November 12, 1999 
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| November 12, 1999 | atimes.com | |
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| China Beijing seeks safe route round Y2K By Antoaneta Bezlova BEIJING - Ask a man on the street in Beijing about the Y2K bug, and you are likely to receive a reply that mixes confidence and unconcern. ''Our life doesn't hinge on the computer,'' says Chen Heguang, a driving instructor, says somewhat proudly. ''Unlike Americans, we don't have to worry about disasters on the New Year.'' While foreign computer and software companies are panting at the potential of China's computer market - there are more than 10 million computers and the number is increasing by 50 percent each year - it has created many difficulties for the Y2K taskforce in the Ministry of Information Industry. Fighting the millennium bug has been a marginal story in the newspapers and on the TV, leaving the few in charge of the battle to worry whether the bug will find China unprepared. Experts fear that the computer systems in financial institutions, nuclear power plants, the communication industry and the military might all crash on January 1 next year. Older computer systems that read years by the last two digits will be unable to record the correct date next year and may malfunction. Last year prominent software designer Ni Guangnan penned an article in the official People's Daily, calling for a ''wartime-style mobilization effort'' to beat the bug. But Zhao Bo, chief of the software division of the Ministry of Information Industry which spearheads the battle, seems more composed. ''The threat of the bug is less than in developed countries because China is less reliant on computers'', he says. ''But for banks and other financial companies, it is a problem just as in other countries.'' The government has been trying to force industries into fixing their computer systems, but a lack of know-how, reliance on a hodge-podge of software and paltry financial support for the campaign have raised concerns whether China will be anywhere near ready. The Ministry of Information Industry ordered all sectors which it thought might be unable to become Y2K-ready to submit a list of emergency measures by the end of September. Conservative contingency planning also shows up in the decision of the People's Bank of China to move its year-end settlements up a day to December 30, and in the announcement that from December 21 to January 1, airplanes in China will take off 15 minutes apart instead of the usual 10. Yet, overall, critical national sectors like banking and aviation are considered pretty safe. Experts in the Chinese banking sector do not expect to see what some countries fear most - a run on the banks that may cause the government to freeze assets. Some leading state banks have already spent 800 million yuan ($96 million) on dealing with the Y2K bug and will have spent one billion by the end of the year. In a dramatic commendation of the efforts made by the aviation sector to combat the bug, China has ordered the chiefs of all mainland airlines to be in the air on January 1 to win public confidence. What constitutes a real problem though, are those medium- to small-sized, cash-strapped state enterprises that make up half the economy. Most of them have been slow to prepare, or have not paid enough attention to the problem. While the Ministry of Information Industry conducted verification of compliance in the key sectors such as banking and energy, individual enterprises were responsible for their own remediation efforts. According to a report by the US embassy in Beijing, foreign vendors have expressed concern that state enterprises will not prepare themselves for the Y2K bug, and then will blame foreigners for the result. Already anecdotal evidence is appearing of lack of preparations: when the chocolate giant Cadbury Food Ltd presented a declaration of Y2K compliance to the Beijing electric authority in an effort to guarantee power at the millennium, the reply they got was that since the electricity was state-owned, no one could take responsibility to sign the declaration. Those enterprises that have begun tackling the problem face an uphill battle because of the rampant use of pirated software. Zhao Bo says that it is more difficult to deal with the Y2K bug in pirated software because the user cannot go back to the original supplier to correct it. The Business Software Alliance claims that some 98 percent of the software used in China is pirated, including most of the software used in government offices and state-owned enterprises. If airlines, the railways, the banks or other public companies use pirated software that has not been corrected, it could lead to chaos on their networks, experts here say. To avoid the worst case scenario, in mid-December the central government will announce contingency measures. People will be told that banks may close for a few days over the New Year's, and train and domestic plane services may be reduced. (Inter Press Service) | |||||||||
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