CNN.com: China cracks down on Internet

While dissident groups have been quick to adopt Internet communications, using e-mail and bulletin board sites to spread information, they have been confronted by strict government regulations, surveillance, arrests, confiscation of equipment and the use of informants, the Rand report said Monday.

The report said there was evidence that the Chinese government was using the Internet to criticize dissidents and was sending thousands of bogus messages to dissidents' e-mail addresses.

"Predictions that the Internet would bring revolutionary political change to China were exaggerated," said Michael Chase, a co-author of the Rand report.

"The Chinese government's attempts to promote self-censorship are succeeding. The Internet is likely to support change, but it will probably be evolutionary."

Fast uptake

Internet use has spread quickly in China, up from about 1 million users in October 1997 to more than 33 million in January 2002, the report said.

Most of China's Internet users are young, well-educated men who live in eastern cities, while less than 2 percent are rural peasants, the demographic group that makes up the bulk of the nation's population.

The Internet has been an effective tool for some dissidents, who have sent e-mail messages to large groups of people, sometimes including government leaders.

By using different originating e-mail addresses, recipients can more easily deny they asked for the information if questioned by government officials, the report said.

Dissidents who have left China also use the Internet to stay active in Chinese political life, creating Web sites with news and commentary and sending electronic magazines to an audience they claim includes as many as 1 million addresses, according to the report.