nuance intelligence

It’s hard to miss this on the web toda — China has more Internet users than America.

AP reports:

The research firm BDA China Ltd. says China’s online population should keep growing by 18 percent annually, reaching 490 million by 2012 — a number larger than the entire U.S. population.

And continues with interesting business context:

Total revenues for China’s Internet companies soared to 40.5 billion yuan ($5.9 billion) in 2007, up 48.6 percent from the previous year, the research firm Analysys International reported this week. It said revenues should keep growing at an annual rate of at least 30 percent in coming years, reaching 137.5 billion yuan by 2010.

By contrast, U.S. online advertising revenues alone in 2007 were $21.2 billion (145.2 billion yuan), according to a report by consulting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers for the Interactive Advertising Bureau.

What’s the nuance?

While it’s easy to bemoan the fall of the US, I think Fareed Zakaria’s new book has it right –  it’s not so much about the fall of America, but the rise of ‘everone else.’

But if you’re still deluding yourself that “we’re number one!”, the shock is going to be pretty severe when you wake up.  Don’t bang your head when exiting the cave.

At the same time, AP points out the most important facts of all:

Web surfers have been jailed for posting or e-mailing material that criticizes communist rule or is deemed a violation of vague national security laws.

Beijing blocks access to Web sites run by dissidents, human rights groups and some foreign news media. Web surfers were blocked from seeing Google Inc.‘s YouTube and other foreign sites with video footage of anti-government protests in Tibet in March.

And even we’ve lost some serious moral high ground in the past decade, we jail waaaaaay fewer people for anti-government protests.