China's Internet spreads a complex
web By Indrajit Basu
KOLKATA - The rooms in China are like
cells with metal bars for doors and windows, and
are hardly open to visitors. Those living in them
are mostly teenagers who live under military-like
discipline. But these inmates are neither mental
patients nor prisoners; almost all have landed
there on their own or have been sent by their
parents.
They are there for one reason:
treatment for Internet addiction. The clinics they
are in are called Internet Addiction Treatment
Centers; there are currently
eight such clinics.
As China's economic
growth rumbles ahead, using the Internet to live,
work, talk and even play in extremes, these
clinics are just one example of the power the
Internet has started wielding on China and the
profound change that it is bringing into its
society.
"The Internet is a revolution in
China," said Guo Liang, deputy director of the
Center for Social Development at the Chinese
Academy of Social Sciences (CASS). "There is no
doubt that it is changing the ways of business,
life and communication in China. And this is
happening despite the fact China embraced the
Internet much later than most developed
countries."
Ever since the
commercialization of the Internet in China in
1995, the country has been one of the most
aggressive adopters of this medium. For instance,
by June 1998 - about 30 months after the Internet
made its debut in China - the country had notched
up 1.1 million Internet users. That doubled in the
next six months and continued to double every six
months from then until 2000, when the number
touched about 17 million users.
According
to a recently published survey by the China
Internet Network Information Center, the total
number of Internet users currently stands at more
than 137 million, representing annual growth of
23%, a rate at which say experts China is poised
to overtake the United States (currently largest
at 153 million users) in the next two years.
There's little doubt that the Internet is
transforming China for the better, but there's no
denying either that it has also been a bane in
many aspects.
"I think that the biggest
benefit of the Internet is that it has given the
Chinese the freedom to express themselves," said
Guo. "While there's a lot of talk of the
repression of the Internet in China, the fact is
that the Internet has given the Chinese the power
to change the course of their lives."
Guo
added that a large section of the Chinese
population actually depend on the Internet, chat
rooms, bulletin board systems (BBS) and weblogs to
obtain information because the news media are
controlled by the government.
"Most
Internet users spend all of their leisure time
going online eager to acquire knowledge about the
outside world that their parents never knew. While
many depend on the Internet for minor decisions
such as which is the new color to go for when
buying a new car, others, such as farmers near
Shanghai, use the medium to decide whether to sell
their harvest within the country or export it to
get the best price."
According to this
year's Statistical Survey Report on Internet
Development in China, as many as 85% of people
seeking information use the Internet, while just
15% and 18% use the state-controlled publications
and broadcasting services respectively.
"The Internet also means business," said
Kou Xiaowei, deputy director of the Audiovisual
and Internet Publication Department of the General
Administration of Press and Publication (GAPP).
Although China's dependence on the Internet for
trade and commerce is still comparatively low
compared with other developed economies, even that
is slated to change.
"Thanks to the
characteristics of the Internet and Chinese
people's insatiable urge to consume," said Kou,
"China's Internet economy is slated to grow faster
and could even be bigger than many Western
countries [eventually]."
The Statistical
Survey Report says that last year, Chinese
Internet users spent a monthly average of US$22
online, including the costs of Internet access,
online shopping and games, compared with about $20
in 2005. The online consumer market expanded by
47% over the previous year, said the report.
However, even as millions of words have
been written the world over on the Chinese
government's control over the Internet, experts
there believe that this aspect does not affect its
people all that much. "The [Chinese government]
control over the Internet is misunderstood by the
world," said Gao Jie, an analyst with CCID
Consulting, a Chinese consulting firm.
"Although the Chinese media system is in
the process of marketization, some Western
scholars and researchers still turn a blind eye to
these characteristics and functional changes of
the media. Their researches on China's news media
were still based on the prejudiced idea that the
Chinese press was a mouthpiece of the central
government and an ideological apparatus of the
state."
Let me entertain you But
behind the rosy side of the scorching growth of
the Internet in China, there are also some problem
areas. "The problem is that lately much of the
Internet boom in China has been driven by the need
to have virtual fun," said Guo Liang.
"Although the positive influence of the
Internet is undeniable, the fact is most young
people in China [where 70% of the Internet users
are under 30] are using the Internet just for
entertainment; for them the Internet is only for
playing online games, downloading video and music,
and even for dwelling in imaginary worlds."
Indeed, it is estimated that the Chinese
spent a mind-boggling 2 billion hours surfing the
'Net last year, and even if that's making the cash
registers of Chinese (Tencent, Sina) as well as
global (Google, Yahoo, etc) Internet companies
ring, "all that is also doing some harm to the
society", said Guo.
The Internet Addiction
Clinics are good examples of the new malaise
called "Web addiction" that is sweeping China, but
that's not the only serious downside of the
Internet in that country. In a recent study by
Sophos, which claims to be the world leader in
information-technology security and control, China
has been identified as one of the top contributors
(just after the United States, which features as
No 1) to cyber-crimes.
"China has a
massive population and rapidly expanding Internet
connectivity," said Paul Ducklin, head of
technology, Asia-Pacific, for Sophos. "It's not
surprising that China is No 2 in the list of
countries hosting Web malware."
Small
wonder, then, that President Hu Jintao thinks
there's need to "purify the Internet environment",
and is mulling a further dose regulations and
other measures. "The rapid development of the
Internet in China has played an important role in
spreading information, knowledge, and government's
policies," Hu said in a recent address to
government officials.
"Whether we can cope
with the Internet is a matter that affects the
development of socialist culture, the security of
information, and the stability of the state. We
should spread more information that is in good
taste, and promote online products that can
represent the grand Chinese culture."
Indrajit Basu is a Kolkata-based
journalist.
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