Over the past decade, there has been an increase in the use of information and communications technologies (ICTs) in China. As the largest developing country in the world, China faces a severe digital divide, which exists not only between mainland China and the developed countries, but also among its own regions and social groups.

China's telecommunication sector has been growing at an annual rate of between 30% and 50% in the past ten years due to rapid political, economic, and social changes. However, like most developing countries, the national telephone density and the Internet- user rate remain relatively low, only 23% and 2.18% respectively in 2001. Moreover, the digital divide among regions and social groups inside China is severe.

The term digital divide refers to the gap between those with regular, effective access to Digital and information technology, and those without. It encompasses both physical access to technology hardware and skills and resources which allow for its use. It can refer to both international as well as domestic disparities in the access to information technology.

Since the implementation of China's Tenth Five Year Plan (2001-2005), the PRC has stressed the importance of information technology in its economic development. There is an optimism within the government that the "Internet and information technology (IT) are crucial factors for building international economic competitiveness and overcoming inter-regional development gaps at home." The plan classifies the building of an information society as key to China's economic development and modernization, with the belief that the development of IT will naturally pull the impoverished areas' economy out of poverty.

Statistics show that many parts of rural China are being left behind while the urban areas reap the benefits of the internet and IT. The China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) has released statistics showing continuous annual growth in internet users, yet such growth has been a predominantly urban phenomenon as the majority of China's internet users are located almost exclusively in China's big cities. Furthermore, there is little economic incentive for Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to expand into regions with low purchasing power and/or population densities. It is left to the Chinese government to bridge the ever-expanding gap of the digital divide.

The tables and pictures below show the geographical distribution of internet access in China. Internet density ranges from a high of 30.4% in Beijing to as low as 3.8% in the province of Guizhou. Just as startling as the differences in penetration rates is the vast disparity in the number of websites per person (table 2). Finally, the image of worldwideweb users in China portrays a graphic representation of the digital divide. We can infer from these statistics that users come from a relatively privileged strata of the population, dwelling in highly urbanized settings and concentrated in the prosperous Eastern regions.

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The current situation of telephone application and Internet use indicates the severity of the digital divide among regions in Mainland China. Traditionally, Mainland China's regions have been divided into three categories according to their geographical location and administrative divisions: Eastern, Central, and Western. The Eastern region possessed the largest segment of total Internet users, and the Central and Western region possessed the smallest fraction respectively, more than two times lower than the Eastern region.