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CHINA INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY LAW NEWSLETTERVol. 2, No. 9 - July 23, 2001 TOPICS THIS ISSUE:
CHINA SHUTS DOWN 2,000 INTERNET CAFES IN 3 MONTHSRoughly 2,000 Internet cafes in China have been forced to close resulting from a recent three-month inspection spree by the Ministry of Information Industry of more than 56,800 Internet cafes and bars. The government news outlets have noted that 6,000 other Internet cafes have been ordered to suspend operations and make changes. The nationwide "clean-up" operation, which started in April, is claimed to prohibit Internet cafes flooded with pornographic or violent content and frequented by teenagers. Latest statistics reveal that by the end of June, the number of Internet surfers in China had risen 56.8% from a year earlier, reaching 26 million. The Ministry of Information Industry has also prohibited new Internet cafes from opening until the national inspections are completed. (Source: AFX-ASIA) CINIC REPORTS CHINA'S INTERNET USERS UP 4 MLN TO 26.5 MLNThe number of Internet users in China increased by 4 million in the first half of the year. A report by the government-funded China Internet Network Information Center (CINIC), revealed that 26.5 mln people are now using the Internet in China. Even though the majority of users are still between the ages of 18 and 30, the total percentage of this age group fell from 91% to 52.9% at the end of June. The report said this is due to the tendency of more people aged over 35 logging on to the net. CINIC reported that 34.4% of those participating in the survey used the Internet for leisure, up 7% from 1998. However, only 0.3% of respondents said their main purpose in using the Internet was for shopping and e-business. (Source: China Daily) CHINA'S INTERNET USER GROWTH SLOWS CONSIDERABLYAlthough the number of Internet users in China had increased to a new high of 26.5 mln in June, the figure also revealed that the swift growth experienced in the last two years has slowed considerably. The recently published China Internet Network Information Centre (CNNIC) report discovered that the number of Internet users in China increased by four million people in the first half of this year. The number of people online in China has been increasing at an alarming rate over the past two years. By the end of last year, the number surged 152% to 22.5 mln people, from just 8.9 mln at the end of the 1999. However, growth in the first half of this year was considerably smaller than the increase of 8 million and 5.3 million users in the first and second halves of last year respectively. A lack of access to computers, expensive online fees and slow connection speeds remain a formidable obstacle to many potential users. This has resulted in the Internet becoming a luxury only for people living in large cities who earn a high enough salary. The survey also found that the Internet is now enjoying the use of a broader segment of society, no longer limited to younger people. While surfers between the ages of 18 and 30 still make up the majority of all Internet users, by the end of June their share of the community dropped steeply from 91% in 1998 to 52.9%. However, only 0.3% of the respondents' purpose for going online was shopping and e-business. Growth in online shopping has been nearly flat for the past half year. At the end of last year, 31% of users said they had purchased something online in the past year. The most recent survey found only 31.9% of Internet users had ever bought anything online. CNNIC explained that part of the reason why e-commerce is growing slowly is because the majority of Internet users are under the age of 30 and earn less than RMB 1,500 (181 dollars) per month. Other reasons, such as inspecting products before purchasing, a lack of confidence in online transactions, and the lack of a comprehensive credit system are also attributed to the cause of such a low growth rate. (Source: Agence France Presse)
VISITING US IN BEIJING?Turn Your PDA Into A Tour
Guide
Beijing City guide for Palm OS 3.5 1000 Chinese Character TAXI Cards 1000 Super descriptions ONLY US $18.95 NEVER EVER LOSTWhat the professionals have said: Ava Mason MICROELECTRONICS INDUSTRY GIVEN TOP PRIORITY IN CHINAThe government of China announced it will give top priority to the development of the microelectronics industry over the next decade. Wu Jichuan, the Minister of Information Industry, said that China would continue to create a sound environment for investment in the field of microelectronics, open even wider to the outside world in order to speed up development, and fully utilize domestic and international resources. At a recent seminar on microelectronics and information technology, the minister recognized that China is behind developed countries in the microelectronics industry, and it remains a top priority for China to facilitate and accelerate industrial development. Wu said that while preferential policies will be implemented to boost industrial development, the role of the market will also be given full play in the coming decade. These policies include reorganizing the industry, promoting technological innovation, constructing industrial parks and investing in large microelectronics projects. These measures will be implemented with the hope that the industry will develop stronger and independent innovation capability, scale of economy and occupy a position in the industry of global microelectronics. Wu advised that areas where industry grows quickly, such as Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Guangdong and Fujian, should improve their independent innovation capacity, focus on developing new products and expand capacities for chip processing and circuit encapsulation and testing. (Source: Asia Pulse) CHINA'S FORBIDDEN CITY DIGITIZED AND ONLINEOn Monday, China opened a website about the largest museum in China, the Palace Museum, the famous imperial Forbidden City in Beijing, using modern digital technologies to preserve the city's ancient art. The website will provide Internet users with the opportunity to browse the 600 year-old imperial palace and Chinese traditional culture. The website (www.dpm.org.cn) is one of the first steps to utilize advanced digital technology to preserve priceless cultural relics, said Tan Bin, vice director of the Palace Museum. Further development of the website will concentrate on building a comprehensive and accurate database for ancient buildings and relics in the museum, Tan said. At the same time, it will improve the museum's relic management, protection work, research programs and international exchanges. The Forbidden City covers an area of 720,000 square meters and has more than 8,700 rooms built during the Ming and Qing dynasties (1368-1911). It also has a collection of one million pieces of cultural relics. In recent years, the museum receives about seven million domestic and overseas tourists annually. Because China has a very large population, it would take about 200 years to show all its people this wonder of Chinese civilization, Tan said. Besides, Tan said, only about 8,000 relics are on regular display in the Palace Museum, accounting for less than 1 percent of the total. "This is a common problem for many museums across the country," he said. Building a digital information system and reproducing images processed by such a system are key points in the development of the country's cultural relic protection and exhibition programs in the next century. The Palace Museum set up a special data information center in 1998 as an infrastructure project for the development of electronic information. At the end of 1999, the museum also constructed a special cable network and established a database with a collection of over 50,000 photo images of the ancient relics. The website took two years to develop using funds of RMB 12 million with technological support from the Sinosoft Group Corporation working under the Chinese Academy of Sciences. It will greatly facilitate the preservation and research of museum arts as well as provide a wide range of cultural information for tourists who do not have a chance to visit in person. The website is the most professional and comprehensive of its kind in China, including a dozen sections on the museum's summary, tour routes, history, cultural relics, ancient books, unique architecture and academic forums. Roughly 4,000 high-quality photos are stored on the website and a 360-degree tri-dimensional showroom will provide vivid images for visitors to access. The website also hosts two academic magazines published by the museum. The database for the website is still upgrading and enlarging with more cultural relics and study results to be supplemented later. In addition, the website will develop English and Japanese versions, Tan said. The Forbidden City was listed as a World Heritage Site in 1987 by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). (Source: Xinhua News Agency) EAST CHINA FARMERS REAP ONLINE BENEFITSLi Wenlong, a farmer from Hongtang Village in east China's Zhejiang Province, received an e-mail recently from a supermarket in Shanghai ordering 2,000 kilograms of vegetables. Li is only one of 30,000 farmers in Ningbo who are doing online business transactions. Hua Oucong, a female farmer in Ningbo, raises peacocks. Last year, her son helped her post advertisements on the Internet. Orders have been pouring in from every corner of the country, and over 1,500 peacocks have been sold. With the help of the Internet, farmers from Ningbo are also selling their bamboo shoots, plums, peaches and other produce to other provinces and cities. Some of their produce is even sold abroad. Sun Denglin is one of the first Internet users among the local farmers. Three years ago, he reached a million-dollar deal with a European customer via e-mail. Officials here say the Internet has helped farmers sell their farm produce to over 20 countries and regions in the world. The farmers themselves say the information superhighway has built "a bridge that leads to fortune." (Source: Xinhua News Agency)
Lehman Lee & Xu China Lawyers, Notaries, Patent, Copyright and Trademark Agents
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The China Information Technology Law Newsletter is intended to be used for news purposes only. It should not be taken as comprehensive legal advice, and Lehman, Lee & Xu will not be held responsible for any such reliance on its contents. |
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