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Background
2001-01-01

China's economy has been growing very fast in recent years and China is becoming more and more open to the outside world. At the same time, the construction of the global information infrastructure has become a world trend. The Chinese government is promoting the construction of the China Information Infrastructure (CII), with the Internet connection forming one of the major concerns.

The first network cooperating with the outside world in China is China Academic Network (CANET) which was established in 1988. CANET can exchange email with Internet using X.25 technology via a gateway in Karlruhe University, Germany. Dozens of China's education and research entities have joined CANET. In 1990 CANET registered the top domain "cn" in InterNic.

In 1990, China Research Network (CRN) was established. This network also uses X.25 link to exchange information with the outside world via RARE. There are more than ten research entities connected by CRN.

In 1993, the Institute of High Energy Physics in China established a direct link to Stanford University, USA. By 1994, a full Internet connectivity had been established for IHEP.

In 1989, the China State Planning Commission and the World Bank started to support a project called National Computing Facilities of China (NCFC). This project includes a supercomputer center and three campus networks, i.e. China Academic of Science Network (CASnet), Tsinghua University Network (TUnet) and Peking University Network (PUnet). The construction of these three individual campus networks had been completed by 1992. In 1994, a 64 Kbps satellite link was established and full Internet access became available to the users of CASnet, TUnet and PUnet.

There are other universities and research institutes who have established email or even full Internet links during the past few years. It is for sure that many people in China and all over the world want Chinese academic societies to join the global Internet. However, almost all Chinese network experts shared in the concern about the lack of coordination. One of the important reasons for this kind of situation is that no nation-wide education and research Internet backbone had been planned until 1993. Consequently, each entity had to look for its own connection. However, things are changing now.

In December 1993, the China Education and Research Network (CERNET) project started to be planned. It is the first nation-wide education and research computer network in China. The CERNET project is funded by the Chinese government and directly managed by the Chinese Ministry of Education. CERNET will connect all the universities and institutes in China in the near future and will connect high schools, middle schools, primary schools and other education and research entities by the end of this century. CERNET will link to the global Internet and will become a major part of the Chinese Internet community.

Recently, commercial Internet projects are also carrying on in China. The Ministry of Post and Tele-communication will start providing commercial Internet service very soon. Other Chinese companies will also consider joining the commercial Internet market. Although after 25 years' growth, the Internet is getting into the commercialization process, due to the lack of Internet experience in China, CERNET has its unique and unreplaceable status among all the Internet competitors in China. We believe CERNET will greatly improve the education and research infrastructure in China and train network experts as well as experienced network end users. In a word, it will help to boost China's education, research and economic developments.


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