Welcome to Cinternet

The discussions between Google and the Chinese Government, BigG's decision to
move its servers to Hong Kong, the activists' attempts to bypass control by the public
authorities. We've been hearing and reading a lot about these issues, lately.
However, there's another question that has been left at the margins of the debate
until now: how does Internet in China actually work, and which are the main trends
going on beyond the Great Wall? We've tried to gain a better understanding of the
topic through an interview to Donnie Hao Dong, a well-known expert of the fieldand
currently a visiting scholar at the Berkman Center, Harvard.

One first evidence, highlighted by our interviewee and confirmed by all recent
surveys, has to do with the quantitative dimensions of the phenomenon: internet in
China is huge, and the magnitude and intensity of its growth are hardly
understandable by the usual Western standards. According to the 25th Survey of the
China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) there are currently more than
384 millions netizens in China (+86 millions more than 2008) and the expansion is
sustained in all sectors of the web-sphere: online business, search, social networks,
online games. More than 233 millions of Chinese people access the Net through
their mobile phones.

But there's more than just numbers to this story. And that's because, according to
Dong, the Chinese web-sphere comes with cultural, linguistical and normative
characteristics that are very peculiar to it, and that make it somehow different from
the Western Net. To the extent that our interviewee has crafterd a brand new word-
Cinternet- to better describe the phenomenon. "The wording of 'Cinternet'- as he
explains in the answers he has mailed to Il Sole 24 Ore " does not mean I think there
is a network isolated from the Internet with clear physical or software boarders.
Simply, I use this term to summarize an "Internet" reflecting the combination of the
impressions of the Chinese Internet users, policy makers and ISPs, an Internet that
is further reflected in the mode of E-commerce, the way of Internet governance and
even the style of the webpage ".

Cultural difference is thus the key for a better understanding of Cinternet. According
to Dong, indeed, Chinese culture is somehow mirrored in all dimensions of digital
life, from web-pages design to online action and interaction.

"Take pokes, in example: "poke" someone may be a very good design for Facebook
as an SNS in western world. But Chinese people, even they understand it is a way of
saying hello, will not feel it is funny, but weird.

And something similar occurs when it comes to websites architecture. Differently

from what happens with Western webites, he explains, the main Chinese websites
are structured around the- very popular there- IM services, and present themselves
as multifunction portals, each providing news, games social network and online
business within its boundaries.
Furthermore, there are some aspects that are peculiar to the Cinternet trajectory
through the years. First of all, Dong explains, public authorities have progressively
changed their attitudes towards the Net. "In early 2000s, the impact of the Internet to
Chinese society was still not strong enough, hence the authority did not pay so much
attention to the Internet. Gradually, the Internet has stronger influence to Chinese
society. The governmental administration then tried to control the content with
technological methods. After 2007, the limitations of the technological controlling are
more and more explicit, so the focus of the Internet governance moved from the
technological means to the legal enforcement."

However, our interviewee continues, as the degree of consciousness- and of

intervention- of the Legislator has increased, new issues have emerged, namely with
regard to the fragmentation and lack of coordination of the normative framework.
"The main cyber legal system currently enforced by Chinese authority has been
promulgated by lower level of the government (most regulations were made by the
Ministries but not the people's congress or the State Council). And the regulations
were based mostly on the old and superficial understanding to the Internet." The
result is a "normative jungle" that is likely to limit the civil and economic development
of the Internet phenomenon as a whole.

And what about the future? With regard to the Cinternet itself, Dong maintains that it
will continue to grow, and that the above described regulatory jungle will be fixed
through a new round of legislation. But the real issue, he continues, has to do with
the recognition, at the international level, of the differences that exist between the
different ares of the web-sphere. "The Cyber world is a world with diversities and it
can hardly stay beyond the real world independently without the influences of
different culture and regimes". Thus, as Dong states in an indirect answer to the
supporters of the "global and single internet", it is necessary to take a more
"pluralistic" approach with regard to the understanding of the Net. "Once most (if not
all) stakeholders (either in the east or in the west) accept that their individual
impressions of the Internet should not definitely be the solely right one, the
connection among the networks (no matter at infrastructure level or at the legal level)
may be more smooth. "
http://twitter.com/giovanni_arata

(Originally published in Italian on Nòva, April, 21st, 2010)