Denise, a consultant of the United Nations Development Programme, pointed out that the digital divide is actually a gap in the ability to create wealth. Keith Fulton, director of the National Urban Alliance's technology program, believes that investment in training and education must be implemented, and the digital divide is not just about whether you have a computer or not. There was an "industrial revolution" in history, but many countries went their own way in the industrial revolution, and many countries fell behind.
The "Digital Divide Network" of the US Department of Commerce summarizes the digital divide as: "In all countries, there are always some people who have the best information technology provided by society. They have the most powerful computers, the best telephone service, the fastest network service and the best education. In addition, some people can't use the latest or best computer, the most reliable telephone service or the fastest and most convenient network service for various reasons. The difference between these two types of people is the so-called "digital divide". The unfortunate side of this gap means that they have few opportunities to participate in our new information-based economy, and they have few opportunities to participate in online education, training, shopping, entertainment and communication. " This definition is mainly from the economic and technical point of view. Although it does not include the differences of culture, nationality, gender and generation, it shows the main reasons and manifestations of the digital divide, so it is representative to some extent.
express
The level of telecommunications and informatization in developing countries is seriously behind that in developed countries.
Half of the population in developing countries in China have never called, and the telephone lines in Africa add up to the length of Manhattan Island in new york. Only Finland has more mainframe computers than Latin America and the Caribbean. Developed countries have an average of 300 computers per thousand people. The figure for developing countries is only 16.
The population of developed countries only accounts for 17% of the world's total population, but Internet users account for 80% of the world. On average, 6.8 people in developed countries have an Internet user, while 440 people in developing countries have an Internet user.
90% of the global e-commerce volume is monopolized by developed countries. The investment of developed countries in the United States and Europe in information technology accounts for 75% of the total investment in global information technology. At present, 8 1% of all Internet pages are in English, and less than 20% are in other languages.
According to the calculation of the International Statistical Information Center of the National Bureau of Statistics of China, the total information capability index of the United States is about 1 1.6 times that of China.
affect
Adhere to the interests of the nation-state
Acknowledging the existence of the digital divide is the consensus of the whole world. But as a nation-state, how should we treat this problem? The essence of the problem lies in how the nation-state occupies a certain position in the world pattern in the process of globalization and informatization. In the era of economic globalization and informatization, the nation-state exists at least today, so we must consider national interests and national interests. Otherwise, the basis for discussing the digital divide will not exist.
I quite agree with Zhu Houze's predecessors that information civilization has duality. British industrial civilization, Americanization of information civilization and Americanization of information civilization permeate the whole world. In this process, on the one hand, it brings benefits to developing countries, on the other hand, its civilization is manifested in the form of evil. Here, a good civilization is definitely acceptable, and of course, our country should cross the digital divide as soon as possible. At the same time, we can sit down and negotiate on the manifestations of evil in the spread of civilization in order to safeguard the interests of our country and bargain.
Today, people are more and more aware that the future geographical world map will give way to the world map divided by knowledge level, the gap between countries will become larger and larger, and wealth will be measured by knowledge more and more, thus triggering more and more social conflicts. Therefore, the government should take various measures to narrow this gap. Since the beginning of this year, the government has started to talk about the digital divide, but so far it has not put forward specific implementation measures. More importantly, our views on the times are misplaced, and the quantity of material products is still used as an indicator to measure social development. We urgently need to establish a system to measure the informatization indicators of various places. Since the beginning of this year, an obvious trend is that Internet companies have begun to combine with relevant national industry resources to truly form an industry. But in this respect, the state has not consciously accumulated and integrated such resources.
The Internet is actually an experiment. When you wander around the internet, your needs have been understood and grasped, which is the most terrible thing. However, has China's industrial sector really begun to realize this? Behind the network is actually the process of re-division of national interests.
The power gap must be bridged.
Talking about the digital divide can't ignore another divide, that is, the power divide. What is the reality in China? In fact, digital capitalism and gangster capitalism are intertwined, and gangster capitalism is a more shocking phenomenon. The injustice of power is the actual cause of the gap between the rich and the poor in China, not the digital divide. As far as China is concerned, the digital divide is more manifested as the gap in the overall information state between countries.
When our economists say that "the western development needs the Internet first", if we don't solve the system problem and face up to the problem of robber capitalism in China, the western development will become another way for some bureaucrats to carve up national resources. Gangster capitalism is the result of some people directly transforming public property into personal property during privatization. Privatization is still a division of power and has nothing to do with ordinary people. The gap between the rich class and the lower class is widening. This will lead to the crisis of China's integration into modern society. Therefore, to solve the digital divide, we cannot ignore another reality in China in the name of the digital divide, that is, the power gap, because it causes greater inequality.
We see that digital capitalism has also impacted and eliminated the power gap. What is digital capitalism? Marx once said that if the proletarians all over the world unite, Internazionale will come true. Last year, there was a sign in Zhongguancun that said, "Computers all over the world are United, and the Internet must be realized." This sentence is actually about the reality that the United States forms group capital through pension funds and retirement funds, and then invests in neighboring countries through this group capital. In this way, the capitalists all over the world unite through digitalization, while the proletarians do not seem to unite. Why does the global capitalist country become a welfare state and a knowledge society? It is precisely because the inequality gap between capitalists and workers is minimized. Blue-collar workers have become knowledge workers, and the form of capital has changed. The so-called digital capitalism is supported by a large group of capital.
Group capitalism infiltrated by digital means is manifested in the entry of foreign capital, the rise of Internet and the opening of China telecom market. This has also brought some new rules.
Bridging the digital divide with digital vortex
Facing the digital divide, I put forward a concept called digital vortex. The key is how China can absorb global capital and technology, form a digital whirlpool, and then realize the interaction with the United States and other countries, especially China people in the high-tech field.
The eight websites made by the government this year are only to improve the competitiveness in news, but in fact, they have not grasped the essence of the problem. The government should establish a mature private investment system, so that China's private resources will tilt towards high technology and set a higher threshold. In this way, foreign capital will enter, and there will be room for discussion. We can even take the form of official supervision and private management. The government transfers resources to the people, and the people adopt a system with clear property rights and institutional guarantee to integrate such resources.
The digital divide is a digital opportunity.
After the G8 Summit, members of the Global E-commerce Business Dialogue Association, led by Fujitsu and Toshiba of Japan, proposed to provide digital access to 500,000 remote villages and towns in Africa. In fact, these companies have the courage to shoulder the heavy responsibility of solving the digital divide from their own long-term interests. They are convinced that only by helping most countries become "formal participants in the network economy and society" can they expand the existing market scale. As Chambers, president of Cisco, said, "All companies involved in the Internet revolution have the opportunity to bridge the digital divide brought about by this information technology revolution, and will eventually enjoy the market opportunities brought about by bridging the digital divide."
Many countries and regions in Asia are taking the risk of digital divide seriously and actively improving information technology infrastructure so that everyone can share the opportunities brought by the revolution of information and communication infrastructure.
A senior World Bank official once pointed out that if low-income people and countries want to share the opportunities brought by the revolution in information and communication infrastructure, they need not only relevant high-quality education, but also infrastructure that can ensure equal access to modern information and communication technologies. In China, Netcom's business has been very busy recently, which shows that the infrastructure construction has been intensified; Shida should pay special attention to the hardware industry, indicating that manufacturers have seen a bright future in the infrastructure market.
It can be seen that the digital divide is actually the gap in the ability to create wealth. How to seize the opportunity, implement appropriate technology integration, skip this gap, and directly enter the information technology and e-commerce fields in China is an important topic before us. However, if this integration is not carried out properly, we may miss the opportunity completely.