The Chinese telecommunications market in transition

This paper provides an assessment of the Chinese telecommunications market in transition. It tracks the evolution of the Chinese telecommunications carriers and argues that their economic imperatives, notwithstanding progress, will be slow if they do not exercise the political will in untangling their bureaucratic, structured network of business relationships. China's impending commitments as a result of its entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO) further provide the contextual urgency in undertaking structural reforms it has delayed for so long. Principally, this revolves around the need to re-examine the role of the Ministry of Information Inaustry (MIl) as the regulator and its relationship with the carriers. The question we put forth in this paper is: "Do Chinese telecommunications carriers possess the political will in moving forward?" We address this question by first examining the legacy of China's telecommunications reforms. We then propose the adoption of the network approach in better understanding and hopefully untangle the network of relationships between MIl and Chinese telecommunications carriers as part of the reform process. Reforms will continue until such time the average Chinese consumers can enjoy the real benefits in terms of greater quality and diversity of services at lower costs.