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Internet and WWW in China: All the Right Connections

Sandy Tse
School of Information Systems
University of South Australia
Australia

Email: stse@unisa.edu.au

Philip Tsang
Internet Special Projects Group
Charles Sturt University
Wagga Wagga 2678, Australia

Email: ptsang@csu.edu.au

Abstract
In the past, few regional computer networks in China were interconnected. Many of China's universities and research institutes which have established e-mails and even full Internet links in the past few years were mostly done on a stand alone and in a small coordinated scale due to the nation-wide lack of planning of education and research Internet backbone. The recent establishment of the national research and commercial networks such as CERNET, ChinaNet and China Internet are now offering full Internet inter and intra communications links. These networks will facilitate the exchange of information both within and outside China.

This study looks at how Internet/WWW technology are changing the face of China's education and business communities. The Internet Society's projected growth of numbers of Internet users (to the world population) by the year 2001 will be far from reality without the participation of the China Internet community. The coordinated Internet plans are regarded as crucial not only for enhancing education and allowing greater interaction among educational institutes both within China and with overseas institutions, but also, to the country's information technology development and its economic future.

This paper also examines the current development of Internet and the WWW in China, provides an overview of the Internet infrastructure connections in the region, addresses the limitations and implications of its development, explores its potential contributions to education and business sectors and pictures the strategic alliance opportunities opening to other countries as the Internet development in China continues to proliferate.

Keywords
IHEP; ChinaNet; CERNET; China Internet; Golden Projects.
Note on Citations
As the citations need to be accessible on the Web and in print, the following procedure has been followed. All bibliographic citations in the text are hyper-linked to an anchor in the reference list at the end of this paper. This allows the reader easily to check the detail of the citation and determine if they wish to access it. Cited works for which there exists a URL can then be accessed by clicking on the text of the URL itself, which will be given in full after the citation information. Selecting Go back will, in most Web browsers, return to the original location in the main text.

1. Introduction

With a projected annual increase in its gross national product of about ten percent from the present to the year of 2000, the Asia-pacific region is at the core of the world economy. More importantly, the entire region is being positively influenced by China's increasingly market-oriented approach to economic development, which is in the grip of unprecedented, and seemingly unstoppable, economic activities. It seems like everyone in the Western World from President Clinton down has been talking about the Asia-Pacific region as the economic centre of the 21st century [Mutch94].

In 1983, Deng Xiao Ping, the paramount Chinese leader, commented that in order to achieve Four Modernisation of China, China had to use information resources efficiently. Recently, Jiang Ze Ming (governing party leader) also stated, 'Electronic information technology is the best way to develop the Chinese economy.' In terms of the Internet services availability, Asia's economy has benefited substantially from the rapid deployment of telecommunications infrastructure within the region [Tsang94b]. Also helping the growth is the change in mindset of the policy makers who are becoming comparatively more tolerant and open minded to international policies. China's national policies on projects such as the Golden Projects aim not only for industrialisation but also for informationisation of the country.

China's aggressive on-going update of its national communications infrastructure since 1990 has laid much ground work on the web of connections for the booming Internet activities in China. The mushrooming of Internet activities is providing many opportunities for countries like Australia to form partnerships with Chinese institutes and businesses. This paper aims to provide pointers to educators and business people who are eager to learn about the Internet development in China and explore educational, research and business opportunities opening by this latest telecommunications evolution .

2. An Overview of the Internet Connectivity in China

Connectivity-wise, the Internet links in China can be divided into two eras. The CANET- e-mail era and the IHEP, ChinaNet, China Internet and CERNET (ICCC) full connectivity era (see Figure 1) :

The two eras of China Internet Links

2.1 CANET- Precursor of Full-Internet Connectivity

The first reported China network cooperating with the outside world was the China Academic Network (CANET) which was implemented in 1988. CANET provides minimum e-mail services using X.25 technology via a gateway at Karkruhe University, Germany. CANET registered the top domain name ³cn² with InterNic in 1990.[Li95a] One would have thought ³ch² would be more appropriate as a top domain name for China but as 'ch' was already taken by Switzerland ³cn² came a close second.

2.2 Full-Internet Communication Links

Direct Internet overseas links overseas from China become better known in 1994 when several major Internet links were installed and publicised. These included the links from the Institute of High Energy Physics (IHEP); National Computing and Networking Facilities of China (NCFC), Beijing University of Chemical Technology (BUCT), China Education and Research Network(CERNET) and Ministry of Post and Telecommunications' China Internet [Qiang95] [Li95a].

2.2.1 IHEP Internet Link

Many people became aware of this link in 1994 when one of the key scientists from IHEP attended the first International World-Wide Web conference at CERN (the birth place of WWW) organised by Robert Cailliau (one of our APWWW¹95 keynote speakers). The IHEP link is important because it is the first official Internet link to the Internet and further it also set up the very first official Web Server in China. Through a 64Kbps leased line from AT&T, IHEP connected with Stanford Linear Accelerator Center for high energy physics international collaboration and provided e-mail accounts to many of China¹s top scientists. The IHEP Internet link started out as a satellite connection but soon linked to the rest of Internet via submarine fiber optic cable through the Nationa

2.2.2 NCFC Link

The NCFC (National Computing and Networking Facility of China) project was initiated to connect a regional supercomputer center and three campus networks; China Academic of Science Network (CASNet); Tsinghua University Network(TUNet); and Peking University (PUNet) in the Capital of China. It was funded by a grant from the China State Planning Commission and a loan from the World-bank in 1989 and the connection of the campuses was completed in 1992. In May 1994, a 64Kpbs satellite link via Sprint International gateway, to the NSFNet was established[Li95a][Qiang95].

2.2.3 BUCT Link

With the technical and financial assistance from Tokyo Institute of Technology in Japan, Beijing University of Chemical Technology became the third Chinese entity to have direct Internet in September 1994 via Beijing Telecommunications Administration (BTA) through MCI 64Kbps satellite link, via the Consortium of Asian Research and Education Network and the John Von Neuman Center Network in the USA[Qiang95].

2.2.4 CERNET Link

Prompted by the country's many universities, which have been impatient to gain access to foreign databases and to communicate with overseas colleagues, China engaged US Telecommunication Company Sprint to provide the China Education and Research Network full Internet gateway connectivity initially in Beijing and Shanghai, but later to more than 20 cities country-wide. The China Education and Research Network (CERNET) is the first nation-wide education and research computer network in China and is centered at Tsinghua University, Beijing. Its primary Internet link is through the NCFC 256Kpbs line and two more Internet links (one via Hong Kong) are in the planning stage. More links are expected to come.[IA95][Li95a].

2.2.5 Ministry of Post and Telecommunications' Commercial Links (MPT)

The MPT started its commercial venture in May 1995 and is gradually expanding the services nation wide.

3. China's Internet National Infrastructure

There are three major nation-wide Internet infrastructures: ChinaNet, China Internet and CERNET [Zhang95]:

3.1 ChinaNet

ChinaNet is a nation-wide Internet in China, based on the World Bank supported project NCFC(The National Computing and networking Facility of China). A 64Kps dedicated link connects the ChinaNet, via Sprint International router, to the NSFNET which is the main backbone of the Internet

ChinaNet which is based on a NCFC backbone consists of :

*The ChinaNet is formed by the interconnection of many networks in China and readers may be surprised to see that it has already 'included' networks in Hong Kong and Macau despite the fact that the two cities won't be returned to China for another few years.

3.2. China Internet

China's Ministry of Post and Telecommunications market it's Internet Services under the China Internet banner [4]. MPT's nation wide digital data network, which has undergone rapid deployment, will become the backbone of China¹s information highway. On April 27, 1995, MPT announced that it would introduce China¹s Internet services to the public and will soon provide users with comprehensive Internet Services. China Internet, was officially opened in Beijing and Shanghai on May 17, 1995. The U.S. Sprint is responsible for providing the link with the overseas Internet link. It is reported that in Beijing and Shanghai, 800 subscribers signed up for the service in the first month. In August , Guangdong PTB announced that it would begin offering local access to the China Internet in the cities of Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and Shuhai on the first of October. Four other cities: Shantou, Huizhou, Zhanjiang, and Jiangmem will have China Internet by the end of 1995[Guo95].

3.3. CERNET

CERNET is funded by China's Central government and is directly managed by the Chinese State Education Commission. It aims to connect all the educational and research institutes in China together by the end of this century and make them part of the global Internet.

CERNET is the first nation-wide education and research computer network in China. It is also undergoing rapid development. CERNET is centered at Tsinghua University, Beijing. Its link to Internet is primarily through NCFC and switched to Sprint's 256 Kbps Internet link.

Another major link will be from Gangzhou to Hong Kong. CERNET planned to have three Internet links, one to USA, one to Asia-Pacific Region and one to Europe [Li95a][Qiang95]. Following are some of the stated objectives of CERNET:

4. On-going Internet/WWW Services in China

With the Internet connectivity continuing to proliferate, all the Internet services/tools such as e-mail, ftp, telnet, OPAC, whois, gopher, newsgroup, distribution list, Archie, WAIS, WWW, MBone and InternetPhone are available in China.

Qiang (94) reported a number of on-going enrichments of Internet services and applications in China:

€ ChinaNet: Four application projects funded by NSFC will be completed within two years. Some other services such as phone book, weather forecast, database retrieval, etc., will hopefully be added to the network.

€ CERNET: Besides the services in terms of networking, an information resource and service system, named ALINet (Academic Library & Information Network) will be put into practice. The project is also part of "Project 211", a long term project. It will greatly strengthen Chinese academic information resources and library services.

€ China Internet: The economic information services in terms of business and industry will certainly be emphasised. Various services such as house-merchant, travel information, city information, etc. may be provided since there is such a huge market .

In a more recent report, it is stated that full local Internet Access will be available in Guangdong Province beginning the 1st of October [Guo95]. China has made a major step in becoming an important part of the global Internet and no doubt more and more information resources, and services will be available on the China Internet segment.

5. Some Interesting Resources on China's Web

The Internet/WWW is impacting in many ways on the Chinese and world-wide information communities as can be seen from the following snap-shots:

5.1 Business and Culture Resources

There are many online China related business and culture resources on theWeb:

€ China Business Bulletin Board
http://odin.pat.dcu.ie:8080/cgi-bin/bbs.pl
€ China Window, Inc. - Presenting commercial and business information in China. Internet service and business consulting
http://china-window.com/
€ ChinaInvest - Providing on-line investment and business cooperation opportunities, advertising for organizations to reach and attract global capital.
http://www.globalvillager.com/villager/CI.html
€ East Net (China) provides information on business opportunities in China
http://www.wp.com/EASTNET/
€ Millenium Cultural Enterprises - Mail-order Chinese books, music CDs, magazines from Taiwan, Hongkong
ttp://www.he.net/~mce/
€ China Daily News
http://www.euro.net/chinacom/DNewsex.html
€ The Asian Information Service's large database on China
http://www.euro.net/chinacom/BServ.html#10
€ Xinhua English Language News Service, PeaceNet's World News Service coverage of China, The China News Digest mailing list
http://www.research.att.com/cig-wald/dbaccess/411
€ Public scientific, technical, and business information about China.
http://www.ihep.ac.cn/china.html
€ Virtual Tour of China
http://www.ihep.ac.cn/tour/china_tour.html
€ Chinese Business Journal (CBJ)
http://silkroute.com/silkroute/news/cbj/cbj.html
€ Chinese Music
http://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/multimedia/chinese-music
€ Chinese Games
http://www.cnd.org/Other/rec.html
€ China News Review
http://www.cnd.org
€ China's History
http://galaxy.einet.net/galaxy/SocialSciences/History/Oriental.html

5.2 Conference Resources

Many conferences in China have used the Web and/or e-mail postings to provide the call for papers and to provide information on the conferences themselves. Potential delegates can find out information on the conference program, registration form, submission information, accommodation details and direct e-mail contact with the conference organisers and other delegates. Updateds on conference news and program information can be continuously provided on the web. Old information can be left for historic interest. Some current and future conferences include:

€ The 62nd IFLA General Conference: The Challenge of Change: Libraries and Economic Development, 25-31 August 1996, Beijing, China
http://www.nlc-bnc.ca/ifla/conf/ifla62/62intro.htm
€ The Asia-Pacific World Wide Web'96 Conference APWWW'96, Beijing, August 1996
http://www.bre.polyu.edu.hk/apweb96/
€ The Fourth World Conference On Women, 4-15 September 1995, Beijing, China
http://www.iisd.ca/linkages/women.html
€ The 1st International Symposium on Test/Measurement Technology, Aug 10-14, 1995, Tiyuan, Shanxi
http://www.hike.te.chiba-u.ac.jp/ikeda/istm95.html
€ The 2nd CAST Academic Conference of Young Chinese Scientists, July 26-28, 1995, Beijing
http://www.ihep.ac.cn/sci/sym/sym7.html
€ The International Conference on Radio Science, Aug 10-12, 1995, Beijing
http://www.ihep.ac.cn/sci/sym/sym8.html
€ XXXI. International Conference on Military Medicine, Oct. 1995, Beijing
http://www.ihep.ac.cn/sci/sym/sym2.html

As more and more conferences will be staged in China, the use of the Internet will help to facilitate the flow of information world-wide and enlarge the potential delegation bases.

Internet /WWW services and resources in China present many ways for those businesses which embrace the challenges of electronic commerce on the Web/Internet . The "way we play" or leisure and personal activities are also undergoing change from activities such as entertainment, sporting information. Even gambling will eventually be available on China Net. Casino operator MGM Grand plans two resorts on Hainan, a tropical island in China. MGM plans offering table games to non-Chinese citizens and Chinese nationals would be able to play the slot machines. The opening of Sports International's virtual GLOBAL CASINO and the INTERNET CASINOS may one day appear on China Net. We will be able to learn to play the Chinese culture games and win or lose 'real' money without leaving our web browser.

Yahoo's China Page [Yahoo] and Odd de Presno's Focus on China [Odd95] are two web sites one may want to check for further update on China's Internet news.

6. China's Internet World Opportunities

Accessing timely information is a commodity of great consequence in the evolution of successful business activity. Advances in communications technologies are stepping stones to achieving this goal. Internet is being embraced by global business, educational institutes, governments, corporations, and multinational professionals and individuals. Internet has spurred the world societies to the threshold of a new global information future [Tsang94]. China has taken a major step in becoming an important part of the global Internet and many opportunities are now opening up for mutual beneficial cooperation be it in business or in education.

In China, the current web servers number less than 60. One can easily expect that by the end of the year it will reach the 100 range, may be 400 by the end of next year. The population in China had an estimated of 1.190 billion in July 1994 [CIA94]. China has 8 regions, 28 provinces, 517 cities, 1,090 universities/institutes with professors and staff numbered in the range of 390,000, on land areas (9,326,410 sq km ) slightly larger than the United States. It is the world's largest country (area-wise) after Canada and Russia and mostly populated country on the Earth [Odd95][Li95b][CIA94].

Organizations both within and outside China will find a larger market for their products and services and there are niches for Australia or other countries to participate in this regional and global economic dynamics.

In a recent research study[Tse95], several types of products and services which would sell well on the WWW/Internet were identified:

Given the unique cultural characteristics, this list will certainly expand dramatically in a fairly short period of time in China's Web .

6.1. Education Sector

One of the beneficiaries of the Internet development is the education sector. CERNET¹s ambitious plan to connect all the universities and institutes in China in the near future and connect high schools, middle schools, primary schools and other education and research entities by the end of this century, poses a major market for Australia¹s education 'industry' and in particular the distance education mode of delivery. The following figures show the student population in China:

Figure 2: Number of Academic Institutes in China

Figure 3: Student Population in China

With this huge education population, continuous improvement of living standards in China and increased disposal income, China will gradually makes up a significant portion of the Internet community. The Internet population grows by 10 to 15 percent every month and doubles every 53 days. By 2000, there will be as many as 100 million servers connected to the Net [BusWeek95]. The famous Internet growth graph predicates that by the year 2001, the number of users of the Internet will amount to the world population, however, without China, this expectation will be far from a reality [Li95a].

a) Niche for Australia and Other Countries

Many universities in Australia are marketing their services in China. As more and more on-line programs/courses mushroom on the Internet, those with innovative ideas will excel. It is not necessary to be big to excel on the Internet. Instead, being small can be a beauty as it can respond rapidly to the changes. The Internet provides a level field both for the educational institutes within Australia and local organizations in China.

There are two major aspects on which Australian educational institutes, need to focus:

While many Institutes have already made some form of partnerships with the local institutes, the Internet will allow an enlarged niche for the huge educational market especially in the special development zones along the east coast of China.

b) Strategic Alliances

Strategic alliances are playing an increasingly prominent role in the emerging Internet markets. These alliances promise to drastically alter the technological, regulatory, and market landscape throughout the world, but for doing business in China it is of paramount importance. One of the alliance opportunities opening to Australia is best illustrated by a comment from the CERNET team, "CERNET can serve as the communication and resources infrastructure for education and research in China. It will train China's future telecommunication, network and computer professionals and experts in all areas. It can also function as a showcase of the leading edge technology." In the recent INET'95 conference, Li (1995a) stressed that "We sincerely welcome universities, organisation and enterprises from China and aboard to cooperate with CERNET to build the largest education and research network on earth".

Next year CERNET will host the Asia-Pacific WWW '96 conference in Beijing. Through this major event, we aim to build a stronger tie with our colleagues in China. While most of the Asia Internet traffic now travels across the Pacific to USA, a recent highly successful WWW conference in Hong Kong concluded that Australia could well be the regional hub of the global Internet due to its comparative advance in telecommunications infrastructure, experiences on the Internet and comparatively vast resource of on-line information on the Australian Internet servers.

6.2. Business Sector

The beauty of the net is its diversity: thousands of newsgroups and mailing lists, ten of thousands of gopher, ftp, & Web Sites. Some of the characteristics of the Internet include: low barrier to entry, niches abound, no one "owns" the net, the same technology is available to everyone, access is universal and non-exclusive.[O'Reilly 95]. With these characteristics, Internet/WWW infrastructure is transforming the way many organisations are conducting their business in China. The wide-spread availability of the WWW technology enables small companies to compete equally and flexibly with big ones[Tse95b]. However, the future development also depends on the individual entity of each organisation which produces and/or consumes information from the Net and the Web technology and knowledge of government policy.

The huge population in China and the fact that the Chinese market is among the fastest growing economy makes the booming Internet market an important development in the world economy. Like the commercial aspect of the rest of the Internet, the commercial aspect of China Internet is being forecast to have one of the fastest growth rates in the future. The nation's Ninth-Five-Year plan made it a priority to establish a series of 'GOLDEN' projects: a series of government-financed efforts to modernise the country's electronics infrastructure.

So far, they are in planning stages and include Golden:

It is estimated that these projects will require US$91 billion between 1991 and 2000. Of this less than 10 percent will be foreign capital. Dozens of similar projects are on the way, both public or privately funded, although not officially "golden," are part of China's effort to 'beef up' communications and commerce and are being called China¹s ³information superhighway². All these projects are very much business and economic driven and thus will make heavy use of the 'China Internet' as their communications channel [Winkler95] [Giang95][PCWeek95].

6.3. Empowerment

Numerous publications and addresses have pointed to the potential importance for business to harvest the Internet.

" In three to five years, there will be millions of organizations, mostly small commercial organizations, doing their mainline business over the Internet as naturally as they use fax today" Ben Barker, Senior Vice President & Chief Technology Officer, Bolt, Beranek & Newman (BBN)[IA95].

"The Internet is by far the best buy for commercial users. If offers the largest network, it has the lowest cost. The listings of all products and services will totally change the way industry and the public search for and buy products" Ben Barker, Senior Vice President & Chief Technology Officer, Bolt, Beranek & Newman (BBN)[IA95].

In an article [Myhrvold95], Nathan Myhrvold, one of Microsoft's chief strategists sums up the attitude now driving every company division:"The Internet is an example of a revolutionary shift that, if we forgot about it, would eventually kill us. The notion that you would do a task on the desktop with desktop software in a few years that didn't involve the Internet is just ludicrous."

"In the next few years, the commercial Internet evolution will put adventurous businesses on the global information highway. With immediate presence on the WWW/Internet, a business will be able to differentiate itself from its competitors by acting as a resource for million of Internet uses located around the world" Byte Magazine, Jan 95 [IA95].

Here is a list of much cited business strategies and advantages for organization using the Internet :

The organizations can be educational in nature, profit oriented commercial entities, government, non-profit organisations, or other community groups.

7. The Future Internet Development in China

There are a number of issues for future development of China's Internet. These include language, Internet experiences and administrative policies:

7.1. Language

China has the largest population in the world with a literacy rate of 73 percent. Languages are standard Chinese (Mandarin), Yue (Cantonese), Wu (Shanghainese), Minbei (Fuzhou), Minnan (Hokkien-Taiwanese), Xiang, Gan, Hakka dialects, and various minority languages[CIA94].

Influenced by ever increasing foreign investors, visitors and exchange academic activities in recent years, more and more people in China are using English as a communication language but the majority of the citizens are Mandarin speaking and writing.

Countries such as Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore, where the majority of the population are Chinese, are most influenced by the Chinese language and English. Table 1. shows the major written languages used in the five countries, but all the countries use English as a form of Internet language. The comparativly low participation in discussion lists on the Internet from the above countries may be attributed to the cultural inheritance of being less outspoken, the difficulty of expressing one's idea in English or simply as a result of being too busy

Table 1 Internet Languages Used
Country Languages
ChinaSimplied Chinese , English.
Hong KongEnglish, Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese
SingaporeEnglish, Hanzi(Simplified Chinese)
TaiwanEnglish, Traditional Chinese

7.1.2. WWW Technologies in Chinese Version

There is also a Chinese version of the WWW server on the Internet and it is possible to read Publications in Chinese but they are a bit involved.

7.1.3. The Chinese Translation for WWW

There are a number of Chinese characters encoding schemes but of foremost important are the GB code for the mainland Chinese simplified characters and Big-5 code for traditional characters. Using these encoding systems, one can read Chinese text on the Internet using a patched Netscape WWW browser, or down load Chinese documents to read in a Chinese word processor.

Table 2 : Traditional and Simplified Characters
Characters CodeCountry
Traditional Big-5 Hong Kong, Taiwan
SimpliedGBMainland China, Singapore,Hong Kong

More and more applications such as FileMaker, ClarisWorks, WordPerfect, Nisus Writer are becoming available for these Chinese translation systems . Two of the Chinese-Language-Related Information Pages are [Lan1] and[Lan2].

The fundamental problem of Chinese computing is its character input method. At the moment, doing business using English has much more potential than using Chinese characters set on the net but Chinese Web will certainly have much influence in years to come for local and overseas Chinese Markets.

7.2 Internet Experience

The ambitious China Internet projects demands expertise from many areas including management, engineering, marketing, research , development and user coordination. The China Internet's administrative and technical boards area constantly examining overseas Internet experiences to draw lessons and techniques from them. For example, one of the reasons the organisers of APWWW96 invited Geoff Huston as a keynote speaker is to learn from Huston¹s extensive experiences in starting and running AARNet.

7.3 Government Policy and Other Factors

Issues that may hinder the Internet development in China are mainly people and politics related:

8. Making the Right Connections

Internet/WWW infrastructure in China is making its connections to the rest of the world and it is now the turn for overseas investors, marketeers, educators and administers to use the info available (or soon to be available) on the Internet and telecommunications structure to make the "right connections". This is often regarded as paramount in doing business in China as can be illustrated from the following comments:

"...building close and trusting relationships is critical to succeeding in China."[Hamm95]

"...figuring out which minister in what organization is the gatekeeper for a particular project, and which is the decision maker -- regardless of their titles. "You have to get to the grass roots..."[Hamm95]

"When in Rome, do as the Romans do?"

"Cultural differences make for many misunderstandings. It is reported that the Chinese tend to keep negotiating deals even after they're closed. ...it's just a different way of doing business ... If China's gong beckons you, better learn to play by Beijing's rules, too."[Hamm95]

In the August issue of Telecom Asia, the interview with an official of a successful telecommunications company operating in Asia, summed up the key to their Asian success in one word: relation [Krapf 93]. There are massive changes under way in virtually every market that China faces today. During the next decade, the pace of change will probably accelerate and that is going to mean the current progress of Internet connections will create more challenges and more opportunities.

9. Implication for the Next Revolution

Back in the 1970s and 1980s, manufacturers moved facilities to the Asia Pacific in search of lower labor cost, better quality and higher profit margins. This revolution involved blue collar jobs. Today, it is the white collar jobs that are going abroad, because of the intense pressure to stay competitive in the global market place. Companies will continue to be tempted to use less expensive foreign labor or cities that offer the most attractive tax rate and support infrastructure. Telecommunication is such a critical growth factor today, that the company may be willing to move its data communications centres to another country, where the service is better and the price is right. Clearly, the Internet infrastructure movement can lead to an improved telecommunications environment and may lead to another labor transformation in China.  [Mutch94] reported American Telephone and Telegraph often contracted software programmers in China for project works. Will this happen to Australia?

The global trend to electronic teaching and learning brought by the widespread acceptance of the importance of the Internet is challenging many of our traditional methods of learning and teaching. Telecommunications technology continues to bring down geographic barriers. In effect, this 'right connection' can expand China's communications capabilities - the rapid spread of the Internet is just a part of a trend that has advanced at a steady pace over generations.

One of the proposed themes of the Asia-Pacific WWW'96 conference and exhibition is "Corporate and Academic Training via the Oriental Virtual Express." Will Australia or other countries play a less important educational role in the region in the future as the region and China become more informationised?

10. Conclusion

While some people regard the Internet/WWW, in its present state, as the country lane of the future super information highway, its importance lies in its global infrastructure and its impacts in changing the ways we work, learn and play. With China's huge population and rapid economic growth, the Internet connectivity in China is opening many opportunities and challenges to educational and business communities. China will contribute the largest Internet growth in the first part of the next century.

Australia's educational sector is one of Australia's export earners. There is significant income brought into Australia by overseas students who are taking courses at Australian institutes. Of course they may or may not be physically located in Australia.

Many of them will be business, government and education leaders of tomorrow. It would be a loss to Australia if we don't start making the right connections at home while the many potential future Chinese leaders are studying in Australia (physically or virtually).

Traditional marketing promotes the four Ps : Place, Promotion, Price and Product for marketing but, for doing business in China, the words of the game in additional to quality of the product are strategic alliance and making the right connections. As more and more Chinese information, directories, reports, data etc come online via the China "super information highway", making the right connections and contacts will be far more accurate and easier in the years to come. China's "Information Superhighway" will allow greater collaborative projects around the "global village".

11. Acknowlegements

We are indebted to many of colleagues in China, Hong Kong and Australia for pointing us to some of the raw data and references. Errors however are ours.

12. References

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[BusWeek95]
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[Mutch94]
Mucth, A. (1994). "The Development of Hong Kong as a Telecommunications Hub", Proceedings of Pacific Telecommunications Council Sixteenth Annual Connference, pp, 739-741.
[Myhrvold95]
Myhrvold, N. (1995). "Making Microsoft Safe For Capitalism", New York Times, 5 November, pp. 50-57, 64.
[Odd95]
Odd de Presno. (1995). "Focus on China", http://login.eunet.no/~presno/sample5.html.
[O'Reilly 95]
O'Reilly, T. (1995). " Publishing Models for Internet Commerce ", Proceedings of the INET'95, http://info.isoc.org:80/HMP/PAPER/063/abst.html.
[PCWeek95]
PCWeek (1995), ttp://www.zdnet.com/~pcweek/inside/0724/tgong.html.
[Poole94]
Poole, T. (1994). "World-News: US puts the focus on business in China", The Age, 24 August, p.15.
[Qiang95]
Qiang, Z. (1995). "Latest Development of Internet in Mainland China" Peking University Library.
[Qu94]
Qu, G. (1994). Population and the Environment in China, Lynne Rienner Publishers, U.S.A.
[Tsang94a]
Tsang, P., Tse, S. & Houston, G. (1994). "Internet Signature in Electronic Communications: Personal, Organisational, and Commercial Applications", Proceedings of the International Communications Association Conference (ICA'94), Sydney, Australia. To appear in Margaret McLaughlin, Sheizaf Rafaeli. and Fay Sudweeks (1996), (eds), Network and NetPlay: Virtual Groups on the Internet , AAAI/MIT Press.
[Tsang94b]
Tsang, P., Henri, J. & Tse, S. (1994). Internet Growth in Australia and Asia's Four Dragons, Advance Proceedings of The second Int'l WWW Conference'94 - Mosaic and the Web, Vol.II., 15-20 Oct., http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/SDG/IT94/Proceedings/Intl/tsang/tsang.html
[Tse95a]
Tse, S. and Tsang, P. (1995). "Internet Signature Collection: An Approach in Conducting Research", Joint Conference Proceedings of the 1995 American Statistic Association Conference and 50th American Association of Public Opinion Research (AAPOR) Anniversary Conference, ASA/AAPOR , 18-21 May, Florida, USA.
[Tse95b]
Tse, S., Sutton, D. and Tsang, P. (1995). "The World-Wide Web: Changing the way, we work, learn and play", Proceedings of the First Annual Conference on Telecommunications & Information Market, COTIM'95 RITIM, Newport, RI, 5-8 November,USA.
[Yahoo]
Yahoo's China Page, http://www.yahoo.com/Regional/Countries/China.
[Zhang94]
Zhang, M., & Lin, C. (1994). China News Digest , 23 Sept.
[Zhang95]
Zhang, W.H. (1995). Structure of the ChinaNet, http://www.cnc.ac.cn/structure.html.
[Winkler95]
Winkler, R. (1995). "Emerging Telecom Markets in Asia", InterData Telecommunications Handbook,5th ed. InterData: Sydney.

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