The Chinese Xinhua news agency says there were 1.5 million internet users at the and of 1998 compared to 600,000 at the and of the previous year. Some 400,000 of those were in Beijing. China knows how many users it has – or at least thinks it does – because users have to register with the government before opening an account. There are 540,000 computers linked to the net and a surprising 14,000 ISPs, which means each one only has on average 107 subscribers. Last week in Beijing, Nicholas Negroponte predicted that the country would have 10 million users by 2000, reports Reuters.
