The Power of the Internet in China

Readers who can’t read Chinese—or even those who can but don’t spend time surfing the Chinese Internet—will be surprised by many research findings. Despite China’s authoritarian political system, censorship and surveillance, the Chinese Internet is a highly contentious place; debate is fierce and passionate. While political realities prevent the Internet from being a medium for open political organizing as it is in most democratic countries today, research shows how outraged citizens have used the Internet to expose and bring down corrupt officials. New organizations in particular have used the Internet to raise awareness for causes and expand membership.

Internet businesses have an incentive to promote controversies and debate—as well as creativity and lighthearted fun—as a way of gaining customers and traffic. Access to sites offering diverse political opinions remains highly restricted, even as Chinese intellectuals and activists regularly brave the constraints to post new statements. The government is also targeting what it calls unhealthy content on the Internet.

China's online population, already the world's largest, has expanded to 298 million (according to BBC News, January 2009). This marks a 41.9% increase on the previous year and is still growing fast, said the government-linked China Internet Network Information Centre to BBC News. The study also showed huge increases in the number of people in China accessing the internet through mobile phones. At the end of 2008, the number of net users in China, which has a population of 1.3 billion, was almost the same as the entire population of the United States. 

CHINA'S INTERNET USE (Jan 2009)

Total users: 298 million

Year-on-year increase: 41.9%

Mobile net users: 117.6 million

Internet penetration: 22.6%

References: 

1. Graphs: Internet May 2008, CNNIC July 2008

2. BBC News, Jan 2009

3. "The Power of the Internet in China: Citizen Activism Online", by Guobin Yang. Columbia University Press, 2009.