The Internet and Political Participation in China

Abstract

Since 1998, China has become a fast-growing Internet market. The number of Internet users has been doubling every six months. A report published by the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) revealed that by December 2005 about 111 million Chinese citizens, or 8 percent of China’s population, were Internet users.1 With the access to the Internet, news reaches Chinese users from diversified sources and people are able to learn about politics, form opinions, and communicate with others in a new and unprecedented way. Interesting questions to be asked are whether the Internet has expanded Chinese people’s political freedom and participation and how. A related question is whether the Chinese government will be able to effectively control this new form of political participation. These are the questions we will explore in this chapter.KeywordsChinese GovernmentPolitical ParticipationInternet UserState SecretChinese CitizenThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.