CHINA INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY LAW NEWSLETTER
Vol. 2, No. 11 - August 27, 2001
TOPICS THIS ISSUE:
- E-schooling Booming in China
- West China's Development Plans to Integrate IT
- Five-year Plan Emphasizes Development of the High-technology Industry
- China is World's Largest Mobile Phone User
- IT Industry is the Key to the Chinese Economy
- Digital China Forecasts a Slow-down in IT Development
- PM Koizumi's War Shrine Visit Results in Mainland Cyber-attacks
- IT Industry Hoped to Make up 7% of China's GDP by 2005
E-schooling Booming in China
Online study is quickly becoming one of the most promising Internet businesses in China.
According to the Ministry of Education (MOE), from July 2000 to March 2001, over 240,000 students enrolled to study at the electronic version of 38 universities. Since March, eight more universities have been approved by the MOE to offer online courses.
Despite pessimistic outlooks regarding future profits, the MOE believes that by the end of 2005, there will be approximately 100 universities awarding diplomas to over 5 million online students.
Pan Jianxin, General Manager of prcedu.com, which has more than 6,000 online students studying at the partner institution of the prestigious Renmin University of China (RUC), believes that "the future will be very good and the enthusiasm from both universities and students will be greater and greater." Currently, the RUC has over 6,000 online students.
Yan Jichang, dean of the continuation college of Tsinghua University, said "more than 200 million Chinese people do not have a chance to go to universities, so the Internet has given us a good way to extend higher education to those people."
However, people involved realize it will be some time before the large initial investments pay off. An online college needs at least RMB 50 million (US $6 million) to establish an online school. Peking University has invested over RMB 70 million (US $8.4 million).
Advising others to concentrate on possibilities in the future, president of the online education Web company eduedu.com, Zhang Hongren, said "the online education market is just being initiated, and we should pay more attention to the long-term development of the market rather than the immediate profits."
In a recent survey, it was discovered that the public views online schooling as an important and promising use of the Internet, second only to shopping.
(Source: China Daily)
West China's Development Plans to Integrate IT
The western area of China, regarded as economically behind the rest of the country, was recently encouraged to develop its information technology industry in order to boost economic growth.
In a seminar in Shaanxi province, government officials and IT insiders acknowledged that information technology played a central role in the development of the coastal areas.
It is hoped that already developed areas in the east, such as Shanghai and Guangdong province, will assist the west in terms of providing technology, capital and talent. Attendees also hoped that the central government would incorporate the information technology project with the general development plan for the west.
China Telecom has announced that within two years it will spend RMB 2 billion (US $240 million) to improve the telecommunications infrastructure in west China.
(Source: Xinhua News Agency)
Five-year Plan Emphasizes Development of the High-technology Industry
On August 15, the State Development Planning Commission (SDCA) announced another five-year plan.
The commission declared that 12 high-technology projects and 20 strategic high-technology fields are vitally important to the development of China's high-technology industry in the next five years.
The commission's plan calls for the development of projects using technology such as broad-band information networks, digital high-definition television, satellite broadcasting system, lateral aircraft, and coal liquefaction. The strategic fields that will be focused on in the future include software, digital electronic products, Chinese medicine and satellite applications.
By 2005, the value of the production of high-tech industries is estimated to rise to 6% of GDP, up from the present 4%. High-tech industries are also expected to account for 16% of total industrial production, an increase from the current 9%.
The plan also calls for the formation of industrial groups at the international level in fields such as software, telecommunications equipment, electronic products, biomedicine, and biochips; and in some traditional fields like machinery building, textiles, petro-chemistry, metallurgy, and energy.
It is hoped that technological reforms will be quickly introduced and the country will become an important supply base for mechanical and electrical products, with the result being a developed high-tech industry.
(Source: Xinhua News Agency)
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China is World's Largest Mobile Phone User
Recent government figures reveal that China has become the top country in the world for mobile phone use.
At the end of July, there was a total of 120,600,000 subscribers in China. This corresponds into 9.2 mobile phones per 100 people.
The new government figures surpass the number of mobile phone users in the United States. Recent statistics in the U.S. show that there are 120,100.000 mobile phone subscribers.
The Ministry of Information Technology and Telecom Industries revealed that the number of mobile phone users in China exceeded 100,000,000 at the end of March. The latest figure shows that the number of users in China has increased by more than 20 million in only four months.
The Chinese government expects that by 2005 the number of users will surpass 260 million.
(Source: Japan Economic Newswire)
IT Industry is the Key to the Chinese Economy
According to the Ministry of Information Industry (MII), China's information industry has jumped to first place in terms of contributing to the country's economic growth.
"The industry's contribution to the country's gross domestic product currently stands at 19%, and the overall business volume of the sector has become the world's third highest" said Chen Xiaozhu, deputy director of MII's technology department, at a symposium held in Guangzhou.
Over the past five years, the added value of the industry doubled in proportion to GDP growth, reaching 4%. Within the industry, the telecommunications business volume alone reached RMB 472.5 billion (US $57.13 billion), while the output value of the electronics industry hit RMB one trillion (US $120.9 billion).
During the Ninth Five-Year Plan period (1996-2000), the industry realized a combined fixed-asset investment of RMB 97.4 billion (US $11.78 billion), with sales volume up an average 25% and pre-tax profit up 22%.
Moreover, China's information technology development reached a new level, said Chen, adding that breakthroughs were achieved in various fields such as program control, mobile telecommunications, and fiber optics.
(Source: China Daily)
Digital China Forecasts a Slow-down in IT Development
Digital China Holdings Ltd. believes that the pace of development of information technology in China will slow this year.
Whereas in the year 2000, growth was encouraged by enthusiasm for the Internet, 2001 will be considerably slower.
Accompanying the release of Digital China's first quarter results was a statement saying it will focus on businesses with high profit potential and information technology service orientation.
(Source: AFX - Asia)
PM Koizumi's War Shrine Visit Results in Mainland Cyber-attacks
Japanese government websites have recently come under attack from mainland hackers after Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi visited a shrine honouring Japanese war dead, including various war criminals.
Two Chinese mainland hacker groups, The Red Hacker's Alliance and China Eagle, have defaced 13 Japanese government websites.
A list of the attacked Japanese websites appeared on the website of The Red Hacker's Alliance, www.redhackers.org. The sites defaced included one belonging to the Japanese Defense Administration Facilities, www.dfaa.go.jp.
A week previous to the attacks, the two hacker organizations held a meeting to plan a strategy if Koizumi did attend the shrine. An online statement read "after the joint meeting, we decided to use what we are good at to express our strongest dissatisfaction with the Japanese government and the Japanese leaders ahead of the Chinese government's official protests."
China Eagle and The Red Hacker's Alliance enjoyed little fame until May, when a US spy plane collided with a Chinese jet fighter. In the resulting aftermath, they successfully attacked US websites.
Although under Chinese law, such hacking is illegal, the Chinese government is reluctant to punish the groups.
The hackers have in turn avoided hacking mainland-based sites or doing substantial damage.
(Source: South China Morning Post)
IT Industry Hoped to Make up 7% of China's GDP by 2005
Predictions by the Central China government forecast that the output of the IT industry will make up over 7% of GDP in the next five years.
The State Development Planning Commission (SDPC) also revealed a plan that it hopes will expand the size of the national information and telecommunications network to become the world's largest by 2005.
The country intends to upgrade the economy and the living standards of citizens through the application of information technology. The plan calls to provide telephone service in 40% of Chinese households, provide TV and radio access in 95% of them and have more than 70 million computers nationwide in 2005.
The output of IT service industries will grow by more than 30% annually in the next five years. At the same time, the percentage of Internet users of the total population will increase to 8%.
The output of information product manufacturing is hoped to represent 3% of the GDP by 2005. Exports of information products are predicted to grow at an annual rate of 15% in the next five years.
The plan proposes that the application of information technology in the fields of education, public health, social security and public service will assist in raising the quality of life of the Chinese people.
Because average Chinese families are expected to spend a larger part of their income on information consumption in the future, the information technology industry is hoped to provide approximately 20 million new jobs in the next five years.
(Source: China Daily)
Lehman Lee & Xu
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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.
