Government Information Quarterly 27 (2010) 187–195

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Government Information Quarterly

j ourna l homepage: www.e lsev ie r.com/ locate /gov inf

Linking ICTs to rural development: China's rural information policy

Jun Xia ⁎School of Economics and Management, Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Beijing 100876, China

⁎ Corresponding author. Tel.: +86 139 1076 8881.E-mail addresses: xiajun@bupt.edu.cn, junxia66@gm

1 For a recent review on the parallel lines of literaturand E-Government (applications), see, e.g., Helbig et al.

0740-624X/$ – see front matter © 2009 Elsevier Inc. Adoi:10.1016/j.giq.2009.10.005

a b s t r a c t

a r t i c l e i n f o

Available online 15 January 2010

Keywords:Rural developmentTelecommunicationsInformatizationDigital divideUniversal serviceE-GovernmentRegulationLayer-based localizationChina

The issue of rural communication development has been conventionally examined under labels such asuniversal service, digital, divide, broadband deployment, and E-Government, which generally fall into twoseemingly distinct categories—access and applications. In China, these concepts are currently incorporatedinto a single program, if not a single term—“Village Informatization Program” (“VIP”). The VIP upgraded theobjectives of previous telephone and television “Village Access Projects” (“VAPs”), an upgrade which isintended to provide “comprehensive information services” in rural areas. The execution of the VIP regimehas been faced with challenges. The lack of explicitly defined objectives and institutional arrangement hasled to regulatory confusion and has compromised the outcome of initiatives taken by central department andregional/local governments which are more often independent in actions. China is therefore faced with theimperative of formulating the VIP regime which is to assimilate to China's unique institutional context. Thisarticle first reviews the current status of the VIP regime before moving on to the discussion of establishing anintegrative and sustainable VIP regulatory regime in China. Then, the current regulatory regime ischaracterized based on which reforms are suggested—in which is highlighted a layer-based localizationregulatory solution, which delineates provincial/local roles from central roles based on a stratified incentivepolicies and governance arrangement. Possible applications in other countries are discussed in theconclusion.

© 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

2 Thus far, China's government has been unable to provide a lucid conceptualization

1. Introduction and background

The deployment of information and communication technologies(“ICTs”) in rural areas has long been regarded as a catalyst for ruraldevelopment (Hudson, 2006; ITU, 2007). Thus far, the issue of ruralcommunication development has been examined—as conceptualizedin both theory and practice—under umbrellas such as universal service(Blackman, 1995; Milne, 1998), digital divide (Compaine, 2001; Norris,2001; Xia & Lu, 2008), broadband deployment (Strover, 2003; Sawadaet al., 2006), and E-Government (Thompson, 2002; Seifert & Chung,2009). The examination of these subjects has generally fallen undertwo broad yet seemingly distinctive categories: access (e.g., universalservice, digital divide, and broadband deployment) and applications(e.g., E-Government).1 In China, however, these concepts are currentlyinstitutionalized into a single program, if not a single term—“VillageInformatization Program” (“VIP”). The VIP is meant to be a nationalinitiative intended to “informatize” China's rural communities by:

• Improving rural access to communications infrastructures, includ-ing telephone, television, and the Internet; and

ail.com (J. Xia).e on the digital divide (access)(2009).

ll rights reserved.

• Providing applications of so-called “comprehensive informationservices,”2 including township government websites, informationservices stations,3 and agriculture-related websites and e-com-merce portals.

As far as applications are concerned, China has now conceptuallyexpanded beyond the conventional E-Government concepts toinclude an even broader array of public information services—“comprehensive information services.”

However, given China's unique historical context, the integrationof access and applications in China's rural communications policy hasbeen more of a practical coincidence than based on a rigorous andintentional theoretical deliberation. Historically, the agricultureindustry and its workers (i.e., farmers or villagers) have existedunder extremely unfavorable conditions in comparison with theirurban counterparts. Over the past three decades since the opening-uppolicy in the late 1970s, China has witnessed an exponential economicgrowth. Nonetheless, the development of the farming industry and

or explicit definition of “comprehensive information services.” Nonetheless, for thepurposes of this article, “comprehensive information services” may generally refer toinformation services provided, via mainstream communications media and technol-ogies (such as telephone, television, Internet, and probably also print media), to meetrural information needs related to production processes as well as political andsocietal participation.

3 The information services station is a township or village level facility designed toprovide access to information services via the Internet and other media.

Table 1Rural digital divide in China.

Wireline telephone(per hundred inhabitants)a

Television(per hundred households)b

Personal computer(per hundred households)c

Internet(per hundred inhabitants)d

Personal disposableincome (RMB/year)d

Urban 39 135 47.2 27.3 13 786Rural 15 84 2.73 7.1 4140Gap (urban:rural) 2.6 1.6 17.3 3.8 3.3

Sources: Data calculated based on relevant statistics issued by the Ministry of Information Industry and the State Bureau of Statistics, CNNIC (2008), and Zhang (2006).a Data of 2008.b Data of 2005.c Data of 2006.d Data of 2007.

188 J. Xia / Government Information Quarterly 27 (2010) 187–195

rural communities has lagged far behind the general economicexpansion, although farmers have been making a considerablecontribution to the expansion by, among other things, working asinexpensive laborers. In other words, the rural population—roughlythree-quarters (or 0.8 billions) of the total population of China—hasbeen unable to share what the economic reform has to offer, andmany of them are still living in deprived conditions. The disparity hasemerged as a serious impediment to a relatively balanced economicdevelopment, and perhaps also, social stability. Since the 1990s,China's government began to attend to the “three agrarian issues”(“TAIs”)—a nationwide drive in addressing the developmental issueregarding “agriculture, rural villages, and farmers.” Specifically,between 2004 and 2009, the central government has issuedconsecutively six “Document-No.-Ones,”4 highlighting the TAIs inthe construction of so-called “socialist new villages” (“SNVs”)5 (CPCCentral Committee and State Council, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008,2009). These “Document-No.-Ones” aimed to bridge the rural–urbangap, of which the improvement of rural communications conditionshas been an important and integral part.

Despite the recent debut of the VIP, government actions inimproving rural communications can be effectively traced back toeven earlier years. The earlier phase prior to the VIP was usuallycharacterized by the telephone and television “Village AccessProjects” (“VAPs”) since the 1990s. As a result of these VAPs, by theend of 2008 China's government had succeeded in connecting almostall of its administrative villages to telephone (with at least twotelephone lines) and television services (with as few as severalchannels). To keep abreast with the recent objectives of the SNVs andso-called “national informatization strategy” (CPC Central CommitteeGeneral Administrative Office & State Council General AdministrativeOffice, 2006), in 2006 the central government upgraded theconventional universal access concept to the VIP to ensure “broad-band to the village and information services to the household” (MII,2006a,b; MOA, 2007a,b); this was a relatively vague objective, whichis yet to be explicitly defined.

Thus far, certain achievements have been made under the VIPregime, at least in statistical terms. For example, in addition toexpanding telephone and television services in rural areas, thenumbers of agriculture-related websites and e-commence portals,township government websites, and information services stationshave also been increased.6 Nonetheless, the current VIP regime hasalso exhibited drawbacks and flaws. In the absence of explicitly

4 As a usual practice, in the beginning of each year, the Communist Party of China(“CPC”) Central Committee and State Council would jointly issue a “Document-No.-One” which highlights the government's priority of the year.

5 During the period between 1982 and 1986, the central government also issuedconsecutively agriculture-related “Document- No.-Ones,” which led to the formulationand reinforcement of the “Household-Responsibility-Contract” policy in the agricul-ture sector. As a result, rural labor forces were liberalized and productivity was greatlyimproved as a result of improved incentive of the farmers.

6 For example, by the end of 2008, the number of agriculture-related websites ande-commence portals had reached 18,000; roughly 50% townships now each has aninformation services station (State Forestry Bureau, 2009).

defined objectives and effective organization, the nationwide VIPactivities have appeared to be uncoordinated between departmentsand regions, many of which tend to follow independent objectives.The lack of coordination often leads to a paradox: the inadequateinvestment on the one hand and wasteful duplicate construction onthe other. Moreover, even the information projects already completedtend to be low in utilization rate and poor in maintenance.

The root cause of this phenomenon arguably lies in theinstitutional metrics. In effect, the absence of an explicit andsustainable institutional arrangement has effectively led to regulatoryconfusion, if not a complete regulatory vacuum, in the nationwide VIPactivities. The following questions therefore arise:

• What are the major problems and challenges underlying thecurrent VIP regime?, and

• How should these problems be addressed so that a consistent andsustainable institutional arrangement might be achieved?

The remainder of this current article contributes to this scheme.Sections 2 reviews the objective and institutional arrangement of thecurrent VIP regime in China, including the characterization ofregulatory structure, before moving on to the discussion of issuesregarding the establishment of a consistent and sustainable VIPregulatory regime in terms of incentive policies and governancemechanisms (Section 3). Section 4 concludes the study.

2. Objective and institutional arrangement: Current status

As pointed out, rural–urban gaps or divides in China has been alongtime reality. Generally speaking, the level of major indicators interms of residents' access to telephones, television, and the Internetservices in rural communities in China tend to be roughly one-third asmuch as those in their urban counterparts; this mirrors a similardisparity pattern in terms of disposable personal income between twotypes of areas (see Table 1).7 The digital divide indicated in Table 1 canbe even larger if regional disparity is also taken into account.Nowadays, being a rural dweller in China would typically meanaccepting an extremely unfavorable status in almost all socio-economic aspects, including education, employment, and socialinclusion. Clearly, the deployment of ICTs in rural areas has profoundpolitical, economical, and socio-cultural implications. Politically, thelevel to which rural communities are “informatized” has crucialbearing on citizen participation as well as the democratizationprocess. Economically, rural informatization can promote trade andindustrialization in the agriculture sector. Socially, rural informatiza-tion can advance community development and value recognition.

This section reviews twophases of informatization initiatives in ruralareas by China's government—the VAPs and VIP—in terms of objectivedefinitions and institutional arrangements. It will also be demonstratedthat these two phases differ greatly from each other, despite their

7 According to Zhang (2006), in China rural communities lag behind the cities byroughly 10 years.

10 For example, the Ministry of Agriculture (“MOA”) (2007a) issued a “Framework onthe Construction of Agriculture and Village Informatization 2007–2015” in 2007.Although the “Framework” sets a visionary objective for the VIP—“basically meetingthe needs of informatization for the agricultural modernization and the SNVs” by theend of 2015—it fails to further substantiate the objectives, leaving much of thedefinition of the objective to later subjective interpretation. Similarly, although the MII(2006a,b) has promulgated the goal of “broadband to the village,” the documents

189J. Xia / Government Information Quarterly 27 (2010) 187–195

similar central-planning nature. Current VIP regulatory structure ischaracterized and related key regulatory schemes are also identified.

2.1. The “Village Access Projects” (“VAPs”)

The objectives of the telephone and television VAPs have beenrelatively explicit, i.e., “telephone/television to each village.” (MII,2004) The telephone VAP was originally executed by then industrymonopolist (i.e., China Telecom) before 1998. The VAP underwent asuspension by China Telecom during 1998 and 2004 (due to industryrestructuring), and was renewed by the Ministry of InformationIndustry (“MII”) in 2005.8 Under the renewed VAP regime, accesstasks were distributed among then six carriers based on revenue andnetwork coverage.9 Despite the absence of an explicit fundingmechanism at the time, China's government still succeeded inconnecting 95% of the administrative villages by the end of 2005—aplanned objective of the “10th Five Year Plan” (“FYP”). In succeedingyears (during 2006–2008), the village access penetration had beencontinuously elevated to reach 99.7%.

It is noteworthy, though, that the VAP objectives were achievedpartly through political pressure. In fact, delay was seen in the earlystage of the VAP in early 2005 when carriers avowed fundingdeficiency. Currently, a new stage of the telephone VAP has beeninitiated by the former MII (2008) and a new telecom regulator hasbeen established, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technol-ogy (“MIIT”) (MIIT, 2009), which extended the concept of communityaccess to telephone from “administrative villages” to “natural villages”(with 20 or more households with electricity coverage).

The television VAP, which also began in the early 1990s, has beenimplemented separately by the State Administration of Radio, Film,and Television (“SARFT”), the national regulatory body in thetelevision media. After a decade-long construction period, televisionservices have reached almost all of the administrative villages in thecountry. According to relevant government agencies (State CouncilGeneral Administrative Office, 2006; NDRC & SARFT, 2008), theobjectives of the television VAP during the period between 2008 and2012 (i.e., the 11th FYP) are to cover all natural villages (with 20 ormore households with electricity coverage)—an objective similar tothat of the telephone VAP. To this end, the SARFT has reportedlysigned “contracts of responsibilities,”which deal with the distributionof construction tasks, with provincial governments and in collabora-tion with the National Development and Reform Commission(“NRDC”). Under these contracts, the SARFT is supposed to receiveone-third fiscal subsidy from the central government toward theconstruction expenses while the remaining two-thirds of the fundingneeded is to be split between provincial, municipal, county govern-ments, and the beneficiaries (rural households) themselves.

Of interest, is that similar VAPs have also been seen in other line-ministry systems in China: the postal service, electricity, and roadprojects. These VAPs tend to be different from the telephone andtelevision VAPs, particularly in terms of supporting mechanisms. Forexample, the postal universal service receives a full fiscal reimburse-ment (Ministry of Transportation, 2008), while the road VAP hasadopted a relatively diversified funding mechanism, including theissuance of financial instruments such as stocks and bonds and theadoption of business models such as build-operate-transfer (or“BOT”).

One shared characteristic of the telephone and television VAPs hasbeen the execution of policies through conventional line-ministrysystems. Hence, the VAP regime would logically appear to be of anunsustainable nature, as the institutional arrangement is likely unableto sustain during the process of transition from command to market.

8 For detailed discussion of the telephone VAP regime, see Xia and Lu (2005, 2008).9 The six carriers were China Telecom, China Netcom, China Mobile, China Unicom,

China Railcom, and China Satcom.

Meanwhile, the ministry-sponsored VAP regime is also susceptible tocross-regional and cross-departmental coordination difficulties in theabsence of an effective governance mechanism. Nonetheless, despitethe existence of these potential problems, the objectives of the VAPshave been accomplished according to plan. One lesson that can bedrawn by the Chinese government is that, given the explicit definitionof objectives (e.g., “village access”) and responsible departments (e.g.,“industry regulators”) who are successful in securing politicalendorsement, conventional line-ministry system in China remains apractical governance solution in mobilizing and organizing nation-wide resources for public projects—a finding that would probablyhave some bearing on the design of the emerging regime.

2.2. The “Village Informatization Program” (“VIP”)

As a sign of a new level of government efforts in addressing ruralcommunication issue, the newly defined VIP features not only anexpanded scope within the category of access from the telephone andtelevision to include advanced services such as the Internet, but alsofeatures significant conceptual upgrading from the “universal service”or “digital divide” (access) to “comprehensive information services”(applications). Nonetheless, despite these strategic shifts, the specificobjectives of the VIP remain fundamentally vague. For example, as aguiding document, although the “Strategy on National Informatiza-tion Development 2006–2012” (hereinafter as “Strategy”) has set thekeynote for a broad-based national informatization drive (CPC CentralCommittee General Administrative Office & State Council GeneralAdministrative Office, 2006), the document failed to substantiate thenational informatization objectives, let alone the objectives of the VIP.Meanwhile, although relevant ministries also each followed suit byissuing departmental document(s)/notice(s)—responding to andbased on the “Strategy” and “Document-No.-Ones”—they are equallyambiguous in their objective definition.10

Further, institutional arrangement is not clearly defined during thestrategic shift from the VAPs to the VIP. The current regime has left theimplementation of the VIP up to the departmental and/or regionalinterpretations and discretions. This has effectively resulted in afragmented, if any, regulatory regime. Clearly, these policy issues haveyet to be fully clarified and substantiated—as the “Strategy” itselfnotes, “China should continuously deepen the study on her informa-tization strategy and dynamically adjust her development objectivesover time.”

Lacking an explicit elaboration of objective definition andregulatory regime, thus far, the execution of the VIP has mainly reliedon disconnected, and sometimes sporadic, departmental and/orregional initiatives, often characterized by so-called “action projects”or “model projects.” At the central level, examples of these projectsinclude, but not limited to:

• Telephone VAP: Planned and executed by the telecom regulator—originally the MII, but now the MIIT—this project addresses theissue of rural community access to basic telephone services.Although a “universal service fund” is allegedly to cover someconstruction costs (MOF, 2007), this funding has not becomeexplicitly visible yet. One recent development of the telephone VAP

continue to emphasize the access side (rather than the applications side). Despite theMII (2008) and the MIIT (2009) have recently expanded their focuses from thetelephone VAP to include elements of “comprehensive information services,” thesedocuments are still too rudimentary in many aspects to be treated as an integrativeand sustainable policy.

11 Wasteful duplicate construction in the communications sector has long been aserious regulatory challenge in China (Xia, 2006, 2007). To address this issue, in 2008the newly established MIIT had issued, in collaboration with the State-AssetSupervision and Administration Commission (“SASAC”), an “urgent notice” in anattempt to curb a potential new cycle of duplicate telecom construction in anticipationof the aftermath of a new cycle of industry consolidation at the dawn of 3Gdeployment (MIIT & SASAC, 2008).

190 J. Xia / Government Information Quarterly 27 (2010) 187–195

regime is that the MIIT (2009) is planning to add the element of“information services station” to its VAP assignments.

• Television VAP: Planned and executed by the radio, film, andtelevision regulator (i.e., SARFT), the project aims to eventuallyoffer basic television services in each rural community. The projectis supposedly financed through a jointly funding mechanism inwhich each of the government levels (i.e., central, provincial,municipal, and county), sometimes along with the beneficiaries(i.e., rural households), are distributed a contributory portion, thespecific amount of which corresponds to regional differences.

• Electronics-to-the-Village Action: With a joint-sponsorship involvinga spectrum of government departments, such as theMOF,MOFCOM,MIIT, NRDC, CPC Propaganda Department, and MOA, the project isdesigned to endorse the penetration of consumer electronics (suchas computer, television, and mobile phone terminal device, evenincluding refrigerator andwashingmachine) into rural communitiesby granting fiscal subsidy to target buyers in pre-defined rural areas(MOF & MOFCOM, 2008; MOF et al., 2009; MOF, MOFCOM, & MIIT,2009; MOFCOM & MOP, 2007).

• Rural Informatization Model Project: Organized by the agricultureindustry regulator (i.e., MOA, 2008), a selected number of ruralinformatization-related projects are chosen as the “model project”(for others to follow). This certification and promotion of the “modelproject” may be regarded partly as a reward to the “model project”owners as well as providing an incentive for better performance inthe rural informatization activities. These projects may also includethe CPC-sponsored distance-learning system in rural areas.

• Special Science and Technology Agent Project: Initiated by the MOST,with endorsement from the former Ministry of Personnel (MOP), theproject aims to provide incentive for entrepreneurship in ruralcommunities by science and technology cadres from the cities,basically through the introduction of a special flexible personneladministration model for the cadres (MOST & MOP, 2004). Althoughinitially not intentionally designed for the rural informatizationcampaign, thisproject canalsobe indirectly related to theVIPactivities.

Given the extensive departmental efforts, alongwith their replica inprovincial and local initiatives, despite the fragmented and implicitnature of the VIP regime, a nationwide informatization enthusiasm isstill seen, in which ministries and regions have exhibited a somewhatpredictable passion, just as they usually performwith the part-state call.As a result, by the endof 2007, thepenetrationof “informationproducts”(as listed in Table 1) in rural areas has reportedly increased by a largemargin. For example, the number of Internet users in rural areasincreased by127.7% from thepreviousyearwhile the samenumber onlyincreased by 38.2% in the cities during the same period (CNNIC, 2008).Similarly, the construction of township government websites has alsomade progress—in relatively developed regions, almost each townshipnow has a government website. Nonetheless, this “great-leap-forward”fashion of ICTs deployment has not been executed without problems.

2.3. Characterization of the current rural information policy system

Clearly, current rural information policy in China at the centrallevel—as indicated in the VIP regime—is primarily embodied, if notexplicitly defined, by the jungle of various government documents.Accordingly, rural information regulatory governance is ratherdiversified or decentralized and fragmented across various depart-ments. As displayed in Fig. 1, the current overall VIP activities aresupposedly supremely guided by the “Documents-No.-Ones” whichwere jointly issued by the CPC Central Committee and the StateCouncil, alongside two other functional documents, the “NationalInformatization Strategy 2006–2020” (jointly issued by the GeneralAdministration Offices of CPC Central Committee and the StateCouncil) and the “Telecommunications Regulations” (the de factoincumbent Chinese telecom law).

Based on the guidance of these documents, and combined with thecomprehension of ideological cue, various government departmentshave been engaging, in what appears to be guerrilla-war fashion, inrural informatization activities, which are more often than notseparated from each other. As indicated, the current VIP activities atthe central level are usually embodied in a number of relativelyindependent department-sponsored “projects,” these “projects” beingintrinsically interrelated.

It is noteworthy that the shaded box (“Network and ServicePlanning and Provision”) in Fig. 1 basically represents the previoustelephone and television VAP regime. In this sense, the current VIPinitiatives can be viewed as an expansion to, if not around, theprevious VAP regime. By comparison, it is evident that the previousVAP regime appears to be more concise and hence more integrative innature than the present intertwining VIP arrangement.

Also noteworthy is the position of the NILG, or the NationalInformatization Leadership Group, which is usually nominally chairedby a vice-prime minister. Although the NILG is designed to provideguidance to the national informatization work (in both city andcountry, industry and agriculture), it has seemingly been inactive inspecific policy making and implementing due to the Group's nominalnature, as daily operation of the Group has been relegated to theGroup's office—a ministry-rank government organization with apoorly defined sense of either mission or authority. In the 2008government reform, the NILG office was merged into the MIIT.

In general, the virtue of the current regime is two-sided. First of all,as shown in Fig. 1, one potential drawback of the current VIPregulatory landscape is palpable: both objective definition and policymaking and execution are seemingly fragmented in nature due to thefact government departments are more often engaged in independentprojects, although these projects are highly interrelated in nature andshould be coordinated. Secondly, another distinct feature beneath thecurrent scenario is the paramount party-state ideological presence, asrural informatization, among other agriculture-related issues (i.e.,TAIs), has seemingly become a top issue among the government'sagenda. In this case, ideological forces may reinforce the enforcementof rural information policy. In other words, given in place of a coherentrural information policy, the presence of the ideological forces can betreated as exogenous catalysts to the enforcement process.

Nonetheless, the current VIP regulatory regime was unable tocapitalize on its merit-side in the absence of a coherent system ofpolicies and organization. Thus, if the previous VAP regime hasalready exhibited certain degree of coordination problem in terms ofgovernance (Xia & Lu, 2008), the current paradoxical situation—afragmented VIP regime under a powerful ideological direction—haseffectively led to a regulatory confusion, if not a complete regulatoryvacuum. In practice, this paradox has also been reflected in a similardistortion in the policy output. One salient paradoxical situation isoften indicative of the concurrent presence of wasteful duplicateconstructions11 on the one hand and under-served villagers' basicinformation needs on the other. For example, each of the segments—telephone, television, and the Internet—has tended to follow a self-governed construction plan. Compatibility issues often arise betweenone information portal and another in terms of system configurationsand contents provided. Clearly, when it comes to the provision of“comprehensive information services” which entails the integrationof objectives, resources, and organization, the disintegrated depart-mental and/or regional actions are no longer effective.

Fig. 1. China's rural information policy system.

191J. Xia / Government Information Quarterly 27 (2010) 187–195

Another example lies in the fact that the composition of the inputtends to be less than optimal; this has been reflected in an orientationtowards superficiality, which tends to emphasize the quantity sideover the quality side. For example, more weight is usually placed on:(1) construction rather than training, (2) hardware investment ratherthan software and/or applications, and (3) the form rather than thecontent.12 As a result, some “information services stations,” althoughconstructed, tend to be more decorative in purpose; the PCs are eitherat idle or diverted to other use. Occasionally, villagers have reportedlynever heard of the existence of these facilities. Even if for thosevillagers who did visit the stations, their Internet usage is oftenentertainment-oriented; many of them use the Internet solely foronline gaming and/or visiting chat rooms (CNNIC, 2008). Thesevillagers lack the basic skills in more practical use of personal

12 This dilemma has also been mirrored in a general tendency of the governmentin putting more weight on quantitative indicators than on qualitative in job-approval-rating.

computers (“PCs”) and the Internet. Similar problems have also beenexhibited in township government websites. These websites, partic-ularly those in relatively underdeveloped regions, more often appearto be a mere template framework without actual contents beingadded to them, let alone the presence of interactive and/orparticipatory mechanisms.

2.4. What should be the next move

Clearly, how to address and lay to rest the above issues wouldinevitably be the core scheme for, not to mention the greatestchallenge to, the execution of the VIP in years to come. To this end,China should first substantiate and refine its current VIP regime in, atthe bare minimum, the following dimensions:

• Definition of objectives. The objective definition has to be systemic,explicit, and viable. In so doing, China has to strike a delicatebalance between the long-run and the short-run, quantitative andqualitative, and central and local.

13 Or “yang chang bi duan,” is a traditional Chinese idiom.14 Xia & Lu (2008) provided an early version of this layer-based regulatory approachfor the telephone VAP regime in China.

192 J. Xia / Government Information Quarterly 27 (2010) 187–195

• Technical Solutions. Technical solutions should be forward-looking,compatible, and cost-effective. First, system design needs to takeinto account technological development trends, particularlytechnological convergence. Second, information portals (bothvirtual and physical) and portal contents should reflect villagers'actual information needs and serve as the integrator of varioususeful information sources. Third, the emerging regime shouldexplicitly address the standardization issue to ensure compatibilitybetween systems and/or portals which are sponsored by differententities or located in different places.

• Institutional Design. Whereas in the long-term a cost-effective andsustainable regulatory regime is an imperative, the short-termmission for China ought to be to address the pressing coordinationissue. In other words, China must first explore a viable transitionalregime, which serves as the integrator of objectives, policies,resources, and stakeholders under current institutionalenvironment.

3. Toward an integrated and sustainable regime

The pressing issue for China's government in implementing a ruralinformation policy is to explicitly define policy objectives and explorea sustainable institutional arrangement. In so doing, China faces thechallenge in striking a balance between various factors imbedded incurrent institutional environment. This section focuses on the issue ofinstitutional design. Institutional solutions to the emerging VIPregime are offered with regard to incentive policies and governancemechanisms. Implementation issues are also discussed.

3.1. Institutional design

The design and implementation of rural informatization regime isa system engineering which involves political, economic, technical,and socio-cultural metrics. Specifically, this engineering may beframed based on the consideration of the following metrics: (1)nexuses, including access, portal, and content; (2) stakeholders,including funding providers (governments, organizations, and indi-viduals), villagers (information users and interaction participators),and facility suppliers (including access, portal, and content facilitysuppliers); (3) processes, including planning, organizing, implement-ing and controlling. In a sense, these metrics actually reflect the valuechain of, and may also sketch an archetype to, the emerging VIPprogram. The consideration of these metrics may also provide a visuallandscape for the systemic thinking of the institutional demand.

Ideally, the engineering of the VIP institutional design in Chinashould be evaluated based on the following criteria:

• Integrity. The regime itself has to be comprehensive, compatible,and systematic in nature;

• Measurability. The mission and effectiveness of the policy is easy tomeasure and monitor;

• Transparency. Policies and governance are explicit and communicable;• Equality. All stakeholders involved are treated on an equal basis;• Consistency. Fundamental policies should be consistent andsustainable over time, and should involve the least amount ofregulatory and/or administrative discretion;

• Neutrality. The implementation of the regime should not causemuch distortion toward competition and investment;

• Cost-effectiveness. Low production and institutional costs must bean objective.

Clearly, the consideration of these criteria is inevitably imbeddedin current institutional environment.

Among these criteria, “cost-effectiveness” may serve as a decisivetest of the successfulness of the VIP program in China. There aregenerally two types of costs involved in the institution andimplementation of a VIP regime—institutional costs and production

costs. While high production costs may invalidate a VIP regime,prohibitively high institutional costs could potentially lead to acollapse of the formal mechanisms of institutions. Thus, the emergingregime should be designed to reflect a relatively low level ofinstitutional costs in its own accord in the first place. Meanwhile,the regime has to be self-enforcing to ensure the least deviation fromdesirable behaviors of various stakeholders, so that policy objectivescan be achieved through combined efforts of these players.

Meeting these requirements may pose a particular challenge toChina's government, given its current institutional environment.Currently, China's institutional environment is generally characterizedby a high degree of institutional uncertainty, which is derivedcontextually from the intricate mixture of a transition from centralplanning to market and the supremacy of overriding party-stateideology. On the one hand, the enforcement of formal mechanisms ofinstitutions in China tends to be challenged by the rise of informalforces such as regionalism and/or departmentalism and otheropportunistic behaviors, often leading to a relatively compromisedrule-of-law. Thus, the formulation and implementation of a regulatorypolicy is expected tomeet substantial influences fromvarious informalforces in the market which could lead to a high institutional cost. Onthe other hand, as indicated, the overriding party-state ideology canoften act as the binder of various departmentalism/regionalism forces.

Clearly, the emerging VIP regime should reflect this currentcharacteristic while also taking into account the general trend ofmarket reform. To this end, the VIP regime should be designed in away that “fosters strengths and circumvents weakness”13 in order toexploit and leverage the positive side of what the current institutionalendowment has to offer, while avoiding the negative effect ofpotentially compromised formal mechanisms of institutions. Ideally,the emerging VIP regime should also embody both market andcommand wisdoms. Given this context, a layer-based localizationmodel may fit China's situation, in which regional/local roles areexplicitly delineated from central based on a stratified incentive andgovernance.14 Whereas the emphasis of local initiatives in ruralcommunication deployment has received wide consensus (Gillet,Lehr, & Osorio, 2004; Parker, 2000; Hudson & Pittman, 1999), therationale for this layer-based localization in China can be multi-fold:

• This approach is incentive-compatible, which embodies the unity ofresponsibilities, authorities, and interests at each government level.A large scale nationwide movement of public funding flow can beavoided by means of a stratified incentive policies, thus saving thepublic funding costs that tend to be prohibitively high in China.

• Thismodel is compatiblewith the characteristic of current economicregime—de facto federalism (Qian &Weingast, 1996)—thus ensuringthe smooth transition to the next level of marketization, in whichfederalism is supposedly to be reconfirmed. Cross-regional and/orcross-departmental coordination can be improved through asimilarly stratified yet interlinked governance structure.

• This approach is relatively easier to reflect regional differences than ifattempted under a broadly-based regulatory model in which thecentral government takes care of everything. In contrast, a centralizedbroadly-based regulatory model is currently neither realistic nornecessary in China. Meanwhile, this model is conducive to the bestuse of local expertise in terms of knowledge about local conditions inthe integration of objectives, policies, resources, and stakeholders.

The remaining part of this section substantiates this regulatorymodel whereby institutional arrangements in incentive policies andgovernance mechanisms are to be explicated as are suggestions onimplementing the appropriate steps.

193J. Xia / Government Information Quarterly 27 (2010) 187–195

3.2. Hierarchical incentive policies

The core element of incentive policies for the VIP program issupporting mechanism and consequently the award of projectcontracts. In a layer-based regulatory model, supporting mechanismand rural informatization objectives are correlated and stratifiedamong each governmental level:

• Central. The central government's mandate is limited to theprovision of access to basic telephone and television services.These objectives can be achieved through renewing the VAPincentive policies into the emerging VIP regulatory platform,whereby access tasks are to be accomplished either through simplydistributing them among carriers without any monetary subsidy(in the case of telephone) or via the established line-ministrysystem of the SARFT (in the case of television). When it comes tothe objectives of Internet access and the provision of “compre-hensive information services” (i.e., applications), the centralgovernment's role is to enforce a threshold regulation, by whichprovincial/local objectives are to be determined.

• Provincial/Local. Provincial/local governments are responsible forspecifying and implementing the VIP objectives within jurisdic-tions. Their roles focus mainly on broadband Internet access andthe provision of “comprehensive information services” (applica-tions). Provincial/local governments retain relative freedom indeciding specific incentive schemes which support the objectives,including opting to use provincial/local fiscal sources as a lastfunding resort. Technically, provincial/local-level objectives aresupposed to meet the national threshold which is regulated by thecentral government.

When it comes to the award of specific VIP projects, currently itcould be arranged through invited bidding or simply designation. Inthe long-run, however, more market-oriented methods such ascompetitive bidding or auction may be considered. Moreover, China'sgovernment can also consider bundling the VAPs of other ministries—such as portal service, electricity, road, and even health and villagelibraries—with the VIP projects. This bundling can lead to reducedoverall costs in production and administration via scope economieseffect.

Fig. 2. Rural informatization governance structure.

3.3. Governance architecture

The implementation of incentive policies cannot be successfulwithout an effective governance arrangement. To this end, conven-tional wisdom emphasizes regulatory independence as a safeguard toeffective regulation (WTO, 1998). Nonetheless, genuine and mean-ingful regulatory independence may be unrealistic in China given itscurrent political institutions. Therefore, instead of attempting topursue ostensible regulatory independence, China may focus itsefforts more meaningfully on exploring a governance platform that isable to serve as the integrator of objectives, policies, resources, andstakeholders. Under the layer-based regulatory model, a stratifiedgovernance architecture featuring the establishment of commissionsaffiliated to respective government levels could be one solution. Theresponsibility of the commissions is twofold: (1) they are toadminister the VIP projects within jurisdictions and (2) they advisethe respective level of government on the evaluation and improve-ment of the current VIP objectives and policies. The structure of thecommissions is described as follows (see Fig. 2):

• Central-Provincial Joint-Commission on Informatization. Establishedat the central level, the commission encompasses members from:(1) central government agencies, such as the MIIT, NDRC, MOF,MOA, and SASAC; (2) industry representatives at the central level;(3) provincial officials who currently serve on the provincialcommission; and (4) eligible independent individuals.

• Provincial Joint-Commission on Informatization. Established at theprovincial level, the commission comprises members from (1)provincial government agencies such as the provincial counter-parts of the MIIT, NDRC, MOF, MOA, and SASAC; (2) industryrepresentatives at the provincial level; (3) officials from theimmediate lower government level who currently serve oncommissions at the level; and (4) eligible independent individuals.

While municipal and county levels also follow a similar paradigm,the institution of municipal level “Commissions” (in Fig. 2) might beof interim nature due to the general trend toward “province directlyadministering counties.”15 In the current governance arrangement, an“Ideological System,” although not a formal component of the“Commissions” at each layer, is embedded as a critical guardian role.Meanwhile, it is worth noting that from a long-run perspective, the“Congress System” is supposedly playing an important role at eachlayer in overseeing the operation of rural information regulatorysystem.

The stratification of commissions should reflect the followingideas. First, the commissions should be able to integrate input fromthe widest, yet still cohesive, body of stakeholder groups. Second, thecommissions could be affiliated to an existing government agency(e.g., the MIIT or its provincial/local branch). Third, commissionmembers are primarily to be part-time appointees who concurrentlyhold other public (or private) appointments and are to be chaired,preferably, by a deputy chief-executive ranking official from the samegovernment level. In this way, the commissions can better serve as aunified platform in integrating objectives, policies, resources, andstakeholders, in that liaison and coordination issues are addressedthrough concurrent and interlink staffing. Meanwhile, by means ofthis type of affiliating and concurrent appointment, institutional costsare also expected to be reduced. Similarly, in the long-run, provincial/local governments may also consider integrating the various VAPsinto their governance architecture under a unified umbrella, say,“utility commission.”

15 CPC Central Committee and State Council (2009) have declared a test reform ongovernment administrative hierarchy in which the county government is to be underthe direct jurisdiction of the provincial government.

194 J. Xia / Government Information Quarterly 27 (2010) 187–195

3.4. Institutional path dependence and steps toward a successfulimplementation

The design and implementation of an integrated and sustainableVIP regime in China may encounter pitfalls. In this regard, onesignificant barrier may be the “path dependence” effect originatedfrom ingrained departmental and/or regional interests, amongothers.16 This effect can lead potentially to a diversion of policyformulation and implementation from the optimal direction. Hence,how to lessen this negative effect exists as a practical challengebeyond the technicalities of regulatory design itself. To this end,despite the emphasis on local roles, an earnest endorsement from thecentral government is essential, a circumstance where party-stateideology has a crucial role to play. In other words, policy-making firststarts with a top-down process. In addition to its mandate in the VAPs,the central government should first promulgate a nationwideguideline, outlining in principle, if not in specific directives, incentivepolicies and governance structure.

Starting with the establishment of a policy-making body at thecenter, there are three general phases toward the eventual sustainableimplementation of the proposed regulatory model: (1) substantiatingobjective and policy (planning); (2) instituting (organizing); and (3)implementing, evaluating, and improving (implementing and control-ling). These phasesmay overlapwith each other. Thewhole processfirststarts with a top-down from central to local—as indicated—and thenreverses to a bottom-up process, following the regular hierarchicalcommand chain. In practice, these phases may fall into more specificsteps. Although the determination of specific steps is subject tosituational factors, a typical implementation process of the layer-based localizationmodel in Chinawill likely include the following steps:

• Step 1: The central government sets up an interim “task force,”chaired by a ranking official, preferably a vice-prime-minister withsubstantial political and administrative influence. The “task force”sets out to integrate incumbent policy documents, and, based onthis integration, to explicitly define the mission statement andformulate detailed guidelines (along with the threshold regulatorypolicy in the case of access) regarding the VIP regime in terms ofboth the objective definition and regulatory regime (i.e., incentivepolicies and governance template), including an explicit missiondefinition and operating mechanism of the “Commissions” at eachlayer. Following a top-down fashion, the guidelines are passed ondown to the provincial and even lower levels.

• Step 2: Accordingly, the provincial level sets up an interim “taskforce,” chaired by a vice-governor with substantial province-widepolitical and administrative influence. Guided by the centralguidelines, the provincial “task force” defines the province'sobjectives and formulates corresponding policies and governancearrangement which respond to provincial conditions. Municipaland county levels repeat the provincial procedure, for example,setting up an interim “task force” and specifying their objectivesand detailed incentive policies and governance structure.

• Step 3: Each of the government levels, within their respectivejurisdictions, integrates and coordinates objectives and incentivepolicies (particularly funding arrangement). This could be donethrough a controlled testing implementation. During this process,timing communication among each layer is crucial. Eventually,policy proposals are converged bottom up, ultimately ending at thecenter. When necessary, the top-down and bottom-up process isrepeated. During the policy-making process, effective public inputshould be ensured. Finally, policy proposals are certified andpromulgated at the responsible layers, a formal legislation processmay also be sought.

16 For detailed discussion of institutions and institutional change, see, e.g., North(1990).

• Step 4: Constructing the formal governance architecture at eachlayer. The definition of the Commission's mission and operatingmechanism has included the design of an effective mechanism ofcross-layer communication and flow of information—vertical andhorizontal—to ensure a coordinated operation of the governancearchitecture at each layer and nationwide. After modulating andimproving, the regulatory system is ready to be launched.

The above steps are more often synchronized than strictlysequential. The top-down and bottom-up process may be repeatedas many times as necessary until perfection is achieved, and theprocess may also be subject to future reactivation when majorsituational factors change. Each level of government should specify inits policy proposals this reactivation mechanism, including prescrib-ing the conditions for a review, overhaul or partial, on the incumbentregulatory regime, so as to ensure a sustainable and relatively self-enforced regulatory system.

4. Concluding remarks

When it comes to rural communications policy for a transitionaleconomy like China, the unique institutional environment whichfeatures a combination of market forces and overriding part-stateideology may disqualify a wholesale transplantation of any existingregulatory model elsewhere in the world. China is therefore facedwith a challenge to devise an original regulatory approach, one thatnot only fits this current institutional endowment but is alsoforward-looking. This is an endeavor that entails China's capabilityin capitalizing on its institutional strengths while circumventing itsweaknesses. The emerging VIP regime should be explicit inobjectives and sustainable in incentive policies and governancemechanisms; to facilitate this, a layer-based localization regulatorymodel which highlights the roles of local governments could beconsidered by China. Under this approach, the objectives andsupporting mechanisms of the VIP are explicitly stratified betweeneach layer and administered under a similarly stratified, yetinterlinked, governance architecture featuring the affiliation of“Joint-Commissions” as the integrator of objectives, policies,resources, and stakeholders.

Despite the fact that this is more of practical issue than a theoreticalsubject for China, the integration ofaccess andapplications into one singleregulatory platform may serve as a test-field for academia and policy-makers alike around the world. Nonetheless, cautions need to be used inconsidering the Chinese case. Firstly, China remains basically agovernment-dominated economy in which private business is still arare occurrence in conventionally government-run and currentlyintently-protected industries such as telecommunications. Secondly,China still faces the challenge of enhancing the rule-of-law in theeconomywhere the enforcement of formalmechanisms of institutions isarguably compromised due to the ascending regionalism and/ordepartmentalism. Third, almost all aspects of socio-economic andpolitical lives in China are supposedly subject to paramount part-stateideological influence which may create a concern regarding consistency.The combination of these characteristics seems to have predeterminedthe volatile and dynamic nature of the interactions between variousmarket and institutional forces in China. Thismay create uncertainty overthe process of the formulation and execution of the VIP regime andwithregard to the benchmark value for policy-makers elsewhere in theworld.

While follow-up research may help assess the magnitude to whichthese characteristics have actually affected the implementationprocess of rural information policy in China as it unfolds, given thepresent consideration of these institutional characteristics, there arestill positive lessons that could be learned from the Chinese case byforeign countries—market economies or economies in transition. Inaddition to the general implication of China's milestone initiative incombining access and applications into one single national program/

195J. Xia / Government Information Quarterly 27 (2010) 187–195

regime, lessons drawn on the Chinese experience that merit attentionmay include:

• How to translate the implementation of a national rural informa-tion strategy into self-motivated, or incentive-compatible, localactions while still maintaining a central regulation. In this case, theChinese experience may be useful particularly for those regimescurrently baffled by either extremity of over-centralization ordecentralization.

• While conventionally international community's seemingly one-sidedness leans to the emphasis of regulatory independence towardaneffective regulation, Chinamaybeable topresent itself as auniquecase in which ideological/political forces are capitalized upon tostrengthen, rather than weaken, a consistent enforcement.

• The Chinese case may also offer experience on how to effectivelyintegrate into a single national public program—whether it be thecase of implementing a rural information policy or otherwise—extensive information, physical, and financial resources, which tendto be multi-channeled and regionalized/localized and hencedemand a certain degree of adeptness in order to ensure coordinat-ed, compatible, and well-targeted collective actions.

Acknowledgments

I thank the editors, particularly Prof. Charles McClure, of the journalfor their helpful comments on our earlier draft. The author acknowl-edges the assistance in library and other useful resources rendered byIndiana University, Bloomington and Bowling Green State Universityduring his visiting term from 2008 to 2009. Thanks also to StephanieGraham for her copy editing during the publishing process.

References

Blackman, C. R. (1995). Universal service: Obligation or opportunity? Telecommunica-tions Policy, 19(3), 171−176.

CNNIC. (2008). A survey report on rural Internet. China Internet Network InformationCenter. Beijing (in Chinese).

Compaine, B. M. (Ed.). (2001). The digital divide: Facing a crisis or creating a myth?Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

CPC Central Committee & State Council. (2004). Suggestions on various policy issues onthe promotion of the farmer's income. Beijing (in Chinese).

CPC Central Committee & State Council. (2005). Suggestions on various policies on thefurther enhancement of the work on villages and the promotion of comprehensive ruralproductive capacity. Beijing (in Chinese).

CPC Central Committee & State Council. (2006). Suggestions on the promotion of theconstruction of socialist new villages. Beijing (in Chinese).

CPC Central Committee & State Council. (2007). Suggestions on the active development ofmodern agriculture and the sturdy promotion of the construction of socialist newvillages. Beijing (in Chinese).

CPC Central Committee & State Council. (2008). Suggestions on the earnest enhancement ofthe construction of rural infrastructure and the further promotion of the development ofagriculture and increasing the famer's income. Beijing (in Chinese).

CPC Central Committee & State Council. (2009). Suggestions on the promotion of thesteady development of agriculture and the consistent increase of the farmer's incomefor the year of 2009. Beijing (in Chinese).

CPC Central Committee General Administration Office & State Council GeneralAdministration Office. (2006). National informatization strategy for the years of2006–2020. Beijing (in Chinese).

Gillet, S. E., Lehr, W. H., & Osorio, C. (2004). Local government broadband initiatives.Telecommunications Policy, 28(7–8), 537−558.

Helbig, H., Gil-García, R., & Ferro, E. (2009). Understanding the complexity of electronicgovernment: Implementations from the digital divide literature. GovernmentInformation Quarterly, 26(1), 89−97.

Hudson, H. E. (2006). From rural village to global village—telecommunications fordevelopment in the information age. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Hudson, H., & Pittman, T. (1999). From northern village to global village: Ruralcommunications in Alaska. Pacific Telecommunications Review, 21(2), 23−34.

ITU. (2007). World Telecommunication/ICT Development Report 2006: Measuring ICT forSocial and Economic Development. International Telecommunication Union, Geneva,Switzerland.

MII. (2004). Rural communications universal service: Implementation method of theVillage Access Project. Beijing.

MII. (2006a). Directive Suggestions on the natural village VAP and telecom carriers'promotion of rural informatization test work in 2006. Beijing (in Chinese).

MII. (2006b). Suggestions on the promotion of the construction of Socialist New Villages.Beijing (in Chinese).

MII. (2008). Suggestions on the earnest promotion of the “Village Access Project” and thedevelopment of rural services. Beijing (in Chinese).

MIIT. (2009). Suggestions on the implementation of telephone “Village Access Project” andadvancing “Information to Villages” activities. Beijing (in Chinese).

MIIT & SASAC. (2008). Urgent notice on the promotion of co-construction and sharing oftelecommunications infrastructure. Beijing (in Chinese).

Milne, C. (1998). Stages of universal service policy. Telecommunications Policy, 22(9),775−780.

Ministry of Transportation. (2008). Method of regulating and administering the postaluniversal service. Beijing (in Chinese).

MOA. (2007a). Framework on the construction of agriculture and village informatization:2007-2015. Beijing (in Chinese).

MOA. (2007b). Notice on the promotion of national rural informatization model work.Beijing (in Chinese).

MOA. (2008). Suggestions on expediting the promotion of rural informatization modelwork. Beijing (in Chinese).

MOF. (2007). Interim method for the use and administration of telecommunicationsuniversal service fund. Beijing (in Chinese).

MOF & MOFCOM. (2008). Scheme on popularizing the electronics-to-villages work.Beijing (in Chinese).

MOF, MOFCOM, MIIT, NDRC, CPC Propaganda Department, MOA, Ministry ofEnvironmental Protection, China Co-Op, State Administration of Taxation, StateAdministration for Industry and Commerce, & General Administration of QualitySupervision Inspection and Quarantine. (2009). Detailed rules regarding theoperation of electronics-to-villages. Beijing (in Chinese).

MOF, MOFCOM, & MIIT. (2009). Notice on strengthening the enforcement of electronics-to-villages policy. Beijing (in Chinese).

MOFCOM & MOF. (2007). Scheme on the test implementation of electronics-to-villageswork. Beijing (in Chinese).

MOST & MOP (2004). Suggestions on test implementation of science and technologyspecial agents' entrepreneurship-in-rural-communities action. Beijing (in Chinese).

Norris, P. (2001). Digital divide: Civic engagement, information poverty, and the Internetworldwide. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

North, D. C. (1990). Institutions, institutional change, and economic performance.Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

NRDC & SARFT. (2008). Notice on relevant issues about the sturdy and effectiveimplementation of the Village Access Project for the 11th Five-Year-Plan. Beijing (inChinese).

Parker, E. B. (2000). Closing the digital divide in rural America. TelecommunicationsPolicy, 24(4), 281−290.

Qian, Y., & Weingast, B. R. (1996). China's transition to markets: Market-preservingfederalism, Chinese Style. Journal of Policy Reform, 1, 149−185.

Seifert, J., & Chung, J. (2009). Using e-government to reinforce government citizenrelationships: Comparing government reform in the United States and China. SocialScience Computer Review, 27(1), 3−23.

State Council General Administration Office. (2006). Notice on the continuous andeffective implementation of the radio and television Village Access Project. Beijing (inChinese).

State Forestry Bureau. (2009). Forestry Informatization Summit. State Forestry Bureau,China (in Chinese).

Strover, S. (2003). The prospects for broadband deployment in rural America. Go-vernment Information Quarterly, 20(2), 95−106.

Sawada, M., Cossette, D., Wellar, B., & Kurt, T. (2006). Analysis of the urban/ruralbroadband divide in Canada: Using GIS in planning terrestrial wireless deployment.Government Information Quarterly, 23(3-4), 454−479.

Thompson, C. S. (2002). Enlisting on-line residents: Expanding the boundaries of E-Government in a Japanese rural township. Government Information Quarterly, 19(2), 173−188.

WTO. (1998). WTO Reference Paper on Basic Telecommunications. WTO Forum: Geneva.Xia, J. (2006). Head-to-head or hand-in-hand: Has structural reform led to meaningful

competition in China? The 34th Telecommunications Policy Research Conference(TPRC), VA, USA.

Xia, J. (2007). Market forces or Qian Gui Ze? Interpreting market behavior in theChinese telecommunications industry. The 35th Telecommunications Policy Re-search Conference (TPRC), VA, USA.

Xia, J., & Lu, T. J. (2005). Universal service policy in China: Building digital bridge for ruralcommunity. The 33rd Telecommunications Policy Research Conference (TPRC), VA, USA.

Xia, J., & Lu, T. J. (2008). Bridging the digital divide for rural communities: The case ofChina. Telecommunications Policy, 32(9-10), 686−696.

Zhang, X. H. (2006). Current status and trend of the digital divide in China. Research Report,Department of Informatization, State Information Center (in Chinese).

Dr. Jun Xia has been an Associate Professor since 2002 in the School of Economics andManagement, Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications (BUPT), China. Hiscurrent research focuses on telecommunications competition and policy, mediaindustry economics, and strategic marketing. His research papers have been publishedextensively in domestic and international journals such as Telecommunications Policyand presented at various international conferences such as the TelecommunicationsPolicy Research Conference and the biennial meeting of the International Telecommu-nications Society. He advised China’s government on the universal service issue andtelecom carriers on strategic marketing. Before joining BUPT, Professor Xia’s careerencompassed engineering, international investment and trade, and consultancy. Hehas been a visiting scholar in a number of institutions such as the University of Chicago(2001-2002), London School of Economics and Political Science (2001-2002), IndianaUniversity - Bloomington (2008-2009), and Bowling Green State University (2009–2010) where he currently serves as a Visiting Professor.