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The secret of China's Internet coverage in rural areas: How to break the digital islands of 900,000 villages?
Over the past few decades, China's digitalization process has changed the lives of countless people. Especially in rural areas, the popularity of the Internet is regarded as an important historical turning point, allowing farmers to obtain more information and business opportunities. Controlling this change is a series of policies and infrastructure projects implemented by China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT).
In 2004, MIIT launched the "Connect Every Village" project to promote the spread of telecommunications and Internet services in rural areas.
The project requires six state-owned enterprises, including China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom, to build communications infrastructure and help raise funds. With the establishment of approximately 90,000 rural telecom centers in 2011, rural telecommunications and Internet connectivity issues have improved significantly.
According to data at the end of 2019, 135 million rural households in China have access to broadband networks, and this number is constantly rising. These successful efforts not only extended the Internet infrastructure, but also effectively promoted the digital transformation of the rural economy.
MIIT's primary mission is to promote industrial development, policy formulation and the implementation of standards. Its work covers all aspects from monitoring industry operations to promoting innovation and information technology.
Under MIIT's planning, China's telecommunications business has undergone unprecedented changes. Through continuous policy support, MIIT has enabled rural areas to achieve breakthroughs in technology and infrastructure, making the previous digital islands gradually become more closely connected.
However, this process has not been smooth sailing. MIIT launched a six-month regulatory action in 2021 to discuss consumer protection and unfair competition issues to resolve various challenges including interoperability issues. This means that although the infrastructure has been built, the health of the Internet environment still needs to be further improved so that digitalization can continue to contribute to the development of the rural economy.
In this process, MIIT not only established technical specifications and standards, but also supervised fair competition in the industry to a certain extent. These are key factors in promoting the popularization of digitalization.
In addition, MIIT also actively participates in promoting the development of small and micro enterprises and has formulated a series of support policies to assist these enterprises in entering the wave of digital economy. This has undoubtedly accelerated the pace of rural entrepreneurship and innovation, making more and more young people willing to stay in their hometowns and engage in agriculture and entrepreneurial work.
Despite the remarkable results achieved, the road to digitalization in rural China still has a long way to go. From technology popularization to education improvement, further efforts are needed. On the basis of shaping the future, MIIT also needs to continue to conduct in-depth policy analysis and adjustments in response to the challenges of emerging markets.
In the current era of rapid digitalization, how can rural areas continue to integrate into the global digital economy, and the social changes that these efforts can bring about, will be important issues we face?
