My Take | How the internet has transformed China in the past 30 years, and vice versa
- Since China officially connected to the internet in April 1994, its economy has grown explosively, along with the popularity of domestic web services
- While Beijing’s efforts to tame the internet were initially ridiculed, it has pushed ahead with its own model of internet governance
April 20 is remembered in China for marking a milestone in the nation’s development: It was on this day in 1994 that the country officially connected to the internet through a 64 kilobit special line, thanks to the service of Sprint, a US telecoms company.
To commemorate the event’s 30th anniversary and celebrate China’s achievements since then, the state-backed internet society hosted a symposium over the weekend.
China has good reasons to pat itself on the back for embracing the web. The rise of the internet coincided with the country’s opening up and its strong desire to interact with the rest of the world.
During the 1980s and 1990s, one of the most read books in China was The Third Wave by American writer and futurist Alvin Toffler. The biggest takeaway for China was that it could not miss the third wave of transformation of human society, which involves the internet and information technology, after being left behind during the previous wave of industrialisation.
Three decades on, it is fair to say that China is one of the most successful countries in embracing the internet.
