In 1993 Only About 2000 People in China Used the Internet; then Rapid Expansion of Internet Access Occurred

In 1993 it was estimated that in China, a country with about 1,000,000,000 people, only about 2000 people used the Internet. By 2013 the growth of Internet access and use was staggering:

"China had 618 million internet users by the end of December 2013, a 9.5 percent increase over the year before and a penetration rate of 45.8%.^[8] By June 2014, there were 632 million internet users in the country and a penetration rate of 46.9%. The number of users using mobile devices to access the internet overtook those using PCs (83.4% and 80.9%, respectively).^[9] China replaced the U.S. in its global leadership in terms of installed telecommunication bandwidth in 2011. By 2014, China hosts more than twice as much national bandwidth potential than the U.S., the historical leader in terms of installed telecommunication bandwidth (China: 29% versus US:13% of the global total).^[10] As of March 2017, there are about 700 million Chinese internet users, and many of them have a high-speed internet connection. Most of the users live in urban areas but at least 178 million users reside in rural towns.^{[11]"  (Wikipedia aritcle on Internet in China, accessed 9-2020).}