Navigating the Chinese Internet

Particularly among foreigners， when- ever the use of internet in China is mentioned it always centres around one topic. Censorship. Many complain that popular social networking sites such as facebook and twitter are currently blocked in the People’s Republic of China and presume the country is worse off for their absence.

Yet， how bothered are Chinese people· This is difficult to assess and really depends on the person but for the most part， those determined to get round censorship do so and China’s “Great Firewall” soon appears as effective as the Great Wall – vast， but unable to stop all threats.

The most common method of “getting past” is through use of a Virtual Private Network where the internet connection is rerouted through another country or region， e.g. the USA or Chinese Taiwan.

The loss of facebook elsewhere in the world might seem a devastating problem for people’s social lives， yet the Chinese have their own social networks. RenRen and others such as Kaixin and Douban are immensely popular and easily fill this void.

China’s most successful network is Weibo， often unfairly judged as a “Chinese version of Twitter”. Weibo’s posts however tend to run considerably longer than Twitters， more in keeping with a blog rather than regular， brief updates.

Perhaps it isn’t simply an issue of censorship when it comes to Chinese internet – instead， it could be evidence of China protecting a fast growing domestic industry. Youtube is banned， but Youku and Tudou (who a shortwhile ago announced a deal to merge – the largest in Chinese internet history) offer a comprehensive alternative. Even Google is rerouted to the company’s Hong Kong web address due to failure to comply with Chinese authorities’ rules on censorship – but it was seldom used anyway. Baidu is king of the search engines in China， and for those new to it a brilliant resource for listening to music， finding out information in a similar fashion to Yahoo Answers and general Chinese related search queries.

Ebay and Amazon both entered the booming industry in hope of becoming market leaders as they are elsewhere in the world， neither however could displace the mighty Taobao. Their business model also operates differently to its Western counterparts. With Taobao to pay the delivery person after receiving your goods so that you can check everything is how you expected first. Ebay has a great wealth of options， but Taobao really understands consumer power and literally anything can be bought there and usually delivered the next day.

One of the most popular internet usages in China is QQ Messenger， run by Tencent， which is perhaps the most powerful internet company in China. Often just referred to as ‘QQ’， the service is a quick instant messenger platform that hundreds of millions of Chinese use each day - catching up with loved ones; contacting business partners or contacting a company’s help desk. QQ can be further characterised by two short beeps when a user receives a message. This now common， everyday sound can be heard in classrooms， on buses and as people get on with their daily tasks proving not only that China’s internet is burgeoning without large multinational firms but also mobile usage is ever increasing as well.

For those who have not yet explored possibilities of Chinese internet alternatives， perhaps now is the time to do so. Colleagues， friends and potential business partners will always be pleasantly surprised to learn that you have a weibo account or use QQ. For a foreigner the use is quite novel， but considered the widespread popularity of these in China， it can greatly improve communication for your business too.