Thaindian News

Beijing, June 8 (IANS) China Tuesday published a white paper on its internet policy, stressing its commitment to freedom of speech on the internet.
The white paper, released by the State Council Information Office, introduced facts of the development and use of the internet in China.

By the end of 2009, the number of people using the internet in China rose to 384 million, 618 times that of 1997 with an annual increase of 31.95 million users, Xinhua reported.

The internet had reached 28.9 percent of the total population in 2009, higher than the world average. Its accessibility will be raised to 45 percent of the population in the next five years, it said.

There were 3.23 million websites, 2,152 times that of 1997, running in China last year. Of the total users, 346 million people used broadband and 233 million used mobile phones to access the internet.

“These statistics make China among the top of the developing countries in popularising the internet,” the 31-page document said.

The Information technology (IT), including the internet and its industry, has made significant contributions to the rapid growth of the Chinese economy, it said.

In the past 16 years, the IT industry grew at over 26.6 percent annually, with its proportion in the national economy increasing from less than one percent to 10 percent, the paper said.

According to a sample survey, in 2009 alone, about 230 million people in China gathered information using search engines, and 240 million communicated through real-time telecommunications devices.

Also, 46 million Chinese people received education with the help of the internet, 35 million conducted securities trading on the internet, 15 million sought jobs through the internet and 14 million arranged trips via the internet.

The government is determined to further promote internet development and application so that more people can benefit from the internet.

“Chinese citizens fully enjoy freedom of speech on the Internet,” it said. Over 80 percent of China’s websites provided electronic bulletin services. And there are some 220 million bloggers in China.

In order to facilitate reporting on corrupt officials, the central discipline inspection and supervision authorities, the Supreme People’s Court, the Supreme People’s Procuratorate and other relevant bodies have set up information websites.

According to the paper, computer crimes in China have been on the increase in recent years. Public security departments dealt with 142 computer crime cases in 1998, 29,000 in 2007, 35,000 in 2008 and 48,000 in 2009. “China is one of the countries suffering most from hacking,” it said.

Besides, 18 million Chinese computers are infected by the Conficker virus every month, about 30 percent of the computers infected globally.