Challenges and Reactions

Twelve years after the introduction of reform policies in China and two years before the next expected major change at the summit of the country's leadership, China's political system is facing a series of tremendous changes. Perhaps one of the most important challenges is rooted in the effects of new information technologies on political decision-making and above all on relations between people and rulers. The potential impact of these changes can perhaps best be explained by an example. In March 2001, the international media published reports of a deadly explosion in Fanglin school in a remote eastern Chinese mountain village. Official reports (including a statement by Premier Zhu Rongji) blamed a ‘lone madman’ for having set off two bags of explosives in a third-grade classroom. ‘ Here comes a madman’ was the immediate reaction on the Internet in China. Angry users of Internet chat rooms did not buy the story

Asian studies · China · Comparative politics · International political economy · International relations · Media studies · Multi-level governance · Political communication · Political economy · Political management · Political philosophy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · The Internet · World Wide Web · China's Socioeconomic Reforms and Governance · Computer Science · Law