ABSTRACT
Using a survey of 1,280 Chinese college students, this article explores the impact of Internet use in China on political beliefs. By controlling for overall Internet exposure and differentiating between visits to government websites and to non-government on-line sources, I find that the more students browse ‘vertically’, the more supportive they are of the regime and the less they endorse democratic norms, and that the more they browse ‘horizontally’, the more likely they are to agree with democratic norms but are not significantly less willing to support the regime. I also find that Party membership raises support for the regime, and that family income exerts a U-shaped impact on regime support, but neither has an independent and significant effect on agreement with democratic values. Analyses of other individual characteristics further refine the finding that regime support and democratic orientation do not necessarily contradict each other. Students who do not strongly support the current regime are not necessarily democracy seekers.
