It is a narrow room， a meter and a half wide， decorated with the awkward minimalism， peeling white paint， tilting① buffet② tables， schoolroom chairs bolted together into haphazard couches. But the attraction here isn’t the decor； it’s the machines： a beige③ Compaq Proliant 2500 computer and an off-white Dell Power edge， hooked into a refrigerator-size rack of network routers and， from there， via a thumb-thick black cable， to the infinite abundance of the Internet. Edward Zeng， the 35-year-old Chinese entrepreneur， can’t resist a grinas he looks around the modest but astonishing room buried within a warren④ of offices in the bunker-like hallwaysunder Beijing’s Capital Stadium. “Welcome to ground zero，” he says.
There is very little you cannot reach from Zeng’s tiny room. Zeng’s 1，000 Internet subscribers can dial into his computers from all over Beijing and connect nearly limitlessly to the electronic world. They can send e-mail， photos and news of China. And they can receive practically anything else.
At night， hundreds of Chinese who don’t own a PC crowd into Zeng’s six Internet Cafes， where Net time retails for 3.6 an hour. It’s fast food for the information age.
Is this China？ That shows that Beijing has settled on a policy for the Net that is as bold as it is surprising. A rising generation of Western-educated officials is pressing⑤ home the argument that the Net is the perfect vehicle to transport the Middle Kingdom into the 21st century.
Chinese government has approved a new series of laws designed to control how citizens connect to the Internet. But although the laws featured the usual restrictive rhetoric， they were clearly designed not to keep the Chinese off the Net but to get them online in an orderly way.
The official curiosity about the power of the Internet， have Beijing buzzing these days. From dinner parties given by top officials at the Great Hall of the People to bull⑥ sessionsamong young technocrat planners， the conversation has shifted from how to control the Net to how to exploit it.
And in eachhome. Every rich promise you’ve ever heard about digital technology sounds even more beguiling⑦ in China. The country has 350 million children to educate—what better vehicle than interactive television？ The Finance Ministry needs to establish bank and savings accounts for china’s 284 million workers—what more effective solution than smart cards？ Agricultural planners dream of more productive Chinese farms—how better to send weather and agro-science information to 323 million farmers than over the Web？
To tap these benefits， China has embarked on a series of nine “golden projects” that will shotgun state-of-the-art⑧ technology into every field from health care to finance. By 2010 hundreds of millions of Chinese will be wired to the Golden Bridge financial network， carrying Golden Card smart cards and automatically forking over a chunk of their salaries to the government via a microchip-enabled Golden Tax.
The Internet window is still small—only 300，000 Chinese have access to the Internet， vs. some 25 million in the U.S.—but it is opening quickly.
China would become one big， self-contained Internet—what techies like to call an intranet—sealed off from the rest of the world. China has every right to find a balance between local and foreign content.”
That’s a balance the most nimble⑨ Chinese gymnast would find tough to maintain. The Net， after all， is designed to be open. And if the idea of the Web is to make Chinese firms more competitive， that means letting them have access to everything from DuPont’s chemicals website to the U.S. Patent Office’s listing of new inventions.
Even the most vigorous Net proponents⑩ argue for a bit of patience. Some control is needed at this point， because otherwise China would go wild.
Smarter， better-informed businessmen may be more competitive in the new global economy.
① tiltv. 倾斜；翘起
② buffetn. 自助餐
③ beigeadj. 米色的
④ warrenadj. 拥挤的地区；拥挤的房屋
⑤ pressv. 催促；劝说
⑥ bullv. 通过
⑦ beguilev. 使陶醉；使着迷
⑧ state-of-the -art先进的；时髦的
⑨ nimbleadj. 敏捷的；灵巧的
⑩ proponentn. 提议人；拥护者
网络化时代
这是间狭小的屋子，1.5米宽，装饰着制作粗糙的抽象画，剥脱的白色涂料，倾斜的快餐店用桌，用铆钉固定在一起的教室用椅。但是这儿引起人们注意的不是它的装饰，而是机器：一台米色康柏Proliant 2500计算机和一台灰白色的德尔Power edge，联着一台冰箱大小的网络路由器，从那儿，通过一条拇指粗的黑色电缆线，进入广袤无边的因特网世界。指挥这个小小信息前哨的是35岁的中国企业家爱德华·曾，此刻，当他环视这个挤在北京首都体育馆脚下一排拥挤的办公室中简朴然而却令人振奋的小屋时，不禁咧嘴笑了。他说： “欢迎进入信息革命的中心。”
在曾的小屋里你几乎没有得不到的东西。曾的1，000位因特网用户可以从北京各个地方拨号进入他的计算机，联通几乎没有边界的电子世界。他们能够发送电子邮件、照片以及中国新闻，他们也能够收到任何其他东西。
夜幕降临时，数以百计没有自己的个人计算机的中国人就会拥到曾的6间 “网络咖啡屋”中，这里的上网机收费为每小时3.6美元。这是信息时代的快餐。
这是中国吗？这表明北京已经选定了一种赞同网络的政策，这是一种既大胆又出人意料的举措。处于上升态势的一代受过西方教育的官员正在竭力使人们接受这种观念，即网络是将中央王国带入21世纪的最好交通工具。
中国政府已经批准了一系列旨在控制公民接通因特网的新法律，这些法律的初衷是控制公民与国际互联网相连。尽管法律条文中充满了具有限制特色的词语，但其目的显然不是不让中国人上网，而是使他们有秩序地上网。
官员们对于互连网的能量的好奇这些天来使得北京议论纷纷。在人民大会堂举行的高层领导晚餐会上，年轻的技术规划师们已经作出了决定，他们的谈话已从控制互连网转移到了开发互连网上。
并且每个家里都摆一台。你听过的每一个有关数字技术前途无限的承诺在中国听起来都更具诱惑力。中国有3.5亿需要接受教育的儿童还有什么教育工具能比交互式电视更好？财政部需要为中国2.84亿工人建立银行和存款帐户，什么办法能比智能卡更有效？农业规划者梦想着提高中国农场的生产力棗通过网络向3.23亿农民传递有关天气和农业科学方面的信息岂不是更好？
为利用这些优势，中国已经开始实行9个 “金色计划”，以期通过这些计划将最先进的技术输入到从卫生保健到金融等的各行各业中。到2010年，上亿中国人将通过金桥金融网联为一体，携带着智能金卡四处漫游，并通过装有微芯片的金税卡自动将他们收入的相当部分上缴国库。
网络窗口目前还很小，只有30万中国人有进入因特网的接口，而在美国这个数字约为2，500万，但是它正在迅速打开。
中国将成为一个自我封闭的大因特网，亦即技术人员所称的内部网，与其余世界隔绝。中国完全有权利在本地内容和外部内容之间找到一个平衡。
但即便是中国最灵巧的体操运动员也会发现这种平衡很难维持。毕竟，网络的建立本来就是为了开放的。如果建立网络是为了增强中国公司的竞争力，那么这就意味着，要让它们接触到各种东西，从杜邦公司的化学制品网页到美国专利局的新发明名单。
即便是最强烈的网络拥护者也需要一些耐心。在这一点上进行一些控制是必要的，否则的话中国会疯狂起来。
在新的全球经济中，反应灵敏、消息灵通的生意人也许会更有竞争力。