China's entry into the World Trade Organization offers China a rare opportunity to advance its communications capabilities, but the government must recognize that protecting its favored domestic companies and funding antiquated technology won't allow the country to benefit from everything WTO membership has to offer.China's entrance into the WTO has raised the stakes for domestic companies, particularly with the government expected to issue new telecommunications rules this year. There is tremendous growth potential in the Chinese telecommunications market, given that the World Bank estimates about three-quarters of the country's 1.3 billion citizens have never made a phone call.But those citizens won't be served by policies focused on government ownership and the creation of national champions. One concept that the Chinese government must grasp is that the creation of an advanced communications network is vital for economic growth overall, regardless of whether that network is indigenously owned or not.By placing the focus on the competitiveness of its state-owned firms, China is sacrificing both the development of a competitive domestic environment and the quality of its national communications infrastructure. By shutting out potential competitors, the Chinese are simultaneously passing over the latest communications technology as well as the investment capital that is needed to construct state-of-the-art infrastructure.

Based on firsthand information obtained from interviews with senior figures in the Chinese telecommunications industry, this book presents a unique review and analysis of the evolution of Chinese telecommunications policy. It analyses the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats facing new entrants, issues of ownership and interconnection, the broad economic background of 3G licensing, and the significant implications of China's accession to the WTO. These are fully analyzed within the context of the unfolding Chinese regulatory system.

China's telecommunications industry has seen revolutionary transformation and growth over the past three decades. Chinese Internet users number nearly 150 million, and the PRC expects to quickly pass the US in total numbers of connected citizens. The number of mobile and fixed-line telephone users soared from a mere 2 million in 1980 to a total of nearly 800 million in 2007. China has been the most successful developing nation in history for spreading telecommunications access at an unparalleled rapid pace. This book tells how China conducted its remarkable "telecommunications revolution". It examines both corporate and government policy to get citizens connected to both voice and data networks, looks at the potential challenges to the one-party government when citizens get this access, and considers the new opportunities for networking now offered to the people of one of the world's fastest growing economies. The book is based on the author's fieldwork conducted in several Chinese cities, as well as extensive archival research. It focuses on key issues such as building and running the country's Internet, mobile phone company rivalry, foreign investment in the sector, and telecommunications in China's vibrant city of Shanghai. It also considers the country's internal "digital divide", and questions how equitable the telecommunications revolution has been. Finally, it examines the ways the PRC's entry to the World Trade Organization will shape the future course of telecommunications growth.

Analyses China's telecommunications sector and policy and examines how it fits into China's economic and political reform process.

This book explains the history, current situation, market size and technological level of China's telecommunication industry in detail. It also provides an introduction to the main operators in China and their respective market shares and network technologies. Information about major equipment manufacturing enterprises and their major products is also provided, and their competitive strengths are analyzed. Finally, the book describes the evolution of China's telecommunication regulatory regime, the changes in telecommunication policies and the reform of regulatory practices. The impact of these reform measures is then briefly evaluated.

In the early 1990s, China started to reform its telecommunications regime by removing barriers to foreign and private investment and encouraging competition. This text applies the "Public Choice Plus" theory (developed in the study of economics) to the analysis of the policymaking process of China's telecommunications reforms. Guan is a senior fellow at the Centre for Innovation Law and Policy at the U. of Toronto.

In Varieties of State Regulation, Yukyung Yeo explores how, despite China’s increasing integration into the global market, the Chinese central party-state continues to oversee the most strategic sectors of its economy. Since the 1990s, as major state firms were spun off from the ministries that managed them under the central planning system, the nature of the state in governing the economy has been remarkably transformed into that of a regulator. Based on over a hundred interviews conducted with Chinese central and local officials, firms, scholars, journalists, and consultants, the book demonstrates that the form of central state control varies considerably across leading industrial sectors, depending on the dominant mode of state ownership, conception of control, and governing structure. By analyzing and comparing institutional dynamics across various sectors, Yeo explains variations in the pattern of China’s regulation of its economy. She contrasts the regulation of the automobile industry, a relatively decentralized sector, with the highly-centralized telecommunications industry, and demonstrates how China’s central party-state maintains regulatory authority over key local state-owned enterprises. Placing these findings in historical and comparative contexts, the book presents the evolution and current practice of state regulation in China and examines its compatibility with other contemporary government practices.

Offering a historical analysis of the interconnections between China's telecom policies and industrial development over the past three decades, this paper examines what has recently changed since the promulgation of a domestic-based economic growth model. It argues that the ambitious 3G network buildup underpins the state's broader industrial policy to build Chinese competencies in telecommunications manufacturing -- through the creation and leveraging of domestic demand. Some progress has been achieved in expanding market share and in re-organizing the supply chain across the network equipment, handset, and wireless applications markets, but these policies have yet to fully transform China's position in global competition.

Before the 1990s, China's telecommunications sector was a lacklustre monopoly featured by poor-quality service and inadequate capacity. Today the country boasts a dynamic telecommunications industry with the world's largest communications network and user-base with over 460 million telephone subscribers. China's accession to the WTO in 2001 has opened this huge developing telecommunications market to foreign participation and investment. The authors examine the singularity of the Chinese experience in building up its extensive telecommunications network in merely a decade, by reviewing China's national industrial policies and institutional reforms within the industry. The reader will find in this volume a unique and in-depth analysis of the interplay between political and economic forces amidst the industry's structural overhaul and regulatory reforms. The accounts of industrial features and market conditions are enriched with up-to-date data, which are extremely useful for appreciating the development and prospects for this fast-growing market, set against the backdrop of China's accession to the WTO. Scholars of China or Asian studies and researchers of information-communications industry and Asian/China studies will find this work of great interest, as will governmental policymakers, both in China and beyond. For foreign business practitioners eyeing this market, this volume provides a helpful guide to understand China's various interests and public welfare considerations that motivate changes in policies towards foreign investment and participation.

Expanding on the relationship between telecommunications and development, this work concentrates on the link between telecommunications and economic growth. China's telecoms and their bearing on the country's development are used as an example to further consider this relationship.