January 1
The internet-based School Link project entered the official implementation phase.
January 8
The Ministry of Health issued Regulations on Administrations of Internet-based Healthcare Information Services.
January 11
State Drug Administration issued Tentative Provisions on Administration of Internet-based Pharmaceutical Information Services which came into force from February 1, 2001.
January 17
China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) issued the seventh Statistical Report on Internet Development in China: By December 31, 2000, there were about 8,920,000 computers in total which had access to the Internet in China. There were about 22,500,000 Internet subscribers, 122,099 domain names registered under .CN, and about 265,405 WWW websites. The international bandwidth was 2799M.
March
The Fourth Session of the Ninth National People's Congress passed the Tenth Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development, which clearly set out the following targets: to focus on development of applications and market oriented products and services, network construction, sharing of resources, technology innovation, competition and openness; to promote leapfrog development of China's information industry; to accelerate the digital development process; and to raise the proportion of the information industry in China's national economy.
April
TD-SCDMA was officially accepted by 3GPP as one of the standards for 3G telecommunications.
April 10
Beijing Municipal Administration of Industry and Commerce issued the Interim Measures for Management of Online Advertisements.
April 13
The Ministry of Information Industry, the Ministry of Public Security, the Ministry of Culture and State Administration for Industry & Commerce of the People's Republic of China deployed and carried out the special-purpose rectifications against Internet bars.
April 3
The Ministry of Information Industry, the Ministry of Public Security, the Ministry of Culture and State Administration for Industry & Commerce of the People's Republic of China jointly issued Administrative Measures on Business Sites of Internet Access Services which came into force from the date of issuance.
May
China Information Technology Security Evaluation Center was founded with the approval of State Commission Office for Public Sector Reform. It was responsible for conducting the national evaluation on the information security products, information system security, information security services and information security professionals.
May 10
The Ministry of Information Industry promulgated Regulations on Interconnection between Public Telecommunications Networks.
May 25
The Internet Society of China was founded. Under the guidance of the Ministry of Information Industry and with the approval of the Ministry of Civil Affairs, it was jointly sponsored by more than 70 Internet practitioners in China, including network operators, service providers, equipment manufacturers, systems integrators, research institutes and education institutions.
June
The 3G experiment team was built to carry out 3G experiments. In December of the same year, single system tests were conducted.
June 1
The Port Electronic Enforcement System - Electronic Port, which was jointly developed by 12 relevant ministries and commissions with General Administration of Customs taking the lead, was put into full operation in each port of China after its pilot operation in the import-export ports in Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai and Guangzhou.
July
The development project of "regional backbone networks and information service systems for key subjects of China Education and Research Network (CERNET)" under Project 211 passed the final inspection of the government, making the completion of China's first next generation academic research internetwork.
July 1
2001, Informatization-specific Planning in the Tenth Five-year Plan of the National Economy and Social Development was formulated.
July 1
2001, the important joint project of National Natural Science Fund NSFCNET (1999-2000), which was jointly undertaken by Tsinghua University, Computer Network Information Center of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Peking University, Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, etc., passed the appraisal and inspection and became the first next-generation Internet-based academic research network in China. The research focused on the fiber optic transmission system of the density wave division multiplexing, high-speed computer internetwork, important application research and demonstration system in the high-speed network environment.
July 9
The People's Bank of China issued Tentative Procedures on Administration of Online Banking Services.
July 11
The Central Committee of the Communist Party of China held the lecture on the rule of law at Huairen Hall in Zhongnanhai, which focused on the use of legal means to guarantee and facilitate the healthy development of information network. Jiang Zemin, General Secretary of the Communist Party of China, chaired the lecture and delivered an important speech.
July 29
The Ministry of Information Industry announced the indicator composition plan for national digital development as the basis and means for the quantitative analysis and management of the national and regional digital development level.
August
National Computer Network and Information Center set up “National Computer Network Emergency Response Technical Team/Coordination Center of China (CNCERT/CC).
August 23
National Information Work Leading Group was rebuilt, and Premier Zhu Rongji, member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, acted as the group leader.
September 7
Outline of the Tenth Five-year Plan of IT Industry was officially issued. This was the first sector planning after the State determined the important strategy on digital development.
September 7
National Informatization Promotion Office issued Survey Report on Quantity of Internet Information Resources in China. This was China's first survey on the network information resources.
September 20
The Ministry of Information Industry issued Interconnected Settlement Method for Backbone Networks of the Internet.
September 29
The Ministry of Information Industry issued Temporary Provisions on Interconnection Services among Backbone Networks of the Internet.
October 8
The Ministry of Information Industry issued Temporary Provisions on Administration of Interconnection among Backbone Networks of the Internet.
October 12
The Internet Committee of Zhejiang Provincial Journalists Association (abbreviated as ICZPJA) was founded. It was the first news publishing website founded by the Journalists Association in China
October 27
The Right to Network Dissemination was officially included in the revised Copyright Law of the People's Republic of China which was approved and adopted by the 24th session of the Standing Committee of the 9th National People's Congress. Relevant new provisions in it provide laws to abide by for the copyright protection in the network transmission environment.
November
The Ministry of Information Industry laid out the information industry of China again and split China Telecom roughly along the south-north line. After the restructuring, a "5+1" structure consisting of China Netcom, China Telecom, China Mobile, China Unicom, China Tietong and China Satellite Communications Group was formed.
November
Academician Hu Qiheng, Vice-chairman of China Association for Science and Technology and Chairman of CNNIC Working Committee, was appointed as the member of the Multilingual Domain Name Committee of ICANN.
November 4
China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) offered the Internet Keyword service.
November 20
Demonstration Project of Electronic Government Affair Application in China passed the evaluation, indicating that China had took an important step towards electronic government.
November 22
The Central Committee of the Communist Young League, the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Culture, the State Council Information Office, All-China Youth Federation, All-China Students Federation, China Young Pioneers Working Commission, and China Youth Association for Internet Development officially issued All-China Youth Network Civilization Convention.
December
Telecommunication Administration Bureau of the Ministry of Information Industry issued Settlement Regulations of National Internet Exchange Center.
December
China recorded the first negative growth in ".CN" domain name registration and the increase of the number of Internet sites began to slow down.
December
Top ten major internetworks in China signed the interconnection and intercommunication agreement, which meant that from now on, the Chinese netizens might surf the Internet trans-regionally in a more convenient and smoother way.
December 3
China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) issued Survey Report on Internet Bandwidth in China for the first time. By September 30, the international exit bandwidth of China reached 5724M.
December 20
The Family Online Project, which was jointly sponsored by the Ministry of Information Industry, All-China Women's Federation, the Central Committee of the Communist Young League, the Ministry of Science and Technology and the Ministry of Culture, was officially launched.
December 25
Zhu Rongji, member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, Premier of the State Council and leader of National Information Work Leading Group, chaired and held the first meeting of National Information Work Leading Group.
December 20
2001, the ten major internetworks in China signed the interconnection and intercommunication agreement, which meant that from now on, the Chinese netizens might surf the Internet trans-regionally in a more convenient and smoother way
December 31
The country-level Internet exchange centers in Shanghai and Guangdong were put into official operation.
At the end of December
The construction project of the high-speed backbone network of China Education and Research Network (CERNET) (1999-2001) passed the national acceptance check. The project was an important part of the Modern Remote Education Project in the Action Plan for Educational Vitalization Facing the 21st Century, and was the important foundation to construct a life-long education system in China. The project had built up a high-speed transmission network based on DWDM / SDH, with a capacity of up to 40Gbps. The backbone network had a transmission rate of up to 2.5Gbps, and connected to 35 provincial capitals and key cities, except for Lhasa, at a rate of 155Mbps. About one hundred colleges and universities accessed the network at 100 ~ 1000Mbps. On this basis, the Ministry of Education had approved 47 (which was expanded to 67 later) colleges and universities to set up the network education faculties, and approved 19 online cooperation research centers to carry out remote education and collaborative research on CERNET.
January
Baidu provided comprehensive search engine services to 263 .
January 1
Beijing Huayi launched Stone Age and Huayi's WGS (online game subscription system) was put into operation.
January 11
8848 was officially granted Business License for Telecommunication and Information Service Operations by Beijing Communications Administration. SOHU, SINA and NETEASE were also among the group of websites obtaining this license around that time.
January 17
SOHU launched mobile phone short message services (SMS).
February
Chinaacc was put into operation.
February
Baidu provided comprehensive search engine services to Tom .
February
Kingdee Group was listed on Hong Kong Growth Enterprise Market, giving software firms great inspirations for going public.
February
China Telecom began to provide the Internet-based international roaming service.
February 21
21CN officially launched the first intelligent personal email services in China.
March
TOM spent HKD 60 million to acquire 50% of the shares of Asia Weekly under Ming Pao Group.
March
Shanda officially entered the online game operation market. In July 2001, CEO of Shanda Chen Tianqiao spent USD 300,000 to introduce the massive online game Legend of Mir from South Korea.
March
China's first original online game Fourth World was launched by Beijing Zhongwen Zhixing Digital Technology Co., Ltd. This game filled in the gap of original online games in Mainland China.
March 8
Walt Disney Internet Group and Haihong Holding announced strategic cooperation between the two parties. Disney's Chinese website (Disney .cn) would be linked to all websites owned by Haihong, including ourgam , asiagame and ciiinaed .
March 12
Sina officially rolled out new network advertising services in Beijing, which was called Large Size Advertisements.
March 29
China undertook a massive layoff and rolled out a restructuring plan that renamed its Internet consulting group Web Connection to Global Ion.
April
Jiangmin Technology officially entered the market in Japan. It was the first anti-virus software manufacturer expanding to overseas markets, filling in the gap in exporting of domestic software with the intellectual property rights.
April
Tencent renamed its instant messaging software OICQ to "Tencent QQ", and launched new domain names: tencent and tencent.net.
April 1
Lenovo Group underwent an asset restructuring and a corporate spin-off for listing purpose.
April
NETEASE acquired Tianxia's R&D team, laying a solid foundation for its entry in the online gaming industry later.
April 18
In order to survive ferocious market competition, China's two famous professional websites, ChinaByte and yesky officially announced the merger of their Internet operations.
At the end of April
Commercial portals launched a SMS program under which they sent breaking news SMS alerts to mobile phones, expanding their Internet media operations to wireless Internet, and creating a new source of revenues.
May 15
TOM acquired 49% interest in Zhan Hongzhi's PCHome and Cite Publishing Ltd in Taiwan.
May 16
SOHU joint hands with Shenzhen Lanhuo. As information provider, SOHU provided diversified online news and email alert services to a series of "Lanhuo-Sohu" PADs produced by Lanhuo.
May 17
Coca-Cola online roadshow on sohu kicked off. This type of roadshows was tailored by SOHU for international consumer brands. It was also the first live online news conference of Coca-Cola in Asia.
May 22
Sina officially launched short message services, aiming to take lead in Internet portal SMS operations.
June
Lenovo and AOL established a joint venture company to tap into the market of consumer interactive services in China.
June
MIH, a media from South Africa, acquired a 46.5% interest in Tencent.
June 28
TOM launched the concept of "ISP access portal" in conjunction with China Unicom, China Netcom, 263 and Shenzhou Online, and achieved seamless roaming services in more than 190 cities across the country.
July 9
China Mobile's GPRS service was put into trial operation in 25 provinces/cities, indicating China's entry in the era of the 2.5 generation telecommunications.
August
Baidu released a beta version of Baidu search engine, moving its focus from backstage services to provision of search engine services, and introduced the concept of paid listing to China.
August
NETEASE obtained the electronic bulletin business license issued by Guangdong Provincial Communications Administration. Earlier, NETEASE had obtained the approval of the State Council Information Office for news publishing operations.
September
The NASDAQ suspended trading of NETEASE due to accounting irregularities in the financial statements. CEO of NETEASE Ding Lei also announced his resignation from NETEASE as chairman and CEO.
September
SOHU ranked first by iamasia according to website assets for nine times in a row (December 2000 - August 2001).
September 14
Guangzhou International Bureau of China Mobile completed network partition and connection, indicating the first point of exit of international communications of China Mobile was launched.
September 25
Sina and Sun Television Cybernetworks Holdings Limited held a press conference in Beijing, announcing their joint efforts to construct China's largest broadband portal and cross-media platform. It was one of the most important restructuring events in Internet media in 2001.
September 28
Shanda officially entered the online gaming market and launched the public beta test of the massive online game Legend of Mir. Two months later, the game began to charge subscription fees. The number of concurrent players quickly climbed to 400,000.
October
Baidu developed the global Chinese web search system for online.sh.cn.
October
Chemnet won the first intellectual property rights case after China's accession to the WTO and defended its ownership of clienmet , the world's top domain name in the global chemical industry. The case became a classic case relating to intellectual property rights in China.
October
The Financial Information Management Center of the People's Bank of China adopted Baidu WST database retrieval software.
October 22
Baidu officially released Baidu search engine.
November
NETEASE launched new generation anti-virus, anti-spam, large capacity paid email services vip.163 .
November
SOHU launched an online shopping platform targeting individual consumers: Sohu Mall.
November
NETEASE launched Fantasy Westward Journey Online, signaling the entry of Internet portals into the online gaming industry. This move made people realized that online games could be a profit growth point for Internet portals.
December
Alibaba rose above the break-even point and become profitable. It marked the money burning period of China's Internet companies had ended. At the same time, entrepreneur members registered at the website rose above one million, making alibaba the world's first business website that had more than one million members.
December
The annual sales of China's online gaming market reached nearly RMB 500 million, on a par with stand-alone games. This year was also called the Year of Online Games.
December 21
China Mobile announced its support for the open mobile infrastructure plan launched by leading mobile operators and terminal manufacturers.
December 22
The first phase of China Unicom's CDMA mobile communications network project was completed, and put into provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the central government on December 31, 2001. The completion of China Unicom's CDMA indicated that the development of China's mobile communications technology had entered a new area.
2001
China's wireless local area network (WLAN) was put into operation.
January
Beijing Broadcasting Institute Press published China's first series of works on communication networks and Internet media Series of Works on Internet Transmission (11 books in total), indicating that it was time to harvest results of related research.
January
Ziyu Zile, Yiyi Guxing, Hong Chen Ge and Wuyue Tiankong Luantan literature forums announced their withdrawal from Xilu, and jointly formed an original novel hosting website, ushering in the golden age of online library.
January 31
NetValue announced the ranking of Internet sites and entities in five countries and regions in Asia, including Hong Kong, South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan and China, and www.tencent ranked sixth in China.
March 2
Research Fellow Qian Hualin and Professor Li Xing from Tsinghua University were elected as member of the new APNIC Executive Council.
March 5th
SOHU and taikang joined hands to promote the development of the insurance industry.
April
Li Xing, a professor from Tsinghua University, was elected as president of the new APNIC Executive Council.
May
The Forth Beijing International High-Tech Week & Beijing International High-Tech Expo, attracting more than 800,000 attendants, came to an end. 823 investment and cooperation agreements were signed and the total value of these agreements reached RMB 7.922 billion.
June 22
The first convention of China Internet Media Forum was held in Qingdao. Cai Mingzhao, deputy director of the State Council Information Office, delivered a speech at the opening ceremony of the convention and the name of the speech was "Strive to Speed up the Construction of a Socialist Internet Publicity System with Chinese Characteristics".
July 31
Exclusive coverage of the mine accident in Nandan, Guangxi on people , followed by a series of reports on the Nandan incident, played a direct role in driving forward the investigation and resolution of the incident, showing the power of public supervision via Internet.
