Spurred by the country's economic achievements, internet development in China over the past five years has been drastically increased. In the debate over the role of market mechanisms in contributing to the socialist economic system, the issue of the invasion of foreign information has been widely raised by Chinese officials. The key difference between the traditional capitalist world system and the virtual community in the information age is thus:information flows cannot be monitored as easily as capital flows. Similar to the "two-line struggle" policy debate that preceded the "open door" campaign in the 1970's socialist China is now facing a serious challenge of the new information era. Policy evaluations are being undertaken on the consequences of the impact of information flows on the role of the state, class and ethnic relationships, and even cross-straits relations.