To: Distribution From: David K. Kahaner US Office of Naval Research Asia (From outside US): 23-17, 7-chome, Roppongi, Minato-ku, Tokyo 106 Japan (From within US): Unit 45002, APO AP 96337-0007 Tel: +81 3 3401-8924, Fax: +81 3 3403-9670 Email: kahaner@cs.titech.ac.jp Re: Networking in PRC China (Kuo) 15 July 1992 This file is named "china.net" ABSTRACT. A description of networking activities in PRC (China). (F.F.Kuo, SRI) My report on the Internetworking conference [inet.92, 26 June 1992] was read by Dr. Franklin F. Kuo Executive Director, Asian Programs SRI International 333 Ravenswood Avenue Menlo Park, CA 94025 Tel: (415) 859-4116; Fax: (415) 859-6171 Email: KUO@NISC.SRI.COM Dr Kuo was particularly interested in the sections on China, as he has recently completed a visit to look at the networking situation there, and has prepared the report below detailing his trip. It provides material supplemental to that in my report and should be of value to those interested in the developments of international networking. ********************************************************************* NETWORKING IN THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CHINA (PRC) by Franklin F. Kuo, SRI International At the invitation of the China Institute of Communications, the Citizen Ambassador Program of People to People International arranged a visit for a delegation of professionals in telecommunications and networking technology to the People's Republic of China. I was the leader of the delegation, whose purpose was to exchange information and solidify contacts with Chinese professionals within the computer and communications industry. The exchange focussed on topics dealing with China's telecommunications infrastructure, especially on subjects relating to current research and applications in computer networks. This group, known as the Networking Technology Delegation, consisted of 24 members, with 18 professionals, and 6 accompanying spouses. Of the 24 there were 17 people from the US, 5 from Japan (2 US citizens residing in Tokyo) one from Germany, and one from Hong Kong, so it was truly an international group. Six members of the delegation were native Chinese speakers, which made it very convenient in our travels. The itinerary for our trip was as follows: May 11-15, 1992 Beijing May 15-19, Xi'an May 19-22, Shanghai May 22-24, Hong Kong Our professional visits concentrated on telecommunications and on computer networking. We visited a number of the major research institutes and universities in Beijing, Xi'an and Shanghai. In all three cities there was a lot of interest in computer networking, especially in the Internet, and how to connect to it. Another question that frequently came up was the future of OSI vs that of TCP/IP. There are a lot of local area networks in operation in China, connecting many PC-clones, mostly Chinese produced, to some older-generation mainframes such as Honeywells. What we did not see were operational wide-area networks, with the exception of a metropolitan demonstration network in Beijing. Current Wide Area Networks At present, the major wide area network (WAN) in China is the China National Public Data Network, CNPAC, which is currently being developed and implemented. CNPAC, an X-25 packet switched network is designed to carry data at speeds varying between 1.2 and 9.6 Kbps. The hub is in Beijing, where the network management center is located, with packet switches sited in the major cities of Shanghai and Guangzhou, and PS concentrators found in other major cities. The packet switches, concentrators, and PADs (packet assembly/disassembly devices) are all manufactured in China. At the Beijing hub, there is an international access line to CNPAC. Since we did not see a CNPAC demonstration, it is not clear how much of it is operational and how much is still under development. There are other private data networks in use in China in applications in the railway system, banking system, civil aeronautics, etc. In China, there is an X.25 link to the Internet using a store and forward system via the CNPAC international access line in Beijing connecting to the University of Karlsruhe, Germany. To the outside world, this link is being called "the China Academic Network (CANET)". In addition to CNPAC connectivity, there is dial-up access to CANET from inside China. David Kahaner of ONR Tokyo reports that he frequently communicates with Chinese scientists via CANET. However, many of the Chinese networking specialists we talked to have never heard of the name "CANET", so we suspect that CANET means more to the outside world than in China. The major problem confronting the development of WANs in China is the poor telecommunications infrastructure. Since the penetration of basic plain old telephone service (POTS) is less than 1% among Chinese businesses and households, and since local and long distance telephone switching and transmission facilities are inadequate and antiquated, it is difficult to build a modern computer network upon the current telecommunications infrastructure. It will take decades to bring the basic telecommuncations system up to modern standards, so Chinese networking will take a long time to come up to western norms also. Metropolitan and Campus Networks In Beijing, we witnessed a very impressive metropolitan networking project called NCFC (National Computing and Networking Facility of China). NCFC is a demonstration network in Beijing linking the two major universities, Tsinghua and Beijing Universities to a number of research institutes of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). Each of the pariticipating institutions have campus networks like the TUnet of Tsinghua University. These campus networks are connected by NCFC as a two level system. Currently NCFC has a 10Mbps backbone connecting the three campus networks, which will increase to 100Mbps in the next phase of the project. Communication protocols will be ISO/OSI, but TCP/IP is the first phase protocol. The top level of NCFC consists of the backbone and the network control center. The second level is composed of campus networks at the two universities and CAS. NCFC is the largest and most ambitious networking project we saw in China. It is partially funded by the World Bank and the State Planning Commission, and is in limited operation now, with full operation expected by 1994. We visited two of the three groups who are participating in the development of NCFC. The first was the Computer Network Center (CNC) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, with its own campus network, the CASnet. The CNC seems to have the major responsibility for the development of NCFC, and is staffed by 40 professionals. The second group, in Tsinghua University, is described next. The Tsinghua University Network (TUnet) The most impressive university networking group we visited was at Tsinghua University, the premier technical university in China. Under the direction of Professor Hu Daoyuan, the Tsinghua University network, TUnet is being developed under a well laid-out strategy based upon the following goals: 1. It will be a universal, comprehensive campus network; its usage will include instruction, research, administration, library, and communications services. 2. It will be a multimedia integrated services network; messages transmitted in the network will include not only data, but voice and video as well. 3. It will operate under accepted international standards for interfacing devices to the network. Emerging standards are important in the fast changing technology of networking. Initially TUnet will operate under TCP/IP, but migration strategies have been adopted to migrate to ISO/OSI. 4. It will be a heterogeneous network using a variety of advanced networking technologies (LAN, PABX, PS, ISDN and FDDI, etc) to interconnect multivendor computing facilities. 5. It will be developed in phases, with the first phase (1987 to 1991) concentrating on interconnection of facilties, and the second phase (1992 to 1995) emphasizing network services. In TUnet there are three major networking facilities: a. A circuit switched network based upon an integrated services PABX, b. A packet switching network based upon X.25 switches and PADs, c. Ethernet LANs interconnected through a 100 Mbps FDDI optical fiber backbone. A key function of TUnet is electronic mail. Tsinghua University's message handling system (MHS) functions includes mail, telegraph, teletext, fax, videotex, voice, images, etc. The MHS is based upon the EAN system developed by the University of British Columbia conforming to the CCITT X.400 recommendation series of 1984. Tsinghua's work on its e-mail system includes migration, Chinese localization, menu adaptation and the implementation of remote user agents. The work at Tsinghua on TUnet and NCFC underlines one of the basic constraints that Chinese networking technologists must live with. Unless you have foreign (hard) currencies to purchase networking equipment, you've got to design and build everything from scratch, including hardware and software. So TUnet represents in many ways a bootstrap operation. The people in TUnet are all very well trained and dedicated. It is unfortunate that they could not make use of technology that is readily available in the Western world. Local Area Networks (LANs) In China today there are many LANs in use. Two common LAN products widely available throughout China are Ethernets from 3COM, and Netware, a LAN operating system developed by the Novell company. These products are available in China because of joint venture arrangements that the cited companies have made with Chinese counterparts. Most of the LAN products are manufactured in China under license from US companies such as 3COM and Novell. At the Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Professor Yang Chuan-hou, the Director of the Computer Network Research Laboratory presented to us some work which dealt with an architectural design of a gateway interconncting LANs to an X.25 packet switched network. The work again was developmental in nature, in that both hardware and software designs were implemented in the laboratory. Work like that of Professor Yang and his colleagues illustrate the practical nature of the networking development going on in China today. I visited China in 1984, when I was a World Bank consultant to Shanghai Jiao Tong University. In the intervening years, there has been an explosive growth in both computing and networking technology in China, which will only accelerate with the further penetration of the Internet into China. Since the Internet is capable of bringing network specialists and users throughout the world into a larger cooperating community, I believe that China's networking community will soon become full partners in this world-wide community. ------------------------------END OF REPORT------------------------------