China plan to 'purify' Internet

Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Thursday, 25 January 2007 18:09

Your IT - Home IT

China’s President Hu Jintao says he wants to "purify" the Internet and "actively and creatively nurtuer a healthy online culture" in what is the world's second largest block of Internet users.

Chinese President Hu Jintao has been quoted by Reuters as vowing to ‘purify the Internet environment’, by better regulation and other measures.

He was also reported by Xinhua and China Daily as wanting officials to “actively and creatively nurture a healthy online culture” at a study session of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of Communist Party of China (CPC)

Hu acknowledged the while the Internet’s made information and knowledge available, it also raised issues for China’s cultural development.
 
Xinhua reported Hu saying that “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”. Reuters reported that Hu wanted to "Maintain the initiative in opinion on the Internet and raise the level of guidance online”, all the while wanting the government to effectively use the new technology while keeping an eye on content and network security.

Hu said that “We should spread more information that is in good taste, and promote online products that can represent the grand Chinese culture” and wanted websites to carry “excellent content”.

The actual issue of censorship is reported to not have been directly discussed.

Whether or not China can do this is yet to be seen, Hu is reported to have said he wanted China to “Ensure that one hand grasps development while one hand grasps administration”.

China’s Internet population has grown to 137m users, second only to the US, with 90m of those users connected to broadband, meaning 1 in 10 Chinese now have Internet access to a wide variety of online information and services, despite some sites still being blocked, such as the English and Chinese language BBC website.

The jump in growth year-on-year was 24%, and with the advent of new operating systems from Microsoft, Apple and various flavors of Linux, along with ever more affordable and powerful computers, rapid growth is expected to continue, as with everything else in the Chinese economy at the moment.

Xinhua reports that Chinese Internet users “spent a monthly average of 170 yuan (21.79 U.S. dollars) online, including the costs of Internet access, on-line shopping and games, compared with 150 yuan in 2005. The on-line consumer market expanded by 47 percent over the previous year, according to the China Internet Survey Report 2007 released this month”.

Activity from Chinese bloggers and producers of music content is also reported to have caught the attention of Chinese authorities.

So, despite the Chinese government wanting to exert control over the Internet, already blocking content and likely doing it more successfully than other nations, Chinese Internet access is booming, unleashing the benefits of the information age to the world’s largest population, and that, at least, is a very good thing indeed.