OPINION> Commentary
Still too costly to connect
(China Daily)
Updated: 2008-07-28 07:23

Though China has replaced the United States as the largest web-user market with its netizens growing to 253 million, it is still not time to say that it has become an Internet power, says an article in Beijing News. The following is an excerpt:

Newly released figures by the China Internet Network Information Center showed that the number of the country's regular netizens has increased to 253 million. On the other hand, this number - the world's highest - comprises only 19 percent of the Chinese population, less than even the ratio of 21 percent worldwide, and lags far behind the 72 percent in the US.

We may have such a sharp contrast between overall and proportional numbers read in another way. China has not yet popularized net-surfing with the uninterested elderly and a huge number from the bottom of the society still not having the facility of Internet access.

Relevant statistics show that the distribution of China's netizens is greatly unbalanced as 67 percent of web users are university graduates. However, it is not the education level that should be blamed for this imbalance; rather, it is the high expenses.

Last year, a report by the World Bank showed that people in developed countries pay 1 percent of their income to use the web, while people in China have to pay 10 percent of their income.

To some extent, getting access to the Internet should be a civil right in the information age so that everyone can have "the freedom of avoiding unwisdom". And it is still a long way to go.

(China Daily 07/28/2008 page4)