COPYCENSE

"As the number of people online in China has quintupled over the last four years, the government has shown itself to be committed to two concrete, and sometimes competing, goals: strategically deploying the Internet to economic advantage, while clamping down – with surveillance, filters and prison sentences – on undesirable content and use.

"Both trends, experts say, are likely to continue.

"China is already the largest mobile communications subscriber market in the world, with more than 320 million subscribers. Internet users – who numbered fewer than 17 million in 2000 – are now estimated to be somewhere near 90 million, according to the China Internet Network Information Center, the government’s clearinghouse for Internet statistics. China is second only to the United States in the number of people online, and the 90 percent of its total population around 1.3 billion who are not online still represents a vast, untapped market. "

Tom Zeller Jr. Beijing Loves the Web Until the Web Talks Back. The New York Times. Dec. 6, 2004.

(Editor�s Note: The Times allows free access to their stories on the Web for seven days before sending the stories to the paper�s fee-based Archive.)

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