Telecommunications reform in China: Fostering competition through state intervention

As in many developing countries, the telecommunications services sector in China has for a long time been monopolized by the state through the Ministry of Post and Telecommunication (MPT). Established in 1949, the MPT is not only the regulator of telecommunications services, but also the sole owner and operator. Not surprisingly, such monopoly has resulted in the slow growth of the sector. However, such slow growth did not cause major problems in the first thirty years following the founding of the People’s Republic of China because there was little mobility among the population, thus little need for long-distance communication. During this period, the telephone was an exclusive luxury available mostly to the government and the military.