Development of the Internet in China: spatial characteristics and implications
论我国互联网的发展及其潜在空间影响

The Internet is a major symbol of the contemporary world that is predominated by two interwoven tendencies, i e., globalization and informationalization. It is now widely accepted that the world is moving fast towards an information age and the Internet is a major channel to such a historical change. Indeed, no technological progresses in the last several decades can match the advent of the Internet in term of its profound and extensive influences. The increasingly wide use of the Internet is causing fundamental changes in people's daily life and hence probably in the entire socio economic system of the world as well. In particular, the Internet makes the propaganda of information and knowledge much easier and faster than ever. In such a sense, its development as an industry is not only a part of the knowledge based economy but also an accelerator of the development of the latter. The explosion of electronic business/commerce (e com) on the Internet is a result of the fast and vast information and knowledge flows. The implications of such developments for industrial spatial changes are very important and interesting research topics for economic and industrial geographers. It is reported that the Internet economy has been a major contribution to the US's recent economic growth. In Asia, the recent recovery from the 1997 98 financial crisis has also been attributed partially to the rapid growth of business to business (B2B) e com. In China, the development of the Internet in the last several years has been incredibly fast. The number of domains registered under ".CN" increased from 4,066 in late 1997 to 127 thousand by the end of 2001, and that of the Internet users rose from 620 thousand to 33.7 million. The rapid development of the Internet has also led to fast growth of e com in the country. This paper will investigate the development of the Internet in China with special attention to its geographical features and then analyze the spatial implications of such development. It hopes to offer a general background to and be a stepping stone for future more detailed studies on the issue.