January 1
The Regulations on Protection of Secrets on Internationally Networked Computer Information Systems promulgated by the National Administration for the Protection of State Secrets came into effect.
January 17
The Ministry of Information Industry formally approved the incorporation of China International Economy and Trade Net (abbreviated to CIETnet) by China International Electronic Commerce Center.
January 18
China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) launched the pilot system for Chinese domain names upon approval of the Ministry of Information Industry.
January 18
China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) issued the fifth Statistical Report on Internet Development in China: By December 31, 1999, there were 3,500,000 computers in total which had access to the Internet in China. There were about 8,900,000 Internet subscribers, 48,695 domain names registered under .CN, and about 15,153 WWW websites. The international exit bandwidth was 351M.
January 27 and 28
The Publicity Department of the Communist Party of China (CCPPD) and other leading publicity departments held the first Internet journalism conference in Beijing. The purpose of the conference was to announce decisions and plans and mobilize resources for the development of Internet media in 2000 and at the beginning of the next century.
2000
The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) submitted the first international IP standard (ITU-T X.85) and was approved.
March 7
The construction of qianlong started. On May 25, qianlong was official launched. Qianlong was the first comprehensive news website in China, approved by the State Council Information Office and the Publicity Department of Beijing Municipal CPC, and jointly initiated and founded by Beijing Daily, Beijing People's Broadcasting Corporation, Beijing Television Station, Beijing Youth Daily, Beijing Morning Post and other major media in Beijing. The development target of qianlong is to build a capital-based cross-regional, cross-media integrated media group that offers comprehensive online information services and serves the whole country in line with international standards.
March 30
The country-level Internet exchange center was put into operation in Beijing, which increased the internetworking bandwidth of less than 10 MBPS to 100 MBPS for the major internetworks in China, speeding up the access speed.
March 30
China Securities Regulatory Commission promulgated Interim Measures for the Administration of Online Securities Brokerage.
April
Network News Administration Bureau of the State Council Information Office was founded, followed by the establishment of relevant news agencies, indicating that the management system of Internet news and media had been basically rounded.
May
China proposed the TD-SCDMA international standard, the first proprietary, systematic standard in China's 100-year communication history, and it was approved by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) to be one of the three mainstream international 3G standards in the same month.
May 20
Chinese Domain Name Consortium (CDNC) was established in Beijing to coordinate and standardize the Chinese domain names in a nongovernmental way.
May 9
The Publicity Department of the Communist Party of China and the Publicity Office of the CPC Central Committee issued Guidelines on Development of Internet News and Publicity Sector (2000-2002). This document set out the guiding principles and objectives for development of the Internet news and publicity sector.
June
The State Council promulgated Several Policies for Encouraging the Development of the Software Industry and the Integrated Circuit Industry. It was a regulatory policy and mainly set out policy objectives and provisions relating to investment and financing, taxation, industrial technology, export, income distribution, attraction and development of talents, procurement, identification of software companies, intellectual property protection, industrial organizations and management, integrated circuit industry, etc. The introduction of this policy played an important role in promoting the development of China's software and integrated circuit industries, enhancing the innovation capability of the information industry, driving the restructuring of traditional industries and upgrading of products.
June 21
China Electronic Commerce Association was officially established. The association aimed at strengthening the exchange and cooperation between China and other countries in the world in e-business, propelling the application and development of e-commerce in China, and facilitating the overall economic development in China.
June 26
China Food and Drug Administration promulgated Measures for the Supervision and Administration of the E-commerce Drug Business Pilot Program.
June 29
The Ministry of Education promulgated Interim Provisions on the Administration of Education Websites and Internet Schools.
July 1
The procurement and bidding website (www.chinabidding.gov.cn) was designated by the State Development Planning Commission with the authorization of the State Council as the only Internet media through which the government will release public procurement announcements.
July 7
The Enterprise Online Project, which was jointly initiated by China Telecommunications Corporation and Economic Information Center of State Economic and Trade Commission under the guidance of State Economic and Trade Commission and the Ministry of Information Industry, was officially launched.
September 1
Beijing Municipal Administration of Industry and Commerce issued the Interim Measures on the Registration for Records and Management of Commercial Websites.
September 25
The State Council issued the Regulation on Telecommunications of the People's Republic of China. This was the first comprehensive regulation in China that governed the telecommunication industry, indicating that the development of the telecommunication industry in China began to follow a legal track. On the same day，the State Council announced the implementation of Regulation on Internet Information Service of the People's Republic of China.
November 7
The registration system for Chinese domain names of China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) was upgraded in an all-round way, and began to offer the Chinese domain name services with such suffixes as ".CN", ".中国", ".公司" and ".网络".
December 7
The Internet Civilized Program, jointly initiated by the Ministry of Culture, the Central Committee of the Communist Youth League of China, the State Administration of Radio Film and Television, All-China Students' Federation, National Informationization Office, Guangming Daily, China Telecom, China Mobile and other organizations, was officially launched in Beijing, with a theme of "Civilized Internet Activities, Civilized Internet Construction and Civilized Network".
December 26
Entrusted by the State Development Planning Commission, the inspection meeting of the China Education and Research Network (CERNET) Upgrading Project was held at Tsinghua University.
December 28
The nineteenth session of the Standing Committee of the Ninth People's Congress voted through Decision of the Standing Committee of the People's Congress on Preserving the Internet Security.
January
A Japanese Internet investment firm SoftBank invested USD 20 million in Alibaba and form a business alliance with Alibaba, and Sun Zhengyi served as chief adviser to Alibaba.
January
Shanda obtained USD 3 million worth of investment from china , expanding its business scope to the development and management of online interactive entertainment communities, instant communication software development and services, and online animation and comics. As a result, its operation seemed confused and chaotic.
January
China raised USD 300 million by issuance of new shares.
January 1
Li Yanhong and Xu Yong returned from Silicon Valley and started Baidu Inc with USD 1.2 million in venture capital.
February
The Yahoo! website was attacked by hackers, resulted in a direct loss of at least USD500,000.
February
Dangdang raised venture capital for the first time.
February 1
The online banking platform of ICBC was officially launched in Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai and Guangzhou.
March
NETEASE launched wap.163 which enabled mobile Internet access via various types of mobile phones.
March
Ctrip received the second round of capital injection from Japan's Softbank.
March
Im123 was split from china and listed on Hong Kong Growth Enterprise Market, raising USD 170 million and increasing its cash in hand to USD 560 million.
March 10
The NASDAQ Composite Index hit a record high of 5132 points.
April
Huicong International launched its B2B website, currently known as hc360 .
April
NSFOCUS, one of the earliest companies engaged in the field of web security in China, was incorporated.
April
SINA was the first among China's three major portals to be listed on the NASDAQ and raised USD 68 million. The listing of SINA was a shot in the arm to China's Internet industry.
April 20
China Mobile Communications Corporation was incorporated with a registered capital of RMB 51.8 billion.
May
TD-SCDMA was approved by the International Telecommunication Union as international standard for the third generation mobile telecommunications.
May
Baidu provided the website portal enet with search engine services for the first time. It quickly dominated the search engine market in China and became the main search engine services provider.
May
Beijing "qianlong " (May 8) and Shanghai "eastday " (May 28) were launched, marking the establishment of China's large-scale news media platforms.
May
Joyo , build through mutual investment of Lenovo and Kingsoft was officially incorporated.
May 15
The website of China Youth Daily was revised as cyol.net. The new website was run by Beijing China Youth Online Networking and Information Technology Company Limited. It was the first central-government owned news media website operated in the form of a company.
May 17
China Telecommunications Corporation was founded and CMNET was put into operation. On the same day, China Mobile officially launched GoTone WAP (Wireless Application Protocol) services.
June
Yahoo! and Google signed an agreement which retained Google to provide search engine services for Yahoo.
June
Baidu launched an independent search portal baidu and laid a solid foundation for future development.
June
Dangdang launched an online store which focused on the sales of music and videos.
June
SOHU was listed.
June
China Unicom was successfully listed in Hong Kong and New York Exchange Markets, raising USD 5.65 billion, making it one of the world's top ten largest initial public offerings.
June 21
Tencent and Shenzhen Unicom, Shenzhen Branch of China Unicom launched the first batch of 10,000 STK card with embedded "Mobile QQ" menu under Shenzhen Branch's New Mobile Life program, so as to provide more convenient services to users. "Mobile QQ" services embedded in these cards included sending messages, searching for information, checking the status of friends, searching for Tencent QQ users by different query criteria and other functions.
June 30
NETEASE was successfully listed on NASDAQ.
July 19
UNINET of China Unicom was officially put into operation.
August
NETEASE's website became the first Internet portal available by satellite link in China, indicating NETEASE entered into the field of broadband services.
August
ICBC joined hands with Alibaba to launch B2B online payment services.
August 21
Shanghai-based Xinmin Evening News issued e-newspaper in both Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese via ePost, platform of Taiwan-based Internet media Mingri Newspaper. It was the first Mainland China-based news media issuing content in the form of e-mail through a Taiwan-based website.
August 24
Lenovo announced its acquisition of 40% shares of Yestock Limited at a price of USD 293 million.
August 24
Zhang Shuxin announced the acquisition of InfoHighway.
August 24
The 100M mirrored node founded by China Internet Network Information Center, People's Daily, Xinhua News Agency, China Radio International, and China Daily was official launched in the United States. The purpose of this move was to greatly improve Internet access speed and page view of the five websites.
September
DFJ, IDG and other international well-known venture capital firms invested a large sum of money in Baidu.
September 12
Google announced it would add simplified Chinese and traditional Chinese in google and began to provide service for all Chinese.
September 14
SOHU acquired China's largest online youth community ChinaRen .
September 19
China Mobile released the Monternet Plan in Beijing.
September 1
Tom spent USD 20 million to acquire shawei .
September 5
Tom spent USD 48 million to acquired 163 from NETEASE, setting foot in the Internet portal market.
October
Google launched the AdWords advertising system and became the world's largest search engine when its search index reached 1 billion URLs.
October
SOHU was named by Forbes as one of the global best listed small companies.
October
To better promote China's export trade, Alibaba launched the "Chinese Suppliers" services.
October
China Unicom successfully listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange and became the largest listed company in China's capital market.
October 26
Baidu Online Network Technology Co Ltd. announced that it had completed the second round of fund raising.
November
Ctrip acquired the largest traditional tourism services provider Xiandai Yuntong and received the third round of capital injection from Carlyle Group and other investors.
November 10
China Mobile launched the Monternet Plan and created a value chain that promoted openness and win-win cooperation.
November 16
Baidu announced that it would provide Chinese web page search engine services to domestic operations of SINA (NASDAQ: SINA), one of China's two major Internet portals, supporting the launch of its comprehensive search engine.
November 28
Lhasa Evening News launched its website with an independent domain name. With the launch of the website of Lhasa Evening News, the goal that all provinces and autonomous regions of Mainland China had news media websites was finally achieved. This move also showed the burgeoning development of Internet news media in western regions of China.
December
Alibaba received USD 25 million worth of investment from Japan-based Softbank and other overseas consortia, laying a solid foundation for Alibaba's e-commerce kingdom.
December
Tencent granted Guangzhou Donglixing the exclusive right to develop products with QQ trademark and logo.
December
NETEASE acquired Westward Journey, a game developed by Tianxia Studio, and its technical team.
December
New Oriental's online education platform (www.koolearn ) was created and later became a famous distance education portal.
December 13
Lenovo invested RMB 50 million to acquire 50% of the shares of New Oriental and joint hands with New Oriental to launch www.koolearn .
December 26
China Railway Communication Corporation Limited was incorporated.
December 27
Sina and sohu were among the first commercial websites to obtain government approval to engage in news publishing activities.
January
China first hacking group China Hawks was founded. Its founder Wan Tao, was a key member of Green Army and was later known as the North Beggar in Chinese hacker community.
January
China lost the Nanjing massacre trial in Japan, resulting in a hacking incident launched by Chinese hackers, known as the "Fourth Patriotic Hacking".
February
Yahoo!, CNN, Amazon, eBay, Buy , ZDNet, E*Trade, Datek and other websites were under DDoS (distributed denial of service) attacks.
March
CERNET's Beijing-Nanjing and Beijing-Xi'an 155M lines were officially put into operation. The transmission rate of the interconnection network of CERNET and CHINANET rose to 155M.
May
CERNET and Interaet2 signed an interconnection agreement.
May
The second Sino-US Internet Seminar sponsored by the Internet societies of China and the U.S. and jointly hosted by CERNET, Computer Network Information Center of Chinese Academy of Sciences, and University of Maryland, was held in Beijing.
May 4
"I love you" virus began to spread across the world. This virus slowed down infected email systems and led to system crashes. The computer and email systems of the U.S. Department of Defense, the Central Intelligence Agency, the British Parliament and many multinational companies all fell victim to the "I Love You" virus. The Internet became the most widely used medium for spreading viruses.
July
"King of Kings", China's first online graphic MUD game in every sense of the term was officially launched. The operation model of online games in China was established through King of Kings, and the potential market revealed by the game attracted more companies to enter into online gaming market.
July
Jack Ma appeared on the cover of Forbes and became the first Chinese entrepreneur to appear on the cover of Forbes in 50 years.
July 18
Researcher Qian Hualin from Computer Network Information Center of Chinese Academy of Sciences was elected Council Chairman of Asia Pacific Top Level Domain Association (APTLD) by a unanimous vote.
August
NETEASE rolled out a new TV commercial "Netease, bringing people together", calling for more people to participate in the development of the Internet.
August
The APAN 2000 meeting sponsored by the Asia Pacific Advanced Network (APAN) and hosted by CERNET and Computer Network Information Center of Chinese Academy of Sciences was held in Beijing.
August 21
The 16th World Computer Congress was ceremoniously held at Beijing International Convention Center. President Jiang Zemin wrote an inscription for the congress and delivered an important speech at the opening ceremony. He advocated the formulation of the Internet convention in order to jointly strengthen the information security management and to give full play to the positive role of the Internet.
September
CERNIC, the information service center of CERNET, took the lead in providing the IPv6 address assignment services.
September
Tsinghua University built up the first new-generation Internet exchange center DRAGONTAP in China. Interconnection with the international new-generation academic networks such as Abilene, vBNS, CA*net3 was realized by using a 10Mbps line to connect CERNET, CSTNET and NSFCNET via DRAGONTAP to the new-generation Internet exchange center STARTAP located in Chicago and the APAN exchange center located in Tokyo.
October 11
Important decisions concerning digital development was made at the Fifth Plenary Session of the Fifteenth Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, and the CPC Central Committee's Proposal for Formulating of the Tenth Five-Year Program for China's Economic and Social Development, was reviewed and adopted at the same meeting, which pointed out that "making vigorous promotion of nationwide economic and social informatization into a strategic measure covering the entire picture of modernization construction." According to the proposal, China should use information technology to promote industrialization and utilize the advantages of late movers to achieve leapfrog social development.”
November
Yuzhi Ketong introduced the online game "Light of Darkness" from South Korea under a license agreement. Although the unfinished game was soon pushed out of the market, it was still the first step of the online gaming industry of South Korea towards competing for China's online gaming market.
December
CERNET was connected to 800 important universities and scientific research institutes, covering 150 cities in China and more than 5 million users.
December
China Mobile's operating capacity exceeded 100 million users.
December 12
Websites including people , xinhuanet , china , CCTV , CRI Online, China Daily and China Youth International were approved by the State Council Information Office to publish news, becoming the first key news websites that had obtained the permit to publish news.
December 7
The Civilized Internet Program jointly initiated by the Ministry of Culture, the Central Committee of the Communist Youth League of China, the State Administration of Radio Film and Television, All-China Students' Federation, National Informationization Office, Guangming Daily, China Telecom, China Mobile and other units, was officially launched in Beijing, with a theme of "Civilized Internet Activities, Civilized Internet Construction and Civilized Network".
December
The most influential Chinese hacking group "Honker Union" was founded. Its founder Lin Yong (Lion) became a key leader in patriotism education activities of Chinese hackers.
