CHINA INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY LAW NEWSLETTER
Vol. 3, No. 8 - July 1, 2002
TOPICS THIS ISSUE:
- IT Becomes China's Biggest Export
- Fire Prompts Tight Control on Cyber Cafes in China
- Domestic Cell Phone Users Hit 170 Million
- China's E-Signature Regulations Being Drafted
- Microsoft to Enter Education Pacts with China
China Litigation and Arbitration
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IT Becomes China's Biggest Export
Information technology, according to Gou Zhongwen, China's Vice Minister of Information Industry, has become China's biggest industrial export.
In 2001, the information technology industry's added value accounted for 4.2 percent of China's gross domestic product (GDP). This sector generated 65 billion U.S. dollars in exports, which amounted to 24 percent of China's total exports, Gou said at the third Asia- Pacific region urban information forum held here recently.
China now boasts the largest and one of the most advanced telephone networks in the world. It has 190 million fixed telephone lines and 160 million mobile phone links, and both the fixed and mobile systems have been digitized.
Guo also said that the development of the information technology industry had not only contributed to China's economic growth, but it also strongly supported the progress of the information age of the government, business, and society in China, he said.
( Source: USITO)
Fire Prompts Tight Control on Cyber Cafes in China
All major cities in China moved quickly to tighten controls on Internet cafes after a Beijing-based cyber cafe burned down in the early hours of June 16, causing 24 deaths.
Beijing, Shanghai and Tianjin municipalities, Guangdong and Shandong provinces and the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR) announced new measures for their Internet cafes, including limiting the total number of internet cafes in operation, shutting down all unlicensed ones, improving layout and amending relevant laws and regulations. Liu Qi, the mayor of Beijing, said that the municipal government would revise the rules pertaining to the city's Internet cafe sector. All illegally-run cyber cafes would be ordered to shut down. He called on citizens to expose those "black Internet cafes" to the government.
Statistics show that Beijing is now home to some 2,400 Internet cafes. However, fewer than 200 of them have obtained full documentation.
The Shanghai cultural administration issued an urgent notice on the evening of June 16, saying that a strict safety check would be conducted shortly to avoid similar accidents.
Shanghai has more than 1,600 cyber cafes, and according to its regulations, even the smallest should have at least 20 PCs.
(Source: Xinhua News Agency)
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Domestic Cell Phone Users Hit 170 Million
China's telecommunications market stayed in high gear in the first five months of the year, an exception to the global telecom downturn.
In a report released June 21, the Ministry of Information Industry (MII) said China had nearly 370 million telephone users as of the end of May. Mobile telecom was the engine powering the whole industry, the report said. The number of mobile-phone users in China reached 170 million by the end of May and stands far ahead of any other country. China surpassed the United States a year ago to become the world's biggest mobile-telecom market. During the first five months of this year, more than 26.57 million people became mobile phone subscribers, over 5.3 million per month.
China Mobile, the dominant mobile carrier, became the top revenue contributor to the industry with a 37.4 per cent share of the aggregate telecom income. China Unicom, a smaller mobile carrier, expanded its market share during the period, servicing 30 per cent of the mobile phone users.
Growth in the fixed-line business was flat as major carriers were busy restructuring themselves after a reorganization. China's fixed-line telephone users increased 16.82 million to 196 million during the five-month period, an addition of about 3.4 million per month. The fixed-line carriers were hardly happy with income from international and domestic long-distance calls. Both posted negative growth. Due to the industry's restructuring, in which the former China Telecom was split into two parts, investment in fixed-asset or basic-network facilities slowed down, the MII report said.
All telecom carriers jointly invested 36 billion yuan (US$4.3 billion) in network construction, which is only 70 per cent of the investment made in the same period of the previous year.
Industry experts said investments may rebound once the bust-up of China Telecom begins to stimulate competition, driving carriers to upgrade their network facilities and provide more services.
The wireless paging business shrank during the five-month period: 10 million people stopped using their pagers, most of them turned to more convenient mobile phones. China has 25 million wireless-pager users for the time being, but the shrinking trend will probably continue as more people opt for mobile phones.
The report also noted that about 2.6 million people got online during the period. China now has a total of 38.7 million Internet users.
(Source: China Daily)
China's E-Signature Regulations Being Drafted
It was announced in the "Second E-Commerce Policy and Law Forum", recently held in Shanghai, that the Department of E-Commerce Administration within the Ministry of Foreign Trade & Economic Cooperation (MOFTEC) has appointed experts to draft China's "Electronic Signature Regulation."
A digital signature is an electronic signature that can be used to authenticate the identity of the sender of a message or the signer of a document, and possibly to ensure that the original content of the message or document that has been sent is unchanged. Digital signatures are easily transportable, cannot be imitated by someone else, and can be automatically time-stamped. The ability to ensure that the original signed message arrives means that the sender cannot easily repudiate it later.
Since the first web-based transaction in 1998, the volume of e-commerce transactions has been increasing steadily. With the development of China's e-commerce and enterprise information progress, the demand for legislative protection is more urgent than ever. However, China still does not have a real and complete law or regulation regarding web-based transactions. As such, this greatly hinders the development of web economy.
The Electronic Signature Regulations currently being drafted will be considered the basis of web transactions in the future, and is also a milestone for the construction of China's e-commerce law system. On January 24, 2002, the United Nations Commission on International Trade law (UNCITRAL) adopted a Model Law on Electronic Signatures, and currently there are over fifty countries and regions that have enacted their own legislation on digital signature including Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Japan, India, Hong Kong and Taiwan.
According to the experts in the conference, the law proved electronic signatures can serve as evidence with regard to electronic data and documents. It can also help promote the process of paperless trade. In addition, the promulgation of this law will allow emails to become evidence in court.
( Source: China Communication Standards Association)
Microsoft to Enter Education Pacts with China
Microsoft will soon announce a series of education-related deals in China. As reported in Reuters, an unnamed source disclosed that the Washington-based Microsoft would bring in hundreds of millions of yuan in an effort with the ministry and universities, called the "Great Wall Plan".
According to the recent report, Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer is scheduled to announce the agreements with the Ministry of Education and five Chinese universities on improving software education in China.
This significant investment in the computer education in China will see a long term commitment by Microsoft in China despite having faced with frustration in dealing with piracy issues in the Chinese market.
(Source: Reuters -Technology)
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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