Some rather shocking statistics in Thomas Crampton’s blog entry China’s Internet rarely links to foreign websites: Out of 40 million external links on 5 million pages of 15,000 sites in China investigated, only 6% leave for websites geographically situated outside mainland China!.
Professor Jonathan Zhu of City University of Hong Kong led this research into Chinese hyperlink behavior, which I came across on Tobias Escher’s excellent blog.
Escher qualifies the national/provincial distinctions based on a conversation with Zhu: “While this figure is more or less robust he tells me that the distinction between Home vs. Other provinces is still preliminary as it is based on geo-IP location. This might tell you where the server sits but not necessarily much about the “location” of the websites its been hosting. Therefore they are now trying to explore new methods including content mining.”
This could certainly be true; out of all links investigated (100%):
• 81% of them head for sites within the “home province”;
• 13% head for sites on “other provinces”;
• 6% go “overseas”.
It’s important here to note that “overseas” does not mean outside all of geographical Greater China. Inside Greater China, there are four customs territories: the mainland, Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan. When the PRC talks about “foreign” sites, it may choose to call them jingwai (境外), meaning sites outside the mainland only, or guowai (国外), meaning sites outside of Greater China altogether. (Sites in Singapore often end up as guowai sites, whereas sites in Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan end up as jingwai sites. In the same vein, Taiwan considers mainland matters as jingwai, not guowai, matters.)
Most likely, those links going “overseas” are likely sites outside the mainland only. A fraction of that would go to real-world foreign sites like those in the US and Europe. Since mainland Chinese Internet law deals more with jingwai matters than guowai matters, “overseas” would most likely mean “places outside mainland China only” — like I said.
Two reasons could probably explain why all that Chinese traffic isn’t heading for places beyond China’s borders (by means of those links, anyway):
• For legal reasons: China’s Internet law regarding Internet news forbids links to foreign news sites on mainland Chinese news sites unless Chinese State Council approval is obtained. Some sites spell out the URL of a foreign site (or even a domestic site), but they leave out the A HREF hyperlink. (The legal basis behind this is provided by Article 14 of the Interim Regulations Regarding News Services on Internet Websites — a 2000 law.)
• For geo-network reasons: If I’m not totally mistaken, the Web inside China feels more like an intranet. Why is it that I can access any local website “just like that” (click and go — truer words could not be uttered!), whereas a click on a link outside Chinese frontiers can create waits of up to 20 — sometimes even 30 — seconds and more? In fact, at some universities, access to sites located outside of geographical mainland China is blocked, period. (My blog! There goes my blog hosted on servers in the US!)
Although I haven’t mentioned it, a potential third barrier lies with the language barrier. Yes, Beijing’s getting the Olympics next year and Shanghai’s in with the 2010 World Expo, but that doesn’t mean that the world suddenly has 1.3 billion more English speakers. Go really local and speak to true locals in English — the response you might get is more along the lines of “My English very poor!” or “No speak English”.
Tags: blognation, China, blognation China, Mainland China, Internet in China, links, Greater China, Internet, Intranet
October 28th, 2007 at 8:18 am
Google is creating a logical wall in the other direction. As an English speaker in the UK, the web outside UK/North America might as well not exist. Google is too good at showing me things that it thinks suit me, and so effectively hides the rest of the world. For instance, you would think that English pages on Alibaba would show up much, much more often but in fact they never appear.
October 28th, 2007 at 12:47 pm
Nice article. The language issue is the most important as Chinese web users almost never use English-language websites. I don’t think that legal reasons are really important to the average web user or webmaster, and as for speed of access despite the great firewall access to some overseas websites especially those in Asia (Singapore for instance) is quite acceptable.
Patrick
October 29th, 2007 at 5:53 pm
Great article. Scary stuff.
October 29th, 2007 at 6:21 pm
SHOCK HORROR, MOST CHINESE PEOPLE DON’T SPEAK ANOTHER LANGUAGE
October 29th, 2007 at 7:35 pm
I don’t know, but are we sure that more than 6% of American links are pointing to foreign sites, and if not, is that also shocking?
October 29th, 2007 at 8:09 pm
“In the same vein, Taiwan considers mainland matters as jingwai, not guowai, matters”
Wait, why is that sentence even there? Not only is it factually incorrect, it’s entirely unnecessary. While I understand that China sees Taiwan as one of its territories, Taiwan has NOT considered China as a part of itself since the late 70’s and 80’s.
October 29th, 2007 at 8:48 pm
I chat with many Chinese friend in China. They all speak to me in English. They also chat with me in English. I understand that soon, China will be with worlds largest English speaking country. ^_^
October 29th, 2007 at 9:08 pm
[…] in China investigated, only 6% leave for websites geographically situated outside mainland China!.read more | digg […]
October 29th, 2007 at 11:19 pm
[…] in China investigated, only 6% leave for websites geographically situated outside mainland China!.read more | digg […]
October 30th, 2007 at 1:15 am
@Random Taiwanese American: I’ve read a LOT of Taiwanese law (and I know I’m getting slightly OT here). Except for the Immigration department, which uses guo / 國 (nation), not jing / 境 (frontier), jing is very much alive and kicking, at least in Taiwanese legalese.
October 30th, 2007 at 1:55 am
[…] 至于原因大概归结为法律问题和物理网络的原因两点，感兴趣的看这里 相关文章 […]
October 30th, 2007 at 5:28 am
I don’t think that language is the major barrier. There are many chinese language sites fom outside china that my wife (who is native chinese) only started visiting after leaving china. Part of it has to do with which sites are promoted within china. Its not surprising that local content is promoted (via newspaper,signs,text messages, etc.) more than foreign content, if you are not aware of a foreign chinese website how can you visit those sites. Of course, you could search for the external content assuming that the search engine you use will look for sites outside china (google china isn’t exactly the same as normal google and if the chinese gov’t is feeling unhappy you might get redirected to baidu.) but the external sites might actually be too far down the list of links to be bothered with.
Its easier for locals to find local content, so that is what they go with. That might not be true if there was a real choice.
October 30th, 2007 at 6:11 am
good article…. maybe the main reason for that is the legal problem..
you know what.. now in the mainland, ppl cannot view youtube now!!!
don’t understand why chinese government is so sensitive about the content on the web.
October 30th, 2007 at 7:10 am
Stuff they don’t want folks to know + a lot of netizens + increasing ease of Internet access = …
(where “…” = you know what could happen…)
November 3rd, 2007 at 11:49 am
To Willy B.
The fact that many Chinese can chat in English doesn’t mean that they would use English resources unless really necessary or if similar Chinese resources were available.
November 12th, 2007 at 2:25 pm
你好! 什么什么 Feng, 即便除去你所说的那一切”原因”, 我们也不会看到中国的网站对非中文地区的链接有任何实质性的增长. 为什么? 中国有多少人说英文? 有多少会说英文的人除了用英文在国外骂骂政府, 发发牢骚外能真正参与英文文化圈内的事务? 调查说只有 6%, 即便这个数字更低一点也不奇怪. 你很难想象, 如果一个外国网站不是参与中国事务或者也不对中国文化有什么浓厚兴趣他有多大的必要弄几个链接指向中国的, 特别是中文的网站. 英文文化圈的国家倒或许可能没有你所谓的那些”原因”, 我倒想知道有多少英文文化圈的国家链接指向中国? 或者说指向其它非英文国家?
既然是介绍中国给世界, 既不用贴金也不用扯淡, 就事论事, 多提点切实的建议, 多传达些有利于中外协作和理解的信息, 空洞的扯这些淡,也不管挨不挨得着边急, 谁听多了都会烦的.
November 16th, 2007 at 9:40 am
The problem is related to censorship. When China Economics Blog was initially set up one of its main aims was to provide information for Chinese students looking to study Economics or Business in the UK (with coverage of the US and Australia included).
The problem is that google blogs are censored on mass and even the the dot.com address is blocked.
It is a shame that a potential useful service can not be accessed as the information is ultimately useful to China.plc. The better educated Chinese students the better for China.
November 22nd, 2007 at 4:50 am
[…] on the Chinese Internet are to websites outside of China. You can follow the discussion on BlogNation, Shanghaiist and chez Thomas Crampton, and also chez Rebecca MacKinnon, and Tobias […]
November 23rd, 2007 at 6:42 am
[…] on the Chinese Internet are to websites outside of China. You can follow the discussion on BlogNation, Shanghaiist and chez Thomas Crampton, and also chez Rebecca MacKinnon, and Tobias […]
December 15th, 2007 at 11:46 am
very interesting, but I don’t agree with you
Idetrorce
March 28th, 2008 at 1:59 pm
I don’t think that language is the major barrier.