In order to compete with Wikipedia, China is building its own version of the popular online encyclopedia, according to an article by Today Online.
Planned to be an online version of the existing national encyclopedia, the project involves thousands of scholars to make the online repository a reality. It’s a challenge, however, as the third edition of the Chinese encyclopedia was made with entries from over 20,000 authors to cover more than 100 areas of studies.
“The Chinese Encyclopedia is not a book, but a Great Wall of Culture,” Yang Muzhi, the project’s editor-in-chief and the chairman of the Book and Periodicals Distribution Association of China, told an audience during a meeting at the Chinese Academy of Sciences on April 12, Today Online reported.
Still, the people behind the project are optimistic the online encyclopedia will be a success.
Once finished, the reference book will have over 300,000 entries, with each article approximately a thousand words long. If all goes according to plan, the Chinese online encyclopedia will be nearly the size of Wikipedia’s Chinese-language version and larger than the Encyclopedia Britannica.
According to Yang, China has long been pressured to produce an online encyclopedia that will help safeguard and guide the Chinese society.
The Chinese online encyclopedia project was approved by the State Council in 2011, but it was only recently that work started.
According to Bai Chunli, the CAS president, the project will help shine the light on China’s achievements in various fields, “promote historical heritage, increase cultural soft power and strengthen the core values of socialism.”
Access to the Chinese-language Wikipedia is restricted in China, with most articles concerning keywords such as “Xi Jinping” and “Dalai Lama” unavailable. There are, however, other online encyclopedias in China, some of which were developed by Internet companies like Qihoo 360 and Baidu.