Rural Informatization in China

Sustainability of rural informatization programs in developing countries: A case study of China׳s Sichuan province

“…Most previous studies have been primarily concerned with connectivity, particularly universal telephone service (Harwit, 2004;Jayakar & Liu, 2014b;Shi, 2008;Xia & Lv, 2008;Zhao, 2007). A few studies have assessed China's recent "Information to the Countryside" program initiated in 2009, which required state-owned telecommunications carriers to integrate traditional "access" and value-added "applications" into a single package in rural areas, and found that although certain noticeable achievements have been made in terms of the increased numbers of rural government websites, rural information stations, and agriculture-related websites, this nationwide informatization program was fragmented under a powerful ideological influence that has led to unclear institutional arrangements and regulatory confusion (Hanna et al, 2009;Xia, 2010). Two separate case studies conducted at the provincial level revealed similar problematic issues, such as a lack of vision, coherent strategy, accountability, and a sustainable business model (Liu, 2012;Ting & Yi, 2012).…”

“…There have been a few studies focusing on the institutional design of China's informatization programs (Hanna, Qiang, Bhavnani, Kimura, & Sudan, 2009;Liu, 2012;Ting & Yi, 2012;Xia, 2010). However, due to the relatively short history and the general lack of familiarity with operational details of China's rural informatization programs, research on this subject is still very limited and, particularly, the existing studies seem to have limited strength in assessing the sustainability of those programs.…”

ICT4D in China and the Capability Approach

“…Due to fragmentation of Internet access projects across different levels of government, so far there has been no comprehensive review over these projects, but the few available studies all suggest that government efforts often are compromised by sustainability issues. In a World Bank report, Qiang et al (2009) survey a wide array of projects promoting use of information technology in rural China. They discuss the merits of different business models regarding sustainability and recommend broad measures to tackle common challenges to such projects.…”

“…When asked about this, most interviewees expressed frustration and chalked it up to interdepartmental rivalry. Such frustration is wide-spread in the Chinese political system where local officials usually report to multiple line-ministries and they are often torn between serving multiple masters who are trying to beat each other to the same goals (Qiang, et al, 2009;Ting & Yi, 2013). Under such circumstances, consolidation and cooperation is usually beyond the local officials' authority and they often have to find workarounds to make sure that all their bosses feel that they get the credit they deserve.…”