Sources on China's Internet

Prepared by Kate Hartford for panel on China's Internet
Council on Foreign Relations
New York City, 25 June 2001
© 2001, Kathleen Hartford. All rights reserved.

For more information: kate@pollycyber.com
or visit the other pages linked from www.pollycyber.com

English-Language Sources

Alas, for really detailed information, you have to be able to read Chinese. But there are a handful of good sources that can help keep you up-to-date even if you stick to English. The ones I would recommend most highly are:

China Online. www.chinaonline.com. Browse the sections devoted to Internet, infotech, or telecom, or use the search engine. Offers email updates.
ChinaBiz IT/Telecom pages. www.chinabiz.org/sectors/it.asp. Brief overall analysis and news stories arranged in reverse chronological order. Email newsletter.
US Embassy (Beijing) Science and Technology Section. www.usembassy-china.org.cn/english/sandt/index.html. Carries some excellent occasional reports on the Internet in China, including political, economic, and social dimensions.

The remaining sources listed below are entirely or almost entirely in Chinese.

Government

China Internet Network Information Center. www.cnnic.net.cn. This body has the responsibility for conducting semiannual surveys on China's Internet, and also registers domain names in the .cn top-level domain. Some content is in English.
Ministry of Information Industry. www.mii.gov.cn. Supervises the telecommunications and electronics (including IT) industries.
Ministry of Science and Technology. www.most.gov.cn
State Administration of Radio, Film and Television. www.sarft.gov.cn. SARFT supervises all cable television operations -- including the new Internet-ready broadband cable.

Laws and Regulations

These sites provide full text of important laws, regulations, and other official communications that have some legal force. Remember that interpretation of these may require the expert assistance of law firms experienced in China's IT and telecom sector.

Ministry of Information Industry, Policies, Laws and Regulations. www.mii.gov.cn/mii/zcfg.html.
China Computer Networks Policies and Laws. www.cnnic.net.cn/policy.
Computer and Cyberspace Law. www.angelaw.com/weblaw.

News Media

China Computerworld. www.computerworld.com.cn. The day's major news, plus topical categories. Good search engine, and nice setup for browsing major subject headings. Searches yield links to other major online news sources.
ChinaByte. www.chinabyte.com. Begun from a joint venture of People's Daily and Australia's NewsCorp. If the mass of news on the front page seems like too much for you, a weekly news digest is available at http://www.chinabyte.com/digest/. Related sites include www.yesky.com, which provides similar types of information but is differently organized, and offers more portal functions.
Sina.com's IT page. http://tech.sina.com.cn/news/it/. Selects news from wide variety of trade and industry news publications. Keyword searches yield reverse-chronological-order listing; may go back 2 years or more.
Xinhua's "IT Platform." 202.84.17.73/it/index.htm. Part of www.xinhuanet.com (New China News Agency online). Xinhua has some English-language news at www.xinhua.org/english/index.htm But the detailed news on the IT Platform is only available in Chinese.
China Engineering Technology Electronic Information Network. www.electron.cetin.net.cn. This site very conveniently provides current and back issues of several important periodicals online, including CEO&CIO, Electronics and Informationization, and Network World.