Chinese Information Environment and its Influences. on egovernment Construction

Transcription

1 Chinese Information Environment and its Influences on egovernment Construction Key word: egovernment, Information environment Abstract: The main aspects of Chinese information environment, including citizens application ability of IT and informationization consciousness, the construction and application of database, information infrastructure and other information resources, standardization of government and society management, law and rule of law related to information and IT applications, their influences on egovernment construction are analyzed in this paper. The egovernment construction in different countries, though having some common characteristics, is very different each other. The most important cause is that the information environment in different countries, e.g. citizens, information resources, law and rule of law, and so on, are very different. China is a typical developing country. Its government and society management, economic structure are in the transforming period. All of these will bring some influences on Chinese egovernment construction. 1. The IT application ability and informationization consciousness of citizens, especially of government servants 1.1. The first factor of information environment is citizen and his IT application ability, and his informationization consciousness. The IT application ability is the ability to obtain information, to deal with and make use of information by means of IT. The informationization consciousness is that the citizen could self-consciously make use of IT means to deal with the problem in one s work and life. To have a strong informationization consciousness is a symbol of highly informationization, while information security consciousness is a very important aspect of informationization consciousness and a symbol of maturely developed information society Similar to other human s abilities, the IT application ability is also difficult to be measured accurately. But from a total situation of the society, the following factors are in positive ration with the ability above mentioned: 1 Education degree. Popularization degree of diversified information equipment, e.g. personnel computer, telephone, mobile phone, TV set, and so on. Ration of the people who are familiar with Internet, skilled in Internet navigator and commonly used word processing software China has reached a great progress in education in the past 15 years, but it is still in a comparative low level as a whole. In 1990 there were about 90% people could accept 6-year education of primary school, and the people s 1

2 average education time was 6 years. In 1998 there were 73% people could accept 9-year compulsory education, and the people s average education time reached about 8 years. Compared with some developed country, the central cities of China are not dropped behind a lot in personal computer s popularization. But in the vast countryside, especially in the countryside of northwest China, the popularization of computer is much low. In the end of 2000, there were about 28% of families in cities in possession of a personal computer, and about 40.6% of families in Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin and Chongqing in possession of personal computer 2. A statistics number proclaimed by China Information Industry Ministry showed that by the end of July 2002, the user s amount of telephone and mobile phone increased by 55.8 million and the total users amount reached to 380 million. Hereinto the user amount of mobile phone reached to 180 million, China become the largest market in mobile phone user amount and telephone user amount. 3 The popularization rate of telephone reached 15.65% and mobile phone reached 13.86% in China. 4 Due to the comparatively low average education level and IT application ability, Chinese citizen need a comparatively long time to accept a new technology, but they can make good use of telephone, mobile phone, beeper, TV and other information equipments that is easy to be used. The utilization of Internet connection, database and other utilizations, which need more skills to master are not popular in China now The above characteristics have been taken into consideration by Chinese government. In order to make the common Chinese people get the government services by means of their familiar IT devices, many cities and districts have constructed a call-center before the web site construction, and most the government call-center can be reached by a unique number. After the government web site construction, the services of call-center are to be strengthened by net technology and citizens can get some net government s new services indirectly by call-center. Mobile phone terminals are also used in egovornment. In some cities, the appliers or the people who put forward a document for approval can get the message of the result or the progress of the application by short message from mobile terminal. In some comparatively developed countryside, diversified government information might be made public through cable TV, and the villagers can also further examine the information by the public digital terminals. The great digital gap between different people and government is narrowed by such applications. 2. Database, information infrastructure and other information resources construction and there application 2.1. The resources of database are very fundamental to information society, so the construction of application of database is an important aspect of IT application. Some databases might be shared widely and have great impact on economic and society, and they become a very important part of IT application. The 2

3 construction and maintenance works of these databases include their data collecting, data disposal, data storage, indexing, updating, backup, and data securities and so on. All these works could be combined into an integrated database system. Other information banks include some knowledge banks especially in government management and operation. The application of databases and other information banks is the goal and development motivity of database construction. Without application, the database is nonsense Chinese government is running about 3000 large-scale and medium-scale databases, and the information amount possessed by government is over 2 third of the total in the country. But different government departments possess the databases, it is difficult to integrate different databases. And different departments separate these databases, which should be tied up closely. It is also a large obstacle for data sharing and application. The database of basic corporations is a typical example. Chinese Tax Bureau, Statistic Bureau and Business Administration Bureau are running their own basic corporation database. Each bureau collects data by its own channel, and each database is also maintained, updated by each bureau. The resources of the 3 databases could not be exchanged. In this way, each database has its own limitation. The author was told that in a developed city of South China, the quantities of IT enterprises by the end of last year proclaimed by the 3 bureaus were so different that the biggest one and the smallest one had over 2 times difference In order to improve the situation above-mentioned, Chinese government has started a project to accelerate egovernment construction. And the fundamental database s integration and reconstruction are coming into consideration. We could anticipate that some breakthrough will be gotten in construction of the basic population database, basic corporation database, natural resources and geological information database, macroeconomic database. Some remarkable progress is also expected in the rules regulation of database sharing, its management, and data exchange infrastructure s construction The government information resources application, especially egovernment application, will be based on present application system and improved greatly. Some application system will be adjusted drastically. Most engineering of egovernment adhere to satisfying limited demands in the beginning. It is also the same in China, so the procedure of improving the system is necessary after coming into use. It is also due to the transforming period of society and government. With the development of management of the society and government, the update of the egovernment application system is also necessary. In the coming 3-5 years, in order to form a set of integrated egovernment application, China will invest more in customs system, avenue system, public financial system, financial supervision system, audit system, public security system, social security system, product quality supervision system, government one-stop service. 3. The standardization and optimization of government and society management 3.1. It is impossible to set up information society without standardization and 3

4 optimization, so the standardization and optimization of government and society management is also an important part of information environment, especially for egovernment application. In the mean time, we notice that the standardization and optimization of government and society management be a procedure instead of a statue. Here the statue means a set of integrated, standard rules for government and society management, and such a statue is fundamental for government informationization. And the procedure means with the optimization of the management, the statue will be changed. Of course, how to change the statue must be standard too China is undergoing the difficult procedure of transforming to market economy, to legal society and has achieved a lot in the past 20 years. One of the important tasks is to set up a comparatively standard government management system, including government supervision system. Almost all developed countries finished this work many years ago, but it is in the progress and not finished in China. Because of this, Chinese egovernment construction has its own characteristic. Chinese egovernment construction must serve for government supervision function at first. IT application becomes an important tool for increasing the efficiency of supervision and management. Most of the present successful egovernment projects in China are for government supervision or mainly for government supervision. A typical example is customs information system, called Golden Customs project by Chinese people. This system is playing a very important role in the struggle with smuggling, customs evasion, and the system also contributes a lot to improving management efficiency. 5 With the achievement of customs supervision, the customs services have been improved greatly; the people and goods could get through the customs more quickly and conveniently. The difference of egovernment construction between in China and in most developed countries is that Chinese government has to utilize IT for government supervision, management and services instead of mainly for services. So Chinese egovernment construction will be more difficult and will take more time to be fulfilled China has achieved a lot in government supervision by egovernment application. A good example is Golden Taxation Project. After this project came into use from July 2001, China Tax Bureau could only find 5 items of value-added tax evasion crime, in contrast to 68 items of the crime from January to June of The regulation of law and rule of law related to information and IT application 4.1. With the development from agriculture society to industry society, a set of law and rule of law had been formed step by step, and the influences of the law and rule of law became more and more profound. Because of many new problems appeared in the information society, some old law and rule of law are not suitable now. Many countries have adjusted their law and rule of law in order to put the IT application forward China is also adjusting its law and rule of law, but due to its low start point, the 4

5 adjusting is of great difficulty and heavy workload. In recent 10 years, China regulated a great number of laws and rules of law, and its own law system has been set up basically. But there are many problems everywhere. Many detailed articles of the law have been not regulated. Besides legislation of many new laws, China has to pay much attention to the regulation of law, especially that related to information and IT applications. Chinese government is fully conscious of this problem, and the progress of legislation of some laws and rules of law related to information and IT applications is accelerating. The laws of digital document and its copyright, data protection, electronic commerce, electronic ID, digital signature will be finished in recent year. And rules of the technique standard of digital signature, the management of CA are also hoped to be finished soon. In the mean time, China is regulating the law about how to make the government information public and what government information has to be made public, the law of promoting the usage of and digital signature Chinese present situation makes many useful applications be difficult to be developed. Of course, most of Chinese egovernment applications are very elemental at present. The majority of egovernment applications are in the period of making the government information public. But with the development of egovernment applications, the limitation of the laws unsuitable to information society will be prominent. In recent years, the legal statue of digital signature and electronic document is put forward in documents exchange between different government departments. In conclusion, due to the characteristic of Chinese information environment, Chinese egovernment construction has used to strengthen the government supervision, to enhance the efficiency of government management, to improve the services for citizens and enterprises. In the initiative step of egovernment construction, Chinese government would pay more attention to how to strengthen the government supervision by IT applications, and the government will also enhance the management efficiency and improve the services greatly in this procedure. Meanwhile, with the development of government reform, many government management standards will be worked out, and the legislation related to information and IT applications will also be available, and public databases and other information resources will be developed quickly, and citizen s IT application ability will be enhanced remarkably by training. Then, Chinese egovernment construction will be transformed to being guided by government services, and some government supervisions will be implemented through services. Chinese government will also transform from supervisory government into that of service and supervision. 1 Hongren Hou and Tiehan Tang, The theories and practices of electronic government, CNSA Press, Hongren Hou and Tiehan Tang, The theories and practices of electronic government, CNSA Press,

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