Essay draft 1

Introduction

In today’s modern society, the trend of the development of digital technology has been more apparent over the years and will continue to intensify as time goes by. This trend will be getting more apparent as many countries foresee the advantages. These advantages include broader academic development, a more conducive commercial landscape and better integration of information amongst people in the country. However, issues of digital disparity often surface, especially in developing countries such as China. The Diffusion of internet access in China is not distribute evenly in the country.

The growth in the diffusion of internet access in developing countries mostly come from people living in the urban regions of China, improvement on the situation can be done through subsidies by the ministry of finance to enhance technological skills of the citizens and also the usage of mobile commerce to the poor so that it will be much more viable for rural regions, one of such is Pingnan country. Pingnan country is a province in Fujian, who is under extreme poverty with virtually no internet users.

Government efforts

According to the International Fund for Agriculture and Development (IFAD) (2014), the government has attempt to venture into rural areas. Investments has been done on the infrastructure for technology so that these people are able to adapt to the changing environment and market conditions. 

One of the contractor that is part of the government’s plan in rural area expansions is the China Mobile Limited (CML), who successfully set up a stable mobile network in various rural areas, such as Shanxi, Jiling and Anhui. People are able to receive disaster warnings and weather forecast for their crops through technology (China Mobile Limited, 2009). 

Despite numerous efforts to bring telecommunications and networking into these rural societies, the digital divide persists in China. From the year 2011 to 2012, the growth of internet users grew from 26.5% to a mere 27.6% (China internet network information (CINMC)). The slow growth might indicate that the efforts are not efficient enough. The divide is still very apparent with only 27.6 % of the overall internet users from rural regions.

Challenges

The attempts to venture into poorer rural region remain a challenge for the government. According to a corporate report written by China Mobile Limited (CML) (2009), Pingnan country, remains a challenge for them. “The results of our initial assessment showed that income sources are limited in Pingnan County, with most people living below the poverty line. Virtually no one uses a computer and there are very few landlines. The county is sorely lacking the necessary investment and information to drive local development. Without convenient information channels, information, benefits, and policies from the government on poverty alleviation cannot easily make it into the hands of local people”. These people are poor and can only afford to obtain necessities for themselves to get on with their lives.

Policies

Citizens skillset

The government would have to make changes in their policies and direction in terms of subsidiary incentives to not only equip them with the necessary technological skills and convince these people to start adopting technology. To make improvements in the digital divide situation, a good start would be having a healthy number of internet users (Economic intelligence unit (2012)).

Therefore, the Chinese government should change its policies to stimulate the growth in internet users. The foundation of having high internet users is to first ensure that the citizens are IT literate (Economic intelligence unit (2012)). Policies should include the necessary incentives to better attract contractors to provide services to educate citizens so that they will be technologically literate.

Subsidies and mobile commerce

One of the most viable way for these rural citizens to be able to get internet access would be the usage of mobile commerce. According to Melanie (2014), an associate from Alizila,” Mobile commerce’s high penetration rates in these rural areas is due primarily to issues relating to access to technology. The regions’ poorer residents can’t afford personal computers”. “Cellular networks offer better coverage and decent speeds.” On top of the cheaper alternative of mobile commerce, subsidies from government is another way to further reduce the cost. With that, the networking and telecommunication in these regions becomes more viable.

The benefits of networking can then be presented to the Pingnan country’s people. With the cheaper alternative of mobile commerce along with government subsidies, the people would be more open to changes. When the people are open to the technological change, the government can then attract contractors to develop the region as the area is now more profitable with the higher rates of users open to technology.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the government has to ensure the benefits of both the contractors and the rural region citizens are being taken care well. The foundation step would be to ensure that citizens are first well equip with the skillset to be able to use technologies. 

Next, the government has to give out incentives and convince contractors on the potential of doing the job. The contractor would only do the job if it is profitable and when the contractor foresee the potential in developing the region. The citizens of the poor rural area would only be open to change and start using technology if the government is able to convince them to do so through subsidies and viable options. 

Through vigorous development, constant investment in rural areas and with time, the digital gap between the urban and rural region would eventually narrow.

Reference:

IFAD (2014, June). Corporate booklet – Investing in rural china Retrieved October 1, 2014. From: http://ifad.org/operations/projects/regions/pi/factsheets/cn.pdf

China Mobile Limited (2009, December). Corporate Social responsibility report. Retrieved October 1, 2014. From: (http://www.chinamobileltd.com/en/ir/reports/ar2009/sd2009.pdf

Alizila (2014, July 8). Mobile Commerce Is Thriving in Unexpected Places Retrieved October 1, 2014. From: http://www.alizila.com/mobile-commerce-thriving-unexpected-places-video

Chinese internet network information center. Statistical report on internet development in China (2013, January). Retrieved October 1, 2014.From: http://www1.cnnic.cn/IDR/ReportDownloads/201302/P020130221391269963814.pdf

Economic intelligence unit (2012). Smart policies to close divide. Retrieved October 1, 2014. From:http://unpan1.un.org/intradoc/groups/public/documents/un-dpadm/unpan049753.pdf

Reader's response 3rd draft

Euromonitor's blogpost on ‘Global digital divide persists but is narrowing’ (2011), infer through statistics provided by Euromonitor International from trade sources/national statistics that developed economies will continue to enjoy higher broadband diffusion rates. This results in larger government expenditure, advance IT framework and higher wages that allow computer ownership. However, developing countries are slowly catching up due to the rapid economic growth. This has led to a wide range of effects on the society, such as varying business opportunities, reducing urban-rural disparities with better information diffusion, social and cultural integration and altering government expenditure and policies.

In relation to the article, I would like to discuss is the issue on developing countries such as China, Nigeria and Indonesia having high potential in terms of sheer market size. Although the growth might be apparent in the short term, there might be other factors that might govern the ultimate success of the country. I would not agree that these countries are absolutely profitable in considering of a business venture. There are many other factors to consider in determining the potential of a country. Uncontrollable and nature forces might impact on the growth in the country. Statistics can only make certain hypothesis on the issue but it is not 100% accurate.

According to statistics that Euromonitor International provide, it is definitely true that these developing countries are catching up. However, there is definitely doubt in the sustainability of these claims displayed by the statistics. There are many different contributing factors when it comes to the measurement of a country’s economic growth. The statistics serves as a platform to come out with a hypothesis but it is still not a definite indicator to depict the overall picture of the situation. It is definitely true that the broadband diffusion rates in developing countries has been growing relatively fast as compared to developed countries. In addition, this might not be the representative of a whole country.

For the sake of discussion, I would like to take china as a case study in the analysis of developing countries. In reference to Nanjing marketing group (2011), out of the total internet users in china, only 27.3% come from rural areas while majority of china’s users come from urban areas. This statistic starts questioning to whether the growth would hit a ceiling as internet penetration to urban areas is so much higher than those in rural areas. This also bring the question that would internet continue to grow in rural areas with the limitations of IT infrastructure foundations in those areas

The Chinese government has been channeling its resources to urban cities such as shanghai and Beijing to continue to spur economic growth towards china’s journey of becoming an economical power in the world. However, the issue would be whether the Chinese government will source some of its resources to rural areas. They probably would not do so in the short run. This would happen but then it definitely would take quite some time to take shape as the basic foundation of building a modernized city is not as easy as it seems, it requires quite a large amount of money, planning and also time. This has made it clear that the government is channeling majority of its resources mainly towards the development of the urban areas. Although the article mention about the benefit of improvement in disparity in the country, it is not really true in this case. The Digital divide gap in the country remain relatively wide.

This brings me to the point of the contribution of wealth. According to BBC News (2014), the higher end to the social class of China, people are becoming wealthier as time goes by and is spending more money, but it still does not prove that the wealth is being distribute fairly as the rich is becoming richer while the poor is not becoming richer or even worse, they are declining in wealth. This applies to people especially in the rural areas. This show that statistics are just a consensus of the whole country on average and not a true representative. This then conclude that things cannot be seen in such a way that is assume that everyone is equally affluent.

In addition to the point mention previously, there are also a number of contributing factors in determining a country’s growth in terms of the digital divide. An economy might be hit by certain uncontrollable factors such as financial crisis, natural disasters and political instability. Financial woes might cause currency crisis, for example the Great Depression, which was preceded in many countries by bank runs and stock market crashes. This would then result in the downfall of an economy and indirectly it would also affect the digital divide when there is less absolute resources to distribute and channel amongst the different industries in a country.  Natural disasters such as the Japanese tsunami can bring down the economy overnight, where resources are being channel to do recovery work. While political instability, such as the protests in Thailand can deter investors to invest in the country. Developing country would then be slower in terms of recovery since their resources are much lesser as compared to developed countries. These factors are examples that the economic sustainability in the long run would not be definite and cannot be controlled or accurately hypothesis by the sole use of statistics.

In conclusion, statistics alone is insufficient to make definite hypothesis of the progress and growth of a country. Many other unforeseen factors and policies might impact the absolute growth of the country. Government policies might be curve towards development in urban areas and rural areas continue to lag behind. It is hard to predict whether the growth in urban areas would hit a ceiling like developed countries and slow down growth, as the government continue to channel resources in these areas. Wealthier communities continue to be wealthier while the poor stay the same or becomes poorer.

The development of IT landscape of rural areas still remains slow and not well-develop in the short run. Natural disasters and financial turmoil might also immobilize the countries growth rate and recovery would be slow as compared to developed countries who holds more resources. With this, developing countries are still lagging behind in comparison to their developed countries counterparts.


References:

Euromonitor International. (2011, February 2). Global digital divide persists but is narrowing. Retrieved August 25, 2014, from http://blog.euromonitor.com/2011/02/global-digital-divide-persists-but-is-narrowing-1.html

BBC news. (2014, Feb 2) Affluence of Chinese is growing. Retrieved September 6, 2014, http://www.bbc.com/capital/story/20140203-the-rise-of-chinas-wealth-dragon

Nanjing marketing. (2011, Oct 28). China rural urban internet usage. Retrieved September 6, 2014, http://www.nanjingmarketinggroup.com/blog/rural-chinese-internet-usage-2011_10_27

Essay outline

Main topic area: 

Digital divide amongst urban and rural regions in China

 

Main problem identified: 

The contribution of the digital growth in China is mainly from urban areas,  the rate of digital growth of people in rural region is drastically slower than urban region.

Proposed solution (set): 

mobile commerce, IT infrastructure foundation

Proposed thesis:

The growth in the diffusion of internet access in developing countries are mostly contributed by people living in the urban regions of China, indicating the urban disparity and this inequality can be improve through building better IT infrastructure foundation in rural areas and mobile commerce by intervention by Ministry of Information Industry.