Golden Bridge, Golden Gate, or Golden Wall: China Moves into the Information Age

摘要

The People's Republic of China is a developing country poised at the edge of the Information Age frontier. China's progress towards the Information Age is measured by the modernity and pervasiveness of its information infrastructure--specifically, the telephone, computer, and network infrastructure is analyzed--and by the policies it uses to administer this infrastructure. China's current information sector policies epitomize the internal conflicts between reform and control with which the government struggles. China watches Singapore closely as a successful model of the type of closed, but open, information society' it wishes to achieve. China's pending entry into the World Trade Organization should have a dramatic effect on its information infrastructure, forcing it open to global competition-with the by- product of increased exposure to free market philosophies and, it is hoped by the U.S., liberalizing political influences. How China deals with information infrastructure provides an indicator of how ready it really is to move into the Information Age--China can choose to put up a Golden Wall to keep the Information Age out; can use it as a Golden Gate, much like Singapore has, to control what comes in and out; or can use it as a Golden Bridge to liberalize and reform their society. The option China pursues determines what U.S. national security strategy towards it should be.