China in the Information Age

China’s economic and social progress toward modernization is one of the defining features of the last quarter of the 20th century. The emergence of China coincides with another development of equally important international implications—the revolution in information and telecommunication technology. But how compatible are the new China and the information age? The Chinese government intends to embrace market-oriented economic development while maintaining centralized control over politics, culture, and public discourse. The contradictions and tensions of this goal are especially acute in telecommunication and information technology markets, where the rest of the world is moving rapidly toward liberalization and globalization. Will China’s economic reforms allow it to join the information revolution, or will its unique political structure keep it insulated from the main currents of global economic development? This volume is the first detailed examination of how China’s reform process is playing out in the realm of information and telecommunications.

Author Biography

MILTON MUELLER is Assistant Professor in the School of Communication, Information, and Library Studies at Rutgers University. In 1995, he was visiting scholar in the Department of Information and Systems Management at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. In both sites he teaches courses on telecommunications technology, policy, economics, and on Internet and electronic commerce. Since 1989, he has published several studies of international and national telecommunications policy issues in Hong Kong, China, and Taiwan. His book International Telecommunications in Hong Kong: The Case for Liberalization was published by the Hong Kong Centre for Economic Research in 1991 and won the Sir Anthony Fischer Memorial Prize for policy research.

ZIXIANG TAN is Assistant Professor in the School of Information Studies at Syracuse University. He has worked in the telecommunications field for more than ten years in China, Europe, and the United States, specializing in telecommunications regulation and policy, new technology development, and issues related to developing countries. He spent more than four years in Chinese central government agencies responsible for telecommunications and information industry development, policy, and regulation, and he has published several journal articles on telecommunications in China.