NOV 26, 2003
Small Chinese cities go big on the Net
Online trends changing nation's political landscapeheadline missing
By Chua Chin Hon
BEIJING - Internet use in China is spreading far more rapidly than
anticipated, especially in smaller cities, with the consequence that it is
changing the Chinese political landscape, according to the country's most
extensive academic research on the subject to date.
About 70 per cent of the 4,100 people interviewed in 12 Chinese cities during
a two-year study agreed that Internet use allowed them more opportunities to
express their political views.
A similar number of people said Internet use would improve their knowledge of
politics and provide officials with a chance to listen to the people's views.
And six out of 10 interviewees said the Internet gave them a chance to
criticise government policies.
'The Internet is changing the Chinese political landscape. It provides people
with a platform to express their opinions and a window to the outside world as
never before,' said the study by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences
(CASS), led by Professor Guo Liang, a leading Internet expert in China.
'People highly expect the Internet to bring more freedom of speech and more
political opportunities.'
China's online community has no real political clout or power, though it has
lately become an important pressure group, most notably during the Sars
crisis.
But the Chinese authorities have also shown little hesitation in cracking down
on so-called cyber-dissidents, jailing scores of people in recent years for
posting their anti-government views online.
While research on China's digital revolution has mostly focused on the big
cities, the CASS report suggests the most interesting development may be in
the small cities where Internet use is rising 'silently and rapidly'.
Researchers surveyed three metropolises (Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou),
four provincial capitals (Chengdu, Changsa, Xi'an and Shenyang), and five
small cities with urban populations of less than 150,000 (Nanhai, Yima,
Guangshui, Yimo and Fengnan).
The small cities that were chosen included both highly developed ones such as
Nanhai in southern Guangdong province and poorer ones such as Henan province's
Yima City.
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To their surprise, the researchers found that the proportion of Internet users
in the small cities was close to - in some cases even surpassed - the
proportion of users in capitals and metropolises.
On average, the proportion of Internet users in relation to the urban
population in the five small cities is 26.6 per cent. This outstrips the 24
per cent figure for provincial capitals, and is not far behind the 33 per cent
for metropolises.
In fact, the city with the highest proportion of Internet users is neither
Shanghai nor Beijing, but Nanhai City, where 35.6 per cent of the population
are Internet users.
Admittedly, Nanhai is the model for e-government in China and one of the three
richest cities in the booming Pearl River Delta, reasons that might well
account for the high number of people going online.
But even in relatively poor cities such as Yima, researchers observed that
ordinary Chinese, especially the young, were prepared to pay to go on-line for
news, interaction and entertainment.
Central to this development in the small Chinese cities is the mushrooming of
low-cost Internet cafes which charge as little as one to two yuan (2 to 4
Singapore cents) an hour for patrons to go online.
These Internet cafes lower the entry barriers for many ordinary Chinese eager
to go online but who cannot afford to buy their own computers.
Researchers also observed that these cafes became 'public schools' where many
residents had their first contact with a computer, or learnt to type and surf
the Internet - a development that could have important socio-economic
implications in the future.
If not for the crackdown and restrictions placed on these cafes, many of them
illegal, Internet usage might be even higher.
The developments in the small cities also held important lessons for closing
China's digital divide.
There are now 68 million Internet users in China but only 600,000 are in the
rural areas where about 64 per cent of the population lives.
The report said: 'Internet use in the small cities provides us with an example
of how the Internet may eventually spread into the poor areas.'
Copyright @ 2003 Singapore Press Holdings. All rights reserved.
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