China Internet Museum

At 4:11:24 Geneva time (11:11:24 Beijing time) on 25 August 1986, Wu Weimin from the Institute of High Energy Physics of Chinese Academy of Sciences, by using an IBM-PC at Beijing Information Control Institute (No.710 Institute), remotely logged onto the account of Wang Shuqin on a machine VXCRNA located at CERN Geneva via a satellite link, and sent an email to Steinberger in Geneva.

The year of 1986 saw the commencement of the Chinese Academic Network (CANET) project, an international networking project implemented by Beijing Institute of Computer Application in partnership with the University of Karlsruhe.

With the help of the research group led by Professor Werner Zorn from Karlsruhe University of Germany, Professor Wang Yunfeng and Doctor Li Chengjiong et al set up an email node at Institute of Computer Application (ICA) in Beijing, and successfully sent an email to Germany on September 20. The content of this email was "Across the Great Wall we can reach every corner in the world".

On November 9- 11, 1987, the Chinese delegation was invited to attend the sixth session of International Academic Networkshop held in Princeton, USA. During the meeting, National Science Foundation (NSF) of the U.S. showed welcome to the extension of BITNET and CSNET's emails to China, and delivered a welcome letter to Yang Chuquan, a Chinese representative.

At the beginning of 1988, China's first X.25 packet switched network (CNPAC) was built, covering nine Chinese cities including Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenyang, Xi’an, Wuhan, Chengdu, Nanjing and Shenzhen.

The Institute of High Energy Physics of Chinese Academy of Sciences, by adopting the X.25 protocol, made its DECnet an extension of the Western Europe Center's DECnet and realized international remote computer networking as well as email communications with Europe and North America.

The Chinese Academic Network (CANET) project was launched with a view to connecting the computers at the numerous universities and research institutions in China with the computer network in the world.

The Institute of High Energy Physics of Chinese Academy of Sciences turned a VAX785 machine into a subnode of European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Geneva, Switzerland via the satellite link of Austria Radio Company by adopting the X.25 protocol.

The campus network of Tsinghua University used the email software package which adopted the X400 protocol and which was introduced from University of British Columbia (UBC) in Canada by Professor Hu Daoyuan, to connect with UBC via the X.25 network, and started the application of emails.

China Research Network (CRN) realized interconnection with Germany Research Network (DFN) via the X.25 experimental network (CNPAC) of the former Ministry of Post & Telecommunications.

The key discipline project where the State Development Planning Commission utilized the loan of World Bank, known as the "Education and Scientific Research Demonstration Network in Zhongguancun District" in the country, and as the National Computing and Networking Facility of China (NCFC) by the World Bank, was officially approved. It was officially launched in November 1989.

Thanks to the efforts of Professor Wang Yunfeng and Professor Werner Zorn, the registration of the top level domain .cn was completed, and Qian Tianbai acted as the administrative liaison officer. From then on, China had its own identity label on the internet. Because China at that time had not realized full-function connection with the Internet, its .cn top-level domain name server was temporarily set up and placed at the University of Karlsruhe in Germany.

The computer network between Institute of High Energy Physics of Chinese Academy of Sciences and Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) of Stanford University in the U.S. was successfully connected.

Sino-U.S. Joint Committee on High Energy Physics was convened and the U.S. side proposed a cooperation plan to include China in the Internet network.

At the INET'92 conference held in Kobe, Japan, Researcher Qian Hualin required for the first time full-function connection of China's networks to NSFNET. In September 1993, during the INET'93 conference in San Francisco, with the help of Richard Hetherington (Dean of the Computer and Communications Department of the University of Missouri) and Quan Jinan (a professor of KOREATECH), Qian Hualin met with a group of celebrities of the international Internet communities and expressed his wish of connecting China to the international Internet, and made China's access to the international Internet an agenda of the CCIRN (Coordinating Committee for Intercontinental Research Networking) meeting after the INET'93 conference.

All the academic networks of the NCFC project, i.e. academy network of Chinese Academy of Sciences (CASNET, which had connected with more than thirty institutes in Zhongguancun Area and with Academy Office of Chinese Academy of Sciences in Sanlihe), campus network of Tsinghua University (TUNET) and campus network of Peking University (PUNET), were completed.

The 64K special DECnet line for the Institute of High Energy Physics of Chinese Academy of Sciences to access Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) of the United States by hiring the international satellite channel of AT&T Company was put into operation. After this, with the strong support of National Natural Science Foundation of China, the persons in charge of the important projects of many disciplines were able to dial and access this special line of Institute of High Energy Physics of Chinese Academy of Sciences, and a few hundred scientists were able to use emails in China.

Then Vice Premier Zhu Rongji chaired the meeting, and proposed and deployed the construction of national network of public economic information (Golden Bridge Project for short).

The Computer Network Information Center of Chinese Academy of Sciences called together some network experts in Beijing to investigate the domain name systems in other countries, and proposed and determined the domain name system of China.

Premier Li Peng approved the use of 3 million U.S. dollars of premier budget reserve to support the construction of the early works of Golden Bridge Project.

The backbone network of NCFC was completed, where high-speed optical cables and routers were used to interconnect the three academic networks.

The State Council approved the establishment of State Economic Informationization Joint Meeting, and then Vice Premier Zou Jiahua acted as the chairman, in charge of the national network of public economic information.

Relevant national authorities decided to start the "Three Golden Projects", namely "Golden Bridge Project", "Golden Card Project " and "Golden Gateway Project".