Introduction

Since the instigation of the reform and open-door policy of 1978, China has been undergoing rapid socio-economic transformation, and its economy is growing at an annual rate of more than 9 per cent. China’s per capita gross domestic product (GDP) reached US$1,200 in 2004, a figure approaching that of middle income countries. An increasingly open economy has created the sound infrastructure necessary for an open society. By 2003, China had overtaken the USA to become the world’s largest telephone market, and today, China’s registered Internet users number over 1,300 million and form the world’s second largest ‘Web population’ after the USA.