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Asia Faces Online Dilemma
When Rosemary Brisco, founder of WomenAsia.com, wanted to feature a story about education in China on her company's business-to-business women's Web site, she ran into a roadblock. The women who were supposed to be interviewed for the article were afraid to say anything departing from the government’s script about China’s education system.
While it’s no secret that China heavily censors the Internet, Brisco's trouble highlights the growing dilemma Asia faces: on one hand electronic commerce is resuscitating the region's economies, it is also challenging the governments' control over society, causing those in power to censor Web sites and potentially curtail growth, just as the Net is starting to flourish.
Brisco first started WomenAsia.com in 1996, when the Internet was far from the darling of Asian governments. The brainchild for WomenAsia.com was hatched while she was living in Singapore, where she taught Internet courses for businesswomen and developed Web sites for Asian companies. In Singapore, the government has embraced the Internet so readily that it’s invested heavily in high-speed networks and has set up funds for encouraging new Internet business. Singapore, like many Asian nations, also has a tight grip on the Internet and actively censors the online community.
As the number of Internet users in Asia grows daily, analysts say these restrictions could prove a major stumbling block to the Web’s economic benefits for Asia "The question for those governments is, are they willing to run that risk and not gain the benefits of economic growth," said John J. Brandon, assistant director of the Asia Foundation, a research group.
The Roadblocks
Among those countries exerting control over content are China, Singapore and Myanmar. In recent weeks, China has said it only will allow local Web sites to publish with state approval and has forced Internet service providers to register with the government. In addition, China caused an uproar in the U.S. high-tech industry when it released new encryption regulations requiring foreign companies that use encryption to register with the government and if they want to use the technology.
Myanmar bans the country’s Internet users from putting political material on the Web and blocks sites deemed inappropriate. The government also strictly controls who gets access to computers and who can have Internet accounts. Those found using a computer without permission face jail sentences from seven to 15 years.
A Losing Game
The governments of China, Singapore and Myanmar may find however that they are fighting in a losing game. In Malaysia, the government also controls the media. Still, that did not stop pro-reform Web sites supporting Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammad’s jailed Finance Minister Anwar Ibrahim from getting on the Web.
Countries such as Malaysia and Singapore, which have looked to information technology as a way to resuscitate their economies after the economic crisis, could find it particularly difficult to hamper online information. In late l999, Malaysia officially cut the ribbon on one phase of its Multimedia Supercorridor (MSC), the country's answer to Silicon Valley. Mahathir envisioned the MSC and its industrial park, Cyberjaya, to serve as a springboard for an IT revolution in Malaysia. The project, nestled among the palm trees is far from the shadow of Malaysia’s capital, and has met with varying shades of success. Political upheaval and Mahathir’s policy of currency controls scared off some investors while others were daunted by the hub’s relative isolation to Kuala Lumpur, the nation’s capital.
But success or not, Brandon says it's unlikely Mahathir would hamstring the very thing he’s looking to promote.
"He realizes it’s (IT) the cornerstone of their economic plan," he said.
One Asian nation that seems to buck the trend is Japan. Japan has one of the most progressive political systems in Asia and has been quick to embrace e-commerce and the Internet. But many experts point out that high Internet access rates in Japan and throughout Asia could keep a lid on the Internet’s growth there.
Ian Hillman, a research assistant with the Japan Information Access project, said while Japan’s telecom monopoly Nippon Telephone & Telegraph (NTT) has agreed to slash some of its connection rates, expensive Internet access still remains a problem. NTT controls more than 90 percent of local lines connecting Japanese homes and the US and other nations have pushed for NTT to cut rates by nearly half. Rachel Howe, an analyst on Japan’s technology, said the nation’s Internet users pay a high fee just to dial into the Internet. This hampers e-commerce because users don’t want to waste money surfing the Net while they are being charged, she explained.
"They (Japan) have not taken the steps to let the Internet grow robustly," she said.
The Wireless Way
Internet access rates and government controls aside, Alex Pressman, president of Uniscape.com, a company that helps companies translate their Web sites into other languages, said the Internet will manage to thrive in Asia. Touting a Gartner Group study that predicted business-to-business e-commerce would reach about $510 billion by the year 2003, Pressman said Asia could surpass other countries because of its embrace of wireless technology. Because Asia hasn’t developed the traditional telecommunications infrastructure that helped the Internet grow in the United States, Pressman said wireless applications have become more popular in Asia. And Pressman points out that data transmitted over satellites could be a lot more difficult to control than traditional data transmissions.
Whether wireless technology becomes Asia’s stepping stone to catch up with the west’s dominance in e-commerce, Brandon said Asian nations, such as China, that are already closely linked with the rest of the world’s economy will have the most success on the Net.
"All countries in principle want economic growth and want to be integrated into the global economy or risk being left behind," he said.
- by Caroline Broder
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