Internet key to bridging digital divide

Nation’s opening-up, tech development aiding poverty alleviation campaign

BEIJING — China’s booming internet industry has played a key role in helping to bridge the digital divide nationally, according to experts and business executives.

Microsoft founder Bill Gates said China’s opening-up and technological development are making a big difference, as the extreme poverty rate in the country has fallen from 60 percent in 1990s to less than 4 percent in 2010s.

“With its increasing role in the world and the growing capacity for innovation, I believe China will be a catalyst for a third wave of poverty reduction,” Gates said at the first China International Import Expo in Shanghai earlier this month.

Statistics from the State Council Leading Group Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development show that China has lifted 68.53 million people out of poverty in the past five years.

“China has achieved great results in bridging its digital divide,” said Robert Kuhn, chairman of the Kuhn Foundation, during the fifth World Internet Conference in Wuzhen, Zhejiang province. “It’s a wonderful story the world needs to know.”

“We have been expanding access to the internet in China’s rural areas,” said Hong Tianyun, deputy director of the Leading Group Office when addressing a WIC subforum.

As of June, 97.4 percent of China’s villages had access to broadband internet and 95 percent had access to 4G networks, according to a report released at the conference.

China has been “very effective” in empowering impoverished people and communities by improving internet access, according to Sally Costerton, senior adviser to the president of the Internet Corp for Assigned Names and Numbers.

ICANN is an international organization dedicated to promoting the use of Internationalized Domain Names, which enable non-English speakers to navigate the internet in their native languages.

“Now we have around 1.3 million Chinese IDNs”, said Costerton. “This offers enormous potential to help rural and poorer communities in China and many other countries around the world.”

In addition, the Chinese government has partnered with e-commerce companies, such as Alibaba and JD, to pilot e-commerce projects in the country’s poverty-stricken areas since 2014.

By connecting farmers directly with the market via e-commerce platforms, the targeted projects have con-

With its increasing role in the world ... I believe China will be a catalyst for a third wave of poverty reduction.”

Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft

tributed to the boom of local agricultural industries.

In 2017, 832 poor counties where such projects were launched reported a total online sales volume of 120.7 billion yuan ($17.3 billion), up 52 percent year-on-year, according to official data.

“E-commerce has been an integral part of South-South cooperation between the United Nations World Food Programme and the Chinese government,” said Qu Sixi, representative of the program’s China Office.

He added that the World Food Programme is building a platform in collaboration with the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences to share China’s experience in developing its rural areas with other parts of the world.

In addition, companies in the sector are also moving to better the education in remote rural areas with the help of the internet.

Raymond Tang, CEO of Yinxiang Biji, a China-based information organization application, said the company has partnered with Shanghai-based WABC Charity Foundation to launch a special fund to give accessibility of knowledge tools and resources to aid in educating underprivileged children and those with special needs.

“As a technology company, Yinxiang Biji hopes everyone can benefit from technological advancements,” Tang said.

China aims to lift at least 10 million people out of poverty by the end of this year and to eradicate poverty by 2020.