This morning’s Observer column…

First, the numbers. China has 137 million users (compared with about 190 million in the US), but the online population is increasing at such a rate that in about two years there will be more Chinese than Americans on the net.

Within China, however, there’s a deep digital divide: Chinese users are overwhelmingly urban, young and male. A third are students, while a further third are business users. The deepest divide is the urban vs rural one; internet penetration among city dwellers is 20 per cent, compared with only 3 per cent for rural districts. (The comparable US figures are 70 per cent and 61 per cent respectively.)

Given that China’s rulers see the net as a critical enabler of development, a key policy issue for the regime is how to bridge the urban/rural gap. Fallows cites research suggesting that the two big obstacles are lack of connectivity and a huge skills deficiency…