{"id":10021,"date":"2014-05-13T07:47:43","date_gmt":"2014-05-13T11:47:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/chinese\/?p=10021"},"modified":"2014-05-13T07:47:44","modified_gmt":"2014-05-13T11:47:44","slug":"a-guide-to-the-internet-in-china-intro","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/chinese\/a-guide-to-the-internet-in-china-intro\/","title":{"rendered":"A Guide to the Internet in China – Intro"},"content":{"rendered":"

Back in 1987, China sent out its first e-mail, an exchange between scientists\u00a0in Beijing and Germany:<\/p>\n

“Across the Great Wall, we can reach every corner of the world.”<\/h3>\n

\u8d8a\u8fc7\u957f\u57ce\uff0c\u8d70\u5411\u4e16\u754c – yu\u00e8 gu\u00f2 ch\u00e1ng ch\u00e9ng, z\u01d2u xi\u00e0ng sh\u00ec ji\u00e8<\/h3>\n

A few years later, in 1994, China was officially online. On April 20th, some nerds from China’s Academy of Sciences hooked up with other nerds over at Stanford in the US and just like that, the Middle Kingdom joined the World Wide Web. Twenty years later, it’s clear that the internet has had a massive impact on China, its economy, its people, and last but not least, its government. In a new series here on the Chinese Language & Culture Blog, we’re going to take a look at the past, present, and future of the ‘net in China.<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=M17MsEXAIPc<\/a><\/p>\n

Reflections on 20 years of Chinese internet.<\/em><\/p>\n

Early Days of the Chinese Net<\/h2>\n

When China made the leap and joined the WWW, it was the 77th country to do so – not exactly pioneers. In the beginning, internet access was hard to come by. As connections could only be made by telephone through a modem, people needed a computer to get online. Simply put, the internet was slow and expensive. Back then, there were only around 2,000 computers in the entire country with access to the internet.<\/p>\n

Things started changing quickly, though. China’s first web server and web pages were soon launched, and circuits were opened in Beijing and Shanghai through the American company Sprint. The now familiar domain of .cn was soon established, and China was on its way. However, the need for a computer still limited the amount of people online, but not for long.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>

The famous QQ penguin.<\/p><\/div>\n

In 1996, the first internet cafes in China were opened in major cities, allowing more people to get online without their own personal computer. By October of the next year, there were over 600,000 internet users in the country. Come summer of ’98, that number had jumped to over one million. Less than half a year later in the beginning of ’99, that number doubled. Six months later, and it doubled again – there were already 4 million internet users in China by July 1999. Do you see a trend developing here? Another huge thing happened in ’99 for the Chinese internet – the founding of Tencent QQ. Still wildly popular today, this was the first Chinese instant messaging service and it was a big game-changer.<\/p>\n

Chinese Companies Cash In<\/h2>\n
\"One<\/a>

One of China’s major online companies.<\/p><\/div>\n

With more and more people getting online, business was good. Early on in the new millennium, China’s major web portals – Sina, Netease, and Sohu, went public on Nasdaq. A few years later in 2005, China’s largest search engine – Baidu – experienced the biggest daily gain by a newcomer in five years on the Nasdaq. If you’ve read the news at all recently, then you’ve probably read that Chinese internet giant Alibaba is also planning on going public in the US this year<\/a>. This proves that Chinese internet companies can and will seriously compete with their western counterparts such as Facebook and Google.<\/p>\n