Evolution of the Chinese Internet: Freedom and Control
Nigel Inkster · 2018
Chinese search engines have always been colourful and crowded, requiring users to do little more than click on the items that interest them most. For Chinese netizens, the internet has long been a source of entertainment – in the form of music, films, dating and gaming. By 2000, China’s information and communications technology (ICT) sector was growing at twice the rate of the rest of the economy, primarily due to foreign direct investment and start-up activity by young Chinese returnees. China was well on the way to becoming the world’s largest ICT manufacturer. But there was already a powerful imperative for the country to move up the value chain as a means of avoiding the middle-income trap, and China’s leaders were aware that it would take more than manufacturing capabilities to create an advanced informationised society. China’s netizen community has been equally vociferous on foreign-policy issues.