Internet use is rapidly growing in China, particularly at universities and academic institutions. In 1997 there were about 640,000 Internet users in China. There are now more than 4 million. The China Internet Information Center estimates that the number of Internet users will soon rise to 7 million. With the prices of personal computers falling and Internet access increasing, it is estimated that there will be more than 33 million Internet users by the year 2003.
Obstacles do remain.
Liberalism in China has never been well developed or localized, and therefore has failed to dominate the political agenda for most of China s torturous modern history. But there is reason to be optimistic. The opening of China in the reform period, the experience of the 1989 movement, the collapse of the world communist camp, and the great expansion of the global market have all provided favorable conditions for democratization and liberalization in China. If it is true that liberal democracies won t fight against one another, then the future role of China in the world and China s relations with the West are very closely intertwined with liberalization and democratization. So it is in the greatest interests of the established democracies to encourage the emerging liberal enterprise in China as a driving force in making it a new democracy based on liberalism.