"According to CNNIC (that second N is a mystery)"... OK Austin, can you tell me the two-letter country code for China?

And Hong Kong has already provided a Chinese Paris Hilton angle... the Edison Chen scandal:

http://articles.yuikee.com.hk/newsletter/2008/02/a.html

What extra N? The ccTLD for china is .cn, so CNNIC makes sense; the fact that they then call it "China Internet Network Information Center" is the odd part, but then presumably it's a translation from the Chinese where it makes much more sense.

In China everything is either National or The People's, so my money is on a clear national network in the middle there.

Positive: "No, she's unique"

Negative: "No, she's unique, thankfully"

:-)

What innovations has China produced since the times of Marco Polo? So far they are just good (well, make that cheap) in copying stuff.

They didn't make the step from Xerox to homegrown innovation like the Japanese and Koreans did at one time, and I don't see that they will in the near future.

Working every day with chinese technology "experts" I am less than impressed by the so called chinese juggernaut. There is a reason they churn out "engineers" in such large numbers and in so little time...

I think the established innovation centers still can sleep soundly at night and let all the members of the alledgedly biggest internet population farm Gold for WoW as much as they please.

Half of BT's 21c Network will be Chinese hardware!

@ Edison Chen. Edison Chen is a bloke so the PH comparison doesn't count!

Numerically, maybe - content, not.

I mean have you SEEN their third-rate p0rn and crap adverts? Even homegrown CN spam doesn't pass muster - they can't even spell 'enlargement'.

For smut and commerce, Uncle Sam still leads the world

... it depends on how you count people as "Online", at the moments none of them can get on youtube unless they pull a bit of techno giggery pokery.

Wrong !! Pop into Hong Kong and you'll see tons of them !! Also, considering the anorexic nature of these creatures, that adds up to a lot of them !!

@Andy Barber - his "playmates", dummy; his "playmates" !! Wannabe singers and actresses !! Need I say more ??

@ Innovation? - extremely valuable Ming vases sold at Sotherby's for one !! Water-tight bulkheads and stern post rudders, 4 (four) centuries before the rest of the world - read 1421 by Gavin Menzies.

I hope "rhetoric" is on your list of gold medals as well. It's one of the few "CCP approved" achievements that the world could believe in complete confidence.

...a half an hour later you are still hungry!

Mine's the one with the half eaten No 45 with black bean sauce in the pocket.

At least half of them are farming gold on World of Warcraft servers!

While you're pointing at the Chinese' lack of innovation, crap porn and lack of access to You Tube!, the Chinese are quietly siphoning up all the available oil in the world, buying up your national industries and stashing away the IOU's for your national economies.

Good thing a laugh doesn't cost much because, pretty soon, you'll have to buy them from the Chinese.

Hey, why no comparison with the entire EU?

China was and will always be a great country. But sadly at the moment, the joint is run by a lingering gang of old men who still cling to the outdated notions and ideas about how to modernizer and grow China’s true potential. This gang is terribly afraid of loosing control of the whole thing. So beyond those lucky ones living in Hong Kong and Shanghais, the bulk of Chinese web surfers are allowed only a few very poor web waves! They may be imitators now, but god help us when they start to get it right!