Asia Times: WIRING THE MIDDLE KINGDOM PART 1: Digital China wires the west


	April 13, 2002	atimes.com

China

WIRING THE MIDDLE KINGDOM
PART 1: Digital China wires the west
By James Borton

In the ancient imperial capital of Xi'an, a city best known to the West for its 8,000 terra cotta warrior sentries, 21-year-old student Wang Na is logging on to the Internet.

Wang Na, a student at nearby Xian Jiatong University in the province of Shaanxi, is intent on learning English electronically. She and an increasing number of more than 243 million Chinese students scattered across the Middle Kingdom in more than 890,000 schools are heeding the advice of the country's political leadership to embrace new technology and have become the basis of a dramatic sweeping revolution.

This initiative, dubbed the "Invest West" campaign, is bringing technological innovation to even the most rural villages. Access to the Internet and other new tools are intended to improve national strength and provide much needed social prosperity.

President Jiang Zemin challenged his people to "seize the opportunities offered by the evolving world of technologies to accelerate the country's social and economic development" at a technology summit held in Shanghai last year. China has bravely survived many dramatic, often painful changes since the Communist Party took power in 1949; from the famine attributed to Mao Zedong's Great Leap Forward to his devastating Cultural Revolution and now to the anxiety-evoking market-driven reforms. Having boosted gross national product (GNP), the New Economy has lifted millions out of dire poverty, bestowing the ultimate reward: the country's vaunted membership in the World Trade Organization.

Card-carrying party membership is no longer needed to access educational opportunity. China's present educational reforms are opening the doors to everyone, offering hope to once impoverished lives, and in the process are filling the coffers of many Chinese universities, scores of educational vendors and Western universities, vocational schools and corporate training programs.

Today Xi'an, that Chinese capital of the Ch'in Dynasty, is experiencing a full-fledged educational gold rush. The latest sign that distance education is becoming mainstream lies in the increasing numbers of traveling online education road shows found along the fabled Silk Road in China. The Silk Road, originally a matrix of routes leading westward from Xi'an, (Xi means West and An means stable) transmitted not only goods but also ideas and culture from East to West, and back again. This historic route is now dotted with iconic McDonald's imperial golden arches, along with Sony and Toshiba signs, and even MTV advertisements. It's no wonder that hundreds of Western and neighboring Asian educational companies are bringing their Web-designed courses, multimedia software and networks to China.

Although Chinese students now reject most party tenets, Mao's grand idea about the universal education of all peasants resonates even in dirt floor school houses. While many of China's citizens will never reach university or even high school, the government's education initiatives are satisfying the country's practical needs while providing hope and opportunity for millions more.

The rural population, still comprising almost three-quarters of China and with most still engaged in farming, are just beginning to recognize that high school education is a required and essential passport to a better life. In the past, most parents could not see any benefits in paying for this education, even though it was only a nominal sum. Now, in post-Mao China, educational reform and the use of technology offers greater access and opportunity for the rural populations. The government is acutely sensitive of the glaring economic disparities between the coastal cities and the remote inland provinces.

Meanwhile, a huge urbanization drive is under way which aims to move about 600 million people to cities in the next 25 years. The estimates are perhaps conservative inasmuch as in just the past 10 years, Beijing has gone from over 8 million people to over 13 million. It is estimated that in 25 years' time about 70 percent of China's population will live in cities, compared to the present 30 percent. China's rural population must therefore receive an education more suited to their future urban life.

In order to reach this huge rural population, the government now has more than 300 schools online. China's campaign of revitalizing villages with science and education kejiao xingchuan is dramatically altering the face of traditional rural village life. There are now more than 1,000 villages scattered throughout China involved in these pilot educational distance learning programs.

The Ministry of Education is investing almost US$118 million in developing distance education in Western China alone. According to this plan, a China Education and Research Network (CERNET) is being built to link up all higher educational institutions, major vocational, middle, and primary schools online under a complete education network system to serve this poor and neglected region of the Middle Kingdom.

The government of Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region earlier this year opened a distance learning center designed to help develop education and eliminate poverty in this region by using information and communication technology. The Ningxia distance learning center is the result of joint efforts by the regional government, the government of Australia and the World Bank. Using state-of-the-art distance learning technology, the center allows participants from across China, other East Asian countries and even other continents to share information and learning without leaving their home towns.

Located at Ningxia University, the center is the 30th distance learning center in the growing Global Development Learning Network (GDLN). Administered by the World Bank, GDLN is a fully interactive, multichannel distance learning network with a mandate to serve developing nations.

All of these state-of-the art technology educational enhancements are taking place just as a surge of Chinese students are logging on each day to learn and new companies are launching educational platforms. With more than 26 million Chinese now online, a new economic Internet frontier is emerging in China.Its online business-to-consumer market generated over $63 million in 2000 and is slated to reach almost $250 million at the end of 2002.

Analysts claim that the Internet usage number is doubling every six months is validated by China's leading computer maker, Legend, with its exponential sales growth and dominant market share. By 2005, industry observers project that China will have the largest concentrated pool of Web surfers in any country - 300 million.

Dotcom fever may have sucked all the wind out of venture capitalists but it has not dampened China's robust technology-driven investment plans. Digital China Holdings Limited, a subsidiary of Legend Holdings, already has a network spanning throughout China in 11 regional centers, including Beijing, where the company's headquarters are located, as well as Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Wuhan, Nanjing, Shenyang, Chengdu, Xi'an and Ji'nan.

Educational opportunity is a key driver in bringing even more of China's vast population online as the country places on the fast-track its plan to become a global leader immediately upon entry into the WTO. Economic globalization, market forces, unemployment, administrative decentralization, and the information age are making China's colleges and universities reexamine their traditional mission.

An official opinion poll (quoted by Guo Fei, China's reform journal) found that the ordinary citizen is spending 44 percent of savings on their children's education, compared to 38.4 percent on pensions and 20.3 percent on housing. These statistics reflect the people's faith in education as the vehicle for improving the Chinese family's overall quality of life, and they also validate the traditional Confucian emphasis on education. Parents are even willing to endure greater personal sacrifices as long as their children have a chance for a brighter future.

Education at once serves as a crucial safety valve and it stands at an important crossroad, offering China the vision of better, high-tech goods and improved educational administration. For the next five to 10 years, education will be the basis of almost everything that happens in China.

Professor Gerard Postiglione, an associate professor of education at the University of Hong Kong, maintains that the "globalization of the Chinese economy is compelling universities to adapt and compete like never before. Chinese higher education has already moved toward reforms similar to those in other parts of the world and this includes the proliferation of non-government-supported institutions of higher education."

James Borton is a veteran journalist and full-time Asia watcher. He is currently at work on a book on the New Vietnam.

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