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Bridging the divide

(China Daily)
Updated: 2008-09-25 08:04

China is now the country with the world's largest number of Internet users. That is not surprising, as we have the largest population on the planet.

Like many other issues, our prominence in Internet is less striking when the mammoth population is taken into account.

But the truly exciting news from the China Internet Conference 2008 is the growth seen beyond cities, particularly the fact that 40 percent of new Internet users in 2007 were in rural areas. The number of rural netizens more than doubled last year.

In a sense, this was something that was bound to happen someday. On the one hand, most urban households that want Internet access may already have it. The first wave to get hooked up has turned Internet access into a basic daily routine in cities.

On the other hand, Internet access remains patchy in rural regions. In spite of the recent dramatic growth, the proportion of rural households using online services is less than one-quarter that of their urban cousins.

That is what is known as the digital divide. The rural-urban information gap is a result of economic disparities. But that is not all, it in turn threatens to exacerbate them.

The Internet weighs heavily on our time because we rely on information more than ever before. Nowadays, some farmers also realize the benefits of the Internet. Some of them go online to look for potential buyers and lucrative prices, with grain, vegetables and fruit being traded online. It may sound impressive, but this apparently simple procedure remains out of the reach of many living beyond our cities.

Internet access is also a financial issue. But relatively high charges are only a partial explanation for the small rural user base. In some areas, such access has little to do with the individual's ability to pay, because they are yet to be covered by the national telecommunications network. This remains a sad truth in a number of townships, not to mention smaller and scattered villages.

The central government is aiming to provide all villages with telephone services and all townships with broadband access by 2010. That is an essential first step in addressing the rural-urban digital divide.

(China Daily 09/25/2008 page8)