p. 72 for definition of phone access; complete paper posted at http:// wbln0018.worldbank.org/ppiaf/activity.nsf/files/A070100-S-TCI-RF-CN- FRE.pdf/$FILE/A070100-S-TCI-RF-CN-FRE.pdf.
40. Ibid. p. 72.
41. CSY, 1998, p. 568.
42. Xinhua General News, 3 June 2003. The total number of mobile phone subscriptions is also estimated at 212 million, though this number probably includes multiple phone numbers held by individuals. This figure is found at Xinhua's Emerging Market Datafile, 4 March 2003.
43. Research Centre for Regulation and Competition, "Universal service obligations," p. 18.
44. For 2001 numbers, see ibid. p. 18;
45. for 1999 figures, see Zhongguo jiaotong nianjian (Yearbook of China Transportation and Communications) (Beijing: Zhongguo jiaotong nianjian she, 2000), p. 667.
46. Contemporary China's Post, p.291
47. Ibid. pp. 292-93.
48. Conversion to dollar numbers use exchange rates for the relevant years.
49. Xu Li, "Chaju, wenti, duice:dui woguo tongxin qu cheng fazhan bu pingheng de sikao" ("Disparities, problems and countermeasures: thoughts on China's uneven regional communications development), Zhongguo ruankexue (Journal of China Soft Science), May 1997, pp. 44-51.
50. Interfax News Agency, China Business, 8 March 2002.
51. Xinhua Economic News Service, 24 January 2003.
52. Xu Li, "Disparities, problems and countermeasures," p. 51.
53. Liu Huaide, "Lon chuangxin shangpin xiaofei de baofaxing" ("On the explosiveness of consumption of innovative goods"), Shangmao jingji (Commerce and Trade Economy) July 2001, p. 16.
54. Hu Angang and Zhou Shaojie, "Zhongguo de xinxihua zhanlüe: suoxiao xinxi chaju" ("China's informatization strategy: reducing the information gap"),Guomin jingji guanli (National Economic Management), January 2001, pp. 25-29.
55. This history is derived from "Evolution of the internet in China," from the China Internet Network Information Center, found at http://www.cnnic.net.cn/evolution.shtml, and from Eric Harwit and Duncan Clark "Shaping the internet A China," Asian Survey, May-June 2001,pp.377-408.
56. From "Evolution of the internet in China," at, http:/ /www.cnnic.net.cn/evolution.shtml.
57. Harwit and Clark, "Shaping the internet in China," pp. 388-390; figure of average monthly income for Beijing urban residents is for 1997;
58. from CSY, 1998, p. 332.
59. Harwit and Clark, "Shaping the internet in China," p. 391.
60. Author's observations in Beijing, May, 2001.
61. Percentages derived from base number of users in each province over the period 1998 to 2002, from CNNIC web site, various year figures.
62. From interview in Beijing, summer 2004.
63. China Daily, 13 February 2003, at http://www1.chinadaily.com.cn/ cndy/2003-02-13/104410.htm.
64. Figures on rural and urban population numbers from CSY, 2002, p. 93.
65. CNNIC January 2004 report, at http://www.cnnic.cn/download/manual/ en-reports/13.pdf.
66. China Daily, 13 February 2003.
67. I b i d.
68. For a discussion of the problems of rural education in the 1990s, see June Teufel Dreyer, China's Political System (London: Addison Wesley Longman, 2000), p. 222.
69. Figures on literacy from CSY, 2003, p. 105.
70. Bu Wei and Qiu Linchuan, "Report on media usage among different groups in Sichuan," May 2002 (unpublished manuscript).
71. For a comprehensive discussion of the issue of internet dissent, see Michael S. Chase and James C. Mulvenon, "You've got dissent: Chinese dissident use of the internet and Beijing's counter-strategies," Rand publication, 2002, at http://www.rand.org/publications/MR/MR1543/.
72. For an essay that argues that political considerations are relatively minimal in the expansion of user numbers, see Harwit and Clark, "Shaping the internet in China."
73. From correspondence with Duncan Clark, managing director, BDA China(Ltd), June 2002.
74. The Standard, Financial Times Information, 13 February 2003
75. Milton Mueller and Tan Zixiang, China in the Information Age (Westport, CN: Praeger), 1997, p. 86.
76. Duncan Clark, Alexandra Rehak and Ted Dean, The Internet in China (Washington, DC: Strategis Group, 1999), p. 61.
77. Interview with CERNET official, January, 2003. Unless otherwise noted, the following information on CERNET is based on this interview. At the end of 2002, China had 1,396 institutions of higher education (from CSY, 2003, p. 718).
78. Statistics on secondary and primary schools for 2002, from CSY, 2003,p. 718.
79. China Online, 15 February 2001.
80. Interfax News Agency, China Business, 11 January 2002.
81. Business Wire, 17 August 2001.
82. The following paragraphs are derived from Research Centre for Regulation and Competition, "Universal service obligations," pp. 72-73.
83. Ibid. p. 73.
84. Xinhua News Agency, 15 May 2001. One central state planning official estimated there would be 150 million cable subscribers in 2005 (from Xinhua News Agency, 26 July 2002).
85. From CNNIC January 2003 report, at http://www.cnnic.net.cn/develst/ 2003-le/4.shtml. The 7 million figure includes cable modem as well as ADSL and other broadband data services.
86. Broadband rate and subscriber prediction from Duncan Clark, talk at "China and the Internet" conference, University of Southern California, 31 May 2003.
87. Details on one such programme are found in an 10 April 2003 report by CNN, at http://www.enn.com/2003/TECH/ptech/04/10/highspeed.house.ap/ index.html.