New Report: China’s Internet Is Pretty Big

Lincoln Davidson is a research associate for Asia Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. You can follow him on Twitter @dvdsndvdsn. 

The number of Internet users in China has grown to 668 million, according to a report released last week by the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC), a state agency that administers China’s domain name registry and conducts research on the Chinese Internet. Below are the main points from the agency’s annual Internet development report. Full text of the report can be found here.

Chinese Internet regulators have gotten a lot of bad press in recent weeks, as it came out that new national security and cybersecurity laws included measures that would make it easier for the government to monitor citizen activity online. For example, the government appears to be doubling down on a requirement that Chinese citizens use their real name and state-issued ID number when opening online accounts and demanding that Chinese companies use technology that is domestically-sourced and “controllable.”

However, despite these limitations, the state of China’s Internet isn’t all bad, as Internet service provision continues to increase. Internet penetration in China has increased by about four percent annually since 2010. While this year’s increase of 2.8 percent represents a gradual leveling-off of growth rates, Internet usage in China remains significantly lower than in developed countries, so there’s still room for growth. Given a recent commitment by the central government to increase investment in infrastructure development, particularly in rural areas, we could even expect a higher year-on-year increase next year.