P E W I N T E R N E T & A M E R I C A N L I F E P R O J E C T
China’s Online Population Explosion
What It May Mean for the Internet Globally… and for U.S. Users
By Deborah Fallows, Senior Research Fellow, Pew Internet & American Life Project
There are now an estimated 137 million internet users in China,1 second in number only to the
United States, where estimates of the current internet population range from 165 million to 210
million.2 The growth rate of China’s internet user population has been outpacing that of the U.S.,
and China is projected to overtake the U.S. in the total number of users within a few years.3
The influx of tens of millions of new online participants each year can be expected to have far-
reaching consequences for the Chinese population, for China itself and for the larger world. At the
very least, the internet will offer ever greater numbers of Chinese a much more sophisticated
information and communications world than the one they currently inhabit. And because the
Chinese share a single written language, despite the multiplicity of spoken tongues, it could have
a unifying effect on the country’s widely dispersed citizenry. An expanding internet population
might also increase domestic tensions that could spill over into China’s relations with the U.S. and
other countries while the difference between Chinese and Western approaches to the internet
could create additional sore points over human rights and problems with restrictions on non-
Chinese companies.
Before considering these and other possible impacts, it is important to gain an understanding of
the size and direction of growth of China’s online population.
Who are China’s internet users now?
In China, just over 10% of the population uses the internet, according to the latest government
accounting. Users are relatively young, male, urban, and are disproportionately composed of
students. Just over 70% of the user population is under age 30 and almost 60% are men. The
penetration rate in