Asia nations cautious on Internet

Asia nations cautious on Internet

By Ajoy Sen

SINGAPORE (Reuter): Asia's rapidly growing economies are using Internet to integrate themselves with the world economy but some of the region's governments are not entirely comfortable with the phenomenon.

The rise in the popularity of the global network has alarmed some governments, which fear unbridled access could lead to distribution of pornography, spread religious unorthodoxy or encourage political dissidence.

None of the governments has come up with any foolproof plan to prevent the inflow of undesirable material on the network, and experts say such control is technically difficult.

Yet most Asian countries also see the benefits of a network with 30 million users, and there has been a rapid growth of users in the region -- from academics and computer buffs to government agencies running sophisticated information boards.

China, for example operates five main Internet systems, three of them serving the scientific community.

CERNET, linking major Chinese universities, will spread the net to students and professors at 100 campuses this year and 1,000 by the end of the decade. "If China doesn't have this information technology that we are developing here, then China cannot develop," Li Xing, CERNET's lead architect, said.

Singapore's government runs a one-stop digital information center, Infomap, to highlight information about the island.

In Vietnam, the Vietnam Academic Research and Educational Network (VARENET) started in April last year, with hubs in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, and has about 140 institutions as members.

Pakistan is due to introduce the Internet by this December.

The Internet, a global network of computer users is linked by telephone lines. Users can exchange electronic mail or post messages on business deals, swap information, scan research published by universities, governments and companies and shop across the world.

While individuals and companies in the region continue to join the information superhighway, Asian governments are keen to protect traditional conservative values.

A senior official in Singnet, one of two state-linked organizations in Singapore involved with providing the service, told Reuters it is technically impossible to control the entire inflow of information on Internet.

Ong Wee Cheong, product manager of Singnet, said it selectively posts materials for users. But Singapore remains concerned about defamatory language used in and about the more sleazy part of the Internet, such as pictures from Playboy and Penthouse magazines, which are banned in Singapore.

While warning against excessive regulation, acting Environment Minister and National Information Technology Committee chairman, Teo Chee Hean, said: "A sense of balance is required, and some control is required to ensure that we can reap the benefits and shut out or minimize the dangers."

In China, the chief of the China Education and Research Network, or CERNET, Wu Jianping, said the country's leaders fret over an influx of "detrimental" ideas.

But they had accepted assurances that operators have both technical and less delicate means of filtering out pornography and political dissent. "They know there is a sure-fire way -- you turn off the power," Wu said.

With the availability of cheaper computers and reasonable service fees charged by most service providers, the Internet has become a major business incentive for poor countries like Vietnam, where owning a computer was a dream some years ago.

In communist Vietnam, problems of control and access do not really arise yet because it is a newcomer to the Internet, with two systems and only a few hundred users.

In fast-developing Indonesia, the Secretary-General of the Ministry of Tourism, Post and Telecommunications, Jonathan Parapak, while saying the Internet was an unavoidable consequence of globalization, warned Indonesians on its uses.

Indointernet, the largest of the four private providers, has about 2,300 customers. It said that while more than 60 percent of those were business people, most just used the system's e-mail to keep in touch with staff and clients.

Abdul Hafeez, a senior scientist at Pakistan's state-owned National Institute of Electronics, told Reuters he did not believe that Internet access would lead to a sudden flood of pornography and blasphemy.

Rather, access would be limited by the small number of nodes and hosts available to users. The service provider could also intervene to stop undesirable discussion groups and electronic messages, he said.