Monday, January 22, 2001		Article

China’s IT strategies
Launches Web site on Tibet; develops bilingual browser

CHINA has opened an English-language Web site on Tibet to reinforce its effort to counter unfavourable publicity abroad. It offers 220 megabytes of information about religion, culture, tourism, business — and the blessings of being part of China.

The Tibetan Buddhist priests it quotes have no truck with the exiled spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism, the Dalai Lama. A "patriotic Lama" called Nyima Cering says that he seeks to abide strictly by Chinese law, and that he accepts "the teachings of President Jiang Zemin".

The site on is described as "non-governmental", and while it follows the official Beijing line faithfully it tries to convey a more human touch.

"For 15 Tibetan girls," it reports in its opening menu this week, "January 1 may never be forgotten as they realise their long-cherished dream of flying as stewardesses."

They are delighted, in other words, to have become the first Tibetans to work as cabin crew on the Chinese airline that has been flying to Lhasa for more than 40 years.
Tibet’s entry into the Internet world is also hailed. "If you ramble about the street in Lhasa," begins another item, "you will find many Net bars. It is said that Net fans can ... fast gain the latest information and be in touch with (the) outside betimes." The China Tibet Information Centre runs the site. Whether or not by coincidence, its name — tibetinfor.com — is similar to that of the London-based Tibet Information Network — tibetinfo.net — a much-quoted critic of Chinese policy.

"I suppose it is very flattering", the Tibet Information Network director, Richard Oppenheimer, said. "They (the Chinese) are entirely selective in what they have chosen, but it does appear to contain some new material."

Politics, although not listed on the Chinese site’s homepage, surfaces unexpectedly under "travel" in an advertisement from the Lhasa Travel Agency.

The agency warns that no refunds will be made because of circumstances outside its control. These include not only "natural disasters" — common in the land of the snows — but also "political disturbances".

The site counters the arguments of foreign critics by quoting a select number of "foreign friends".

It reprints a long article by an Indian journalist, N. Ram, beginning with a short poem adapted by him from an old Tibetan song:

"The sky is turquoise, the sun is golden. The Dalai Lama is away from the Potala, making trouble in the West. Yet Tibet’s on the move." The Tibet Information Network Web site sets the changes under way in Tibet in a rather different context.

It calls Lhasa "a city where corruption co-exists with hard-nosed commercialism, where prostitution thrives in areas previously better known as places of spiritual pilgrimage, and where citizens may own computers and wide screen televisions but not necessarily toilets or running water".

— John Gittings (GNS)

BEIJING: China hopes to break the tight grip of the two US-based Internet browsers’ players — Microsoft and Netscape — with the development of its bilingual browser, an official newspaper has reported.

"Our target is to grab back the browser market, which is totally controlled by Microsoft and Netscape," a Chinese-Hong Kong joint venture company was quoted as saying by "China Daily".

The Chinese Academy of Science (CAS) and the Hong Kong – based Internet company PCCW-HKT, the merged conglomerate of Pacific Century Cyber Works and Hong Kong Telecom, jointly invested $12 million in the research and development of the world’s first English-Chinese bilingual Internet browser.

The PCCW-HKT controls 51 per cent of the newly established joint venture, while the CAS controls the other 49 per cent.

The company expects the homemade browser to become the dominant player in China and help further drive the development of the Internet in the country.

The new bilingual Internet browser that will soon be launched by the joint venture — the Cyber Trans Science and Technology Development Co. Ltd — provides automatic translation between English and Chinese as well as the normal functions of other Internet browsers, the report said.

Language is one of the major barriers in the development of the Internet in China, as most Web sites are in English and the majority of persons don’t know English. However, the situation is going to change soon when Chinese characters would be accepted as domain names.

— PTI