This chapter surveys the drivers that shape the current and future information technology (IT) landscape in Asia. IT’s current status will be viewed from two major perspectives:

Use and adoption of advanced information technology, and

Production and creation of information technology.

To understand the factors driving and shaping the future of both IT use and production trends, we examine the history and development of models that exist today and key environmental factors, such as government policies and funding.

Asia includes both the world’s most advanced IT users and producers and also some of the least advanced (see Tables 1.1, 1.2,...

This chapter addresses two interrelated questions—how has IT changed political dynamics within the countries of the Asia-Pacific region? And how are governments using IT to govern? To answer the first, which requires investigation of political dynamics, we look largely at the “bottom-up” actions and initiatives of citizens, civil society, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and political parties, from organizing protests of government policies to overthrowing sitting regimes. In answering the second question, we will examine “top-down” initiatives of governments that use technology to deliver information and services, generally termed electronic government or e-government. The division between these two topics is not...