"Some quasi-non-governmental organizations like CNNIC are also dedicated to this cause," noted Liu. In November 2007, CNNIC spearheaded a project to launch websites in every county of Tibet Autonomous Region and has completed operation and training of staff in eight pilot government websites in Tibet.

Huge gaps still exist between urban and rural Internet development. In rural areas, proportion of Internet users is still a measly 7.1 percent, according to the CNNIC report, far behind the urban proportion of 27.3 percent. This leaves much room for improving rural Internet communications in the future.

Further development

Another highlight of the CNNIC report was how Chinese netizens spend their online time. Entertainment topped the list of activities, with accessing music online as the favorite activity registering a use rate of 86.6 percent. Using instant messenger and watching online films were next in line, with use rates of 81.4 percent and 76.9 percent, respectively. According to the survey, 94.2 percent of netizens said the Internet had enriched their leisure time.

Recreational use does not automatically mean the Internet has already become a pivotal social infrastructure, according to Yan Hongqiang, Vice Director with the Bureau of Telecommunications Regulation under the Ministry of Information Industry.

Kang Guoping, Inspector General of Blogchina.com, holds a similar opinion. "The dedication of netizens to online entertainment will undermine the social effects of the Internet," Kang said. "Our government departments should take full advantage of the Internet for maximum social achievement. For example, Americans enjoy great access to public services and information through such things as Mapquest, Google maps and Weather.com. What do we have in China? Without adequate applications, even our broadband is under-utilized."

Mobile access lags behind

As a communication tool, mobile phones have become common in China. According to statistics from the Ministry of Information Industry, China boasts 530 million valid SIM cards. The CNNIC report showed that there are 400 million mobile users in China, each of whom owns an average of 1.33 SIM cards.

Free from the location constraints of traditional Web access, mobile phones have started to become complementary devices for Internet use. Surfing the net via mobile phone has become trendy. In the past half year, 50.4 million netizens have accessed the Internet by mobile phone, or 12.6 percent of all mobile phone users.

As one of the Internet users with mobile access, Kang confessed to only reading online news on his mobile phone. "Even those who are well acquainted with the Internet like I am only use low-level applications," Kang said.

It was also noted in the CNNIC report that low speed and high costs are standing in the way of mobile Internet use in China. Without the third generation (3G) technology, mobile access is slow. As a result, downloading a video through a mobile phone doesn't make sense to those who can download the same video on their computer much faster and at little or no cost.

As a leading player in mobile-accessed Internet services, South Korea has about 51.3 percent of its mobile users accessing the Internet by mobile phone. It will take many painstaking efforts for China to catch up with its neighbor in this regard.

Mastering the domain

As a top-level domain name, CN has become a symbol of China. More importantly, the domain name CN bears heavily on China's information security. Registering with the domain name CN is conducive to guaranteeing that the Internet decision-making power stays in China, safeguarding its information security and sharpening its competitive edge in international information tussles. As for users, the domain name CN is administered by Chinese organizations, where Chinese laws have binding force regarding Internet disputes.

For a long time, the domain name COM was nearly synonymous with the Internet itself. However, 2007 could be seen as a watershed. As the CNNIC report said,

China's online population is bursting and has been accompanied by an escalating number of registered CN domain names. In 2007, 7.82 million domain names were created in China, reaching a total of 11.93 million, with an annual growth rate of 190.4 percent. Most of the newly registered domain names are CN, and there has been a daily growth of about 20,000 in the past year. The domain name CN has so far gained a dominant position in China, holding 75.4 percent of the total, followed by 20.4 percent having the domain name COM. China currently ranks second in the world for its top-level domain name, only second to the 11.28 million of German DE.