A survey on the future of the internet was reported in the Australian newspaper recently. The survey was carried out in 7 important internet countries covering about 48% of the global internet population. The survey says that China is already dominating the internet and will also dominate the culture of the internet. Chinese internet users average 34 hrs/week of media use, which is by far the biggest user of internet email, accounting for a staggering 56% of all use. This will mean China will have a major impact on how the web itself is developing. China's internet is mainly in 4 major areas, namely research, communications, commerce, and publishing, all four areas in which China is now the undisputed global leader. Traditional leaders like the US, Germany and the UK are laggards, trailing behind by a wide margin. China and also India will be its leaders. The survey finds that TV and the internet share equal readership but that TV's influence is only half that of the internet. Maybe it is time that we all learned how to read and write Chinese, otherwise we will find ourselves only partially-connected to the global internet village.
china could dominate the internet usage (based on population) but will they have full access to all kinds of websites w/out censoring or being blocked???..that's the bigger question.. As for language, English will still be as dominant for a long time to come..
I believe I did mention an Australian newspaper as a source. The name of the newspaper is 'The Australian' but it is covered in their Business with Wall Street Journal edition, not their news edition, dated April 5, 2010. It was also reported in the Chinadaily and the Chinadigitaltimes. The study was carried out by communications firm Fleishman-Hillard International Communications.
Chinese is the exclusive internet language used in China. This is the main reason why Google, despite translating everything from English to Chinese in China, was no match for the local Baidu. Internet in China is big on research, communications, commerce (ebay is small potato), and publishing-all serious business instead of gossips and copying works of so many writers and authors without permission. Even Hong Kong consumers are now ordering all sorts of merchandise and services online from China with quick delivery. On day it may be possible to order lunch or dinner to be delivered from China, just across the border, and have it delivered with the meals still warm.
Here is the link to the article: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/media/china-to-dominate-culture-of-internet/story-e6frg996-1225849658423 For the short term (less than 25 years) it is very unlikely. Again with the censorship in China and the population NOT exposed to all the information on the internet so I'm inclined to believe that all the material related to research, communications, commerce and publishing (the four dominated topics) is skewed in some fashion and thus unrealiable (but it may be that that they are even more dominant than thought also). With google translation and other similar services for media to use, I doubt we should all run out and sign up for chinese language courses. If we do then we should also sign up for hindi, urdu, etc. A good example is this site right here....global viewers....english......
BTW I'm not sure I entire understand the relevance of this. Keeping food warm for a 30-60 minute journey is no new technology, given the choice I would prefer not to order food that "old". We can all order food online now (at least in North America and I'm confident in other global parts) for delivery to our door (pizza, groceries, etc).
Yes, but I can't work out what is your opinion & what is the story - can you delineate which is which? I don't think it is that remarkable a story personally, & I do get annoyed by these "research" companies who point out what most other people see as obvious observations, take their website for example: (http://www.fleishmanhillard.co.uk/) We are integrated While we cover consumer, corporate, digital, healthcare, public affairs and technology, we work together around our clients’ needs. (We will do what ever you pay us too) We are global We specialise as a hub to coordinate across more than 80 offices in 22 countries around the world. (We will go wherever you pay us to go) We are creative We push as far as the brief will stretch (we ONLY do what you pay us too!). Read about creativity in our innovation blog We are direct We talk straight, we challenge, we drive, and we build real relationships. In short: we get it and we get on with it. (we state the obvious & you pay us for it) Anyway, sorry about hijacking your thread Taneepak!
chris is right, by pure population alone,that is suffice to say china could dominate the internet. Furthermore, let me rephrase the above article in brackets above. However, i believe internet will remain english in dominant and renovations. Just look at your keyboard How inefficient to type chinese characters using keyboard unless china come up with a 1000+ buttons keyboard to cover the key chinese prefix and suffix. lol.
I wrote, erased, wrote, erased line after line so I decided to just summarise what I wanted to say in point form: the 1.3 billion access to living themselves and get access to basic amenities such as electricity and clean water need to change the insular mindset of 'us vs the rest of the world' to 'us with the rest of the world' need to change the insular mindset of 'we are the world' to 'we as part of the world' Internet censorship quality and practicality of the output from this knowledge creation myth of [numbers = economic, military, cultural superiority] This is not an anti-China rant by the way, far from it. I'm just annoyed by the narcissism - I find Western media entertaining and of value but I don't feel the need to worship it. Feel free to flame me.
I can see the gist of the matter. Let's say China develops some new technology ,becomes a world leader eg.in Table Tennis technology, or in Air Transport,Environmental Management and transmits them effectively to all and sundry via the internet in the Chinese language exclusively. People with no access to it will be left behind if they dont read Chinese. Just as today if one is poor in English and only want to read what is happening in Malaysia and not the rest of the world then like Wilfred said, it is insularity. That's why Loh's threads on Singapore can be useful it keeps many people up to date, although such articles ought to be more selective . That is assuming of course that China develops and leads in certain technologies and the world wants to beat a path to its doors or access their sites to learn,like in the past. I wonder though if China is able to develop so much technology in recent times to be able to be so dominant that everyone will prefer to study things Chinese via Internet, as for say today, studying in English on development in the West or Japan.I am sure the West and Japan won't allow China to leave them behind.of course there will be sectors where China will have a commanding lead. Maybe it will happen ,Chinese domination that is, but might take a long time,meanwhile I am sure the West and Japan will simply offer alternatives or substitutes or offer their own well preserved technologies.Does China allocate so much money to Pure Academic Research and even commercial research when compared to say the US?It is one thing to be able to upstage the West in business it is another thing to be able to upstage them on fundamental R & D,it may take a long time.It is possible though for china to be trend setters in "Fashion" things like Japan. I can think of one thing though where China has gone so far ahead and can thumb their noses at the rest of the World -Table Tennis, everyone wants to learn from them and they provide info exclusively in Chinese. Not in badminton though, experts in Korea, Denmark or Park JB in Japan seem to be able to offer some competition. I can see James 's point, so called "commercial research" are devoid of many principle s and practices that are accepted in Academic Research and often are discounted as genuine research and not reliable . Sorry for the long posting but hope it is useful.
Or ancient history. One needs to know Chinese to decipher the archives but that is the work of scholars and experts , we learn from their books and articles second hand. China ought to learn from the Ming Dynasty of looking inward and cutting communications from the rest of the world and eventually falling behind, assuming that is what China is doing according to Wilfred.But I think most of this insular stuff involves "fashion" things, not serious technology, one would be a fool not to learn weapons technology from the US, otherwise the "Black Ships" of Commordore Perry will be back. I think Chit-chatting is interesting, if everything is based on scientific fact everyday discussion can be real boring. It is not wrong though to offer alternative viewpoints if their are any flaws in the arguments.It is up to the reader to judge whether something is based on reliable sources or just coffee-shop talk,worldview, personal opinion or personal experience. That is my opinion.
The internet has been the great equalizer for the free world over the past 15-20yrs, eg. ideas, info, news, music, video, business, etc. And for this very reason, the powers that are in control of China would fear the internet the most. They can try to control and restrict it, but over the next 10-20yrs, I see the internet being the great equalizer in that country.
well, if one take japan example, japan economy was once thought to rule the world. Japan yen was predicted to be the world currency. Their sky high stock market and real estate overwhelms the rest. Where is japan domination now?
Heh, you can easily substitute another country in Japan's place (ie. USA) when we look back five yrs from now.
hot off the press (lol, i mean the internet) those ghostwriters and plagiarizers are sure keeping their internet traffic busy ________________________________________________ Rampant cheating hurts China's research ambitions By GILLIAN WONG, Associated Press Writer Gillian Wong, Associated Press Writer Sun Apr 11, 12:49 am ET .LIUZHOU, China – When professors in China need to author research papers to get promoted, many turn to people like Lu Keqian. Working on his laptop in a cramped spare bedroom, the former schoolteacher ghostwrites for professors, students, government offices — anyone willing to pay his fee, typically about 300 yuan ($45). "My opinion is that writing papers for someone else is not wrong," he said. "There will always be a time when one needs help from others. Even our great leaders Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping needed help writing." Ghostwriting, plagiarizing or faking results is so rampant in Chinese academia that some experts worry it could hinder China's efforts to become a leader in science. The communist government views science as critical to China's modernization, and the latest calls for government spending on science and technology to grow by 8 percent to 163 billion yuan ($24 billion) this year. State-run media recently exulted over reports that China publishes more papers in international journals than any except the U.S. But not all the research stands up to scrutiny. In December, a British journal retracted 70 papers from a Chinese university, all by the same two lead scientists, saying the work had been fabricated. "Academic fraud, misconduct and ethical violations are very common in China," said professor Rao Yi, dean of the life sciences school at Peking University in the capital. "It is a big problem." Critics blame weak penalties and a system that bases faculty promotions and bonuses on number, rather than quality, of papers published. Dan Ben-Canaan is familiar with plagiarism. The Israeli professor has been teaching for nine years at Heilongjiang University in the northeastern city of Harbin. A colleague approached him in 2008 for a paper he wrote about the kidnapping and murder of a Jewish musician in Harbin in 1933 during the Japanese occupation. "He had the audacity to present it as his own paper at a conference that I organized," Ben-Canaan said. "Without any shame!" In a separate case, he gave material he had written to a researcher at the prestigious Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. He said he was shocked to receive a book by the academic that was mostly a copy and translation of the material Ben-Canaan had provided — without any attribution. The pressure to publish has created a ghostwriting boom. Nearly 1 billion yuan (more than $145 million) was spent on academic papers in China last year, up fivefold from 2007, a study by Wuhan University professor Shen Yang showed. One company providing such a service is Lu's, in Liuzhou, a southern industrial city. His Lu Ke Academic Center boasts a network of 20 to 30 graduate students and professors whose specialties range from computer technology to military affairs. Lu, a 58-year-old Communist Party member, is approached by clients through Internet chat programs. Most are college professors seeking promotions and students seeking help on theses. Once, 10 students from the same college class put in a collective request for him to write their papers, he said. "Doing everything on your own, independently, should be possible in theory, but in reality it is quite difficult and one will always need some help," Lu said. "This is how I see it. I don't know if it is right." Even in the business of selling research papers, there are cheats. Among the papers bought and sold in 2007, more than 70 percent were plagiarized, the Wuhan study found. Early last year, Internet users found that the deputy principal of Anhui Agricultural University had committed plagiarism in as many as 20 papers. The university removed him from his post but allowed him to continue teaching. In June, the principal of a traditional Chinese medicine university in the city of Guangzhou was accused of plagiarizing at least 40 percent of his doctoral thesis from another paper. And in March, the state-run China Youth Daily reported a 1997 medical paper had been plagiarized repeatedly over the past decade. At least 25 people from 16 organizations copied from the work, and more doctors are expected to be named as the investigation by two students using plagiarism-detecting software continues, the report said. Fang Shimin, an independent investigator of fraud, said he and his volunteers expose about a hundred cases every year, publicizing them on a Web site titled "New Threads." "The most common ones are plagiarism and exaggerating academic achievement," Fang said. The papers retracted by the British journal came from researchers at Jinggangshan University in southeastern China. The editors are checking other papers from the same institution, and say more retractions are expected. Calls and e-mails sent to Zhong Hua and Liu Tao, the two researchers named as lead authors of the papers, were unanswered. Other researchers contacted at the university too did not respond. The journal, Acta Crystallographica Section E, publishes discoveries of new crystal structures, much of it from legitimate Chinese research. "Chinese authors have submitted thousands of high quality structures to Acta E, which represent an important contribution to science," wrote Peter Strickland, managing editor of Journals of the International Union of Crystallography, which owns Acta E, in an e-mail. He said it was the first time fraudulent papers had been found in any of the journals. Richard P. Suttmeier, an expert in Chinese science policy at the University of Oregon, said the problems can be traced to China's efforts to modernize its science system in the 1980s and early 1990s when research accountability and evaluation were still weak. In trying to find ready measures of achievement, China emulated Western practices and began to focus on high-quality publications, but with mixed results, he said. The problems could hurt the country's ambition of becoming a global leader in research, Suttmeier said. "I suspect there will be less appetite for non-Chinese scientists to collaborate with Chinese colleagues who are operating in a culture of misconduct," he said. Last month the Education Ministry released guidelines for forming a 35-member watchdog committee. Also, in a faxed reply to questions, it said it has asked universities to get tough. Rao, the Peking University dean, remains skeptical. Government ministries are happy to fund research but not to police it, he said. "The authorities don't want to be the bad guy." ___ Associated Press researcher Xi Yue contributed to this report. this photo taken on March 1, 2010, Lu Keqian browses his website at his home in Liuzhou, China. When professors in China need to author research papers to get promoted, many turn to people like Lu. Working on his laptop in a cramped spare bedroom, the former schoolteacher ghostwrites for professors, students, government offices — anyone willing to pay his fee, typically about 300 yuan ($45). (AP Photo/Andy Wong)
Indeed, governments have been toppled when they try to censor the media but were unable to control the internet especially when one has a young population. Thailand has already censored many sites. I think the greatest power of the internet is in marketing, the ability to reach a vast audience, this must be where it is critical to learn Chinese, to reach huge numbers of young people with money, albeit with unsubstantiated claims at times.
Business analysts claim that the reason for Japan's stagnation is its insularity, its reluctance to open up its market to foreign competition and keeping things within the family. Sounds like China in the Ming Dynasty. It is still a substantial force to be reckoned with though like Germany eg. and is only bogged down by age old institutions.Maybe it is typical of all success stories, one's time will come one day.
