Sometime after 2005, Chinese will overtake Americans as the Internet s most numerous national community. Chinese Internet entrepreneurs complete with American MBAs and venture-capital indigestion are the new heroes of both the government and students. Under the ground, China already has a quality infrastructure despite frequent complaints from surfers about slow connection speeds and more is coming. A venture led by the State Administration of Radio, TV and Film aims to wire up China s eighty million cable-TV users for Internet access. An Internet revolution is sweeping China, and government-linked companies are at the forefront.
Conventional wisdom has it that the Internet is intrinsically democratic.
Every user is empowered by all that information, and you can say anything you want, anonymously. At the same time, the Internet seems to make a nonsense of national boundaries and attempts to control the free flow of information. From Chiapas to East Timor, the Internet has been heralded as a technology pre-programmed to catalyse revolution. It allows critical ideas to be spread, it enhances the ability of suppressed dissident groups to organise and it can be used to create new global support communities. If authoritarianism didn t die with the collapse of the Berlin Wall, then many believe that any residual dictators will meet their nemesis in the virtual world.