Today in China, Internet has become an indispensable part of Chinese people’s life. The number of users has doubled every year for past five years. Internet diffusion starts to penetrate into vast rural area. Information literacy among young generation is enhanced by the command education program installed in primary and secondary schools. Chinese domestic IT players, with Legend and Founder as the representatives, compete with powerful foreign brands in domestic market and have emerged on leading position in sales volume. To date, the information industry has become an important pillar of China's industry.
Telecommunication is an important component of IT. After a decade of development through the deregulation process, China's tele-density in major costal cities in now on a par with OECD industrialized countries. China's wireless industry has become a world number one in 2001 with its wireless subscribers reaching 136 million (source: Ministry of Information Industry, MII) and surpassing the United States for the first time.
While e-commerce market and related policies are still murky, the
commitment to utilizing Internet to promote economic
development in China has become a government priority. On-line Government
and On-line Business is now palpable in many places.
China entered the WTO on 11 December 2001. Major restructuring of all
Information Technology and Telecommunications businesses in China is
expected over the next 10 years.
Since China is the host for the Olympics in 2008 information infrastructure.
It plans to spend USD120.8 billion over the next 5 years to spur the
development of its information industry, according to MII. Half of this
investment will be earmarked for telecom. MII said that priority will be
given to the application of Information Technology (IT) as a means of
boosting social and economic development. Financing would be raised from
domestic and international capital markets and both Chinese and foreign
investments in the sector would be encouraged.29