Amid the hundreds of Internet websites in the ROC, the Government Information Office's site (http://www.gio.gov.tw) stands out as a pioneer by offering information in simplified Chinese characters and in German, French, Spanish and Japanese. These services went on line in July of this year. They are not only good news for friends in non-English-speaking countries and in mainland China, they also offer a useful source of Chinese information to Internet users overseas whose computers cannot display characters in Big 5 code.

The GIO website pages in German, French and Spanish can be read with any Internet browser. Users of non-Chinese (or non-Japanese) versions of Windows can follow the link from the GIO Home Page to download TwinBridge software, with which you can read online information in traditional and simplified Chinese characters (or in Japanese).

At present, the information in German, Spanish and French includes The Republic of China at a Glance, Chinese Traditional Culture in Taiwan, the ROC Constitution, and Environment. In German there is also a 12-screen Taiwan Handbook. For the moment the Japanese area contains only Sino-rama magazine and a 50,000-character Taiwan Handbook.

Chinese Traditional Culture in Taiwan covers 30 different subjects including Medicine, Food, Folk Art, Clothing, Philosophy and many more, to introduce friends overseas to many facets of China's ancient culture. It is also a convenient source of bilingual material (Chinese with English, Spanish, German or French) for Chinese living or studying anywhere in the world who wish to explain their culture to people of other nations.

The ROC at a Glance provides concise information on Taiwan's geography, population, political structures, economy, culture, education and so on. The Constitution section reproduces the full text of the ROC Constitution.

Alice Wang, deputy director of the GIO's Compilation and Translation Department, says that although the website's content is still somewhat limited in some of the languages offered, it will be gradually expanded. By the end of this year she hopes to add a number of regular GIO publications to the site: the monthly Free China Review (in German, French and Spanish editions), the weekly Free China Journal (French and Spanish) and Echoes of the Republic of China (French and Spanish) which appears every 10 days. Internet users all over the world will then be able to keep up to date with in-depth reports on the very latest major political, economic and cultural events in Taiwan.

Wang also reports that the GIO is currently discussing setting up crosslinks with websites of organizations such as the Council for Cultural Affairs, the Tourism Bureau and the China External Trade Development Council (CETRA), so that after reading the brief information on the GIO site, users can follow links to more detailed information.

Compared with the German, Spanish and French areas of the GIO site, the simplified character Chinese area offers a much richer selection of content, on a par with the original Chinese and English areas. Sections include News, the Asia-Pacific Regional Operations Center, Environment, Sinorama magazine, ROC Today, Mainland Affairs, Regulations for Media Contacts with Mainland China, and the Straits Exchange Foundation's annual report, along with two excellent Sinorama books-Taiwan's Favorite New Scenic Spots and Culinary Treasures of China-and a collection of articles on pragmatic diplomacy as the route to a win-win strategy.

Section chief Chuang Cheng-an of the GIO's Planning and Evaluation Department, who is responsible for the GIO's global Internet program, says that presenting the Chinese area of the GIO website in both traditional and simplified character versions is in keeping with global trends. Among Chinese people all over the world, some are unused to reading the traditional complex forms of characters, and many computers outside Taiwan are not configured to display the Big 5 code used in Taiwan. Thus the simplified character version will make the website's content available to a wider segment of Chinese overseas. Furthermore, as the level of cross-strait exchange continues to increase, using the swift and interactive medium of the Internet to publish information can help increase mutual understanding across the Taiwan Strait.

The content of the Environment section in Chinese and English is even richer than in the other languages, and includes such sections as Critical Issues, Taiwan's Endemic Wildlife, Wildlife Conservation and Propagation, Publications, and Conservation Law. Web surfers interested in the nature and ecology can find on-line information about the different and unique forms of wildlife which have emerged from the environment created by Taiwan's special geography. There are not only in-depth written articles, but also superb multimedia presentation. The Publications section lists over 70 academic research papers on conservation and ecology. Jay Cho, who heads Sinorama magazine's computer department, says he plans to add to this section the text and photographs from some of Sinorama's many articles over the years on environmental topics, including pieces on rhinoceros horn, tiger parts and dolphins.

Another feature of the simplified character section is that it brings together legal and other information on cross-strait affairs direct from the Mainland Affairs Council and the Straits Exchange Foundation. The SEF's Annual Report includes information on the ROC's major measures to liberalize contacts with the Chinese mainland, a range of statistics on cross-strait exchanges, and details of the Chiao-Tang and Koo-Wang cross-strait talks. There are also detailed descriptions of the SEF's legal, trade and cultural services. The Mainland Affairs section presents the current state of cross-strait exchanges, and regulations governing cross-strait news reporting, publishing and electronic media work. All this information should provide a valuable reference resource for Taiwanese firms investing in the mainland, and for people both inside and outside the ROC who are engaged in cross-strait business or other affairs.

According to figures from the GIO's Planning and Evaluation Department, by the end of August the GIO's home page had been accessed nearly 100,000 times by users worldwide, with an average of 7000 visits per month. The most frequently visited areas of the site, in order of popularity, were Sino-rama, News, the ROC Yearbook, Free China Review, and Chinese Traditional Culture in Taiwan. Because of the large size of the Chinese and English versions of the ROC Yearbook, a full-text search function is provided. The lavishly produced Chinese and English versions of Chinese Traditional Culture in Taiwan include highly attractive multimedia presentations.

Chuang Cheng-an reveals that the GIO is now working with the US company Info-wave to put a selection of material from the GIO website on the company's Chinese Cyber City site (http://www.ccchome. com). According to Infowave, over 17,000 accesses a day are made to information about the ROC on the site.

In view of the unlimited potential of the overseas market, the GIO's Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in New York has already set up its own website (http://www. taipei.org), which in addition to links to the GIO site, also carries news reports from Taiwan's Central News Agency, etc.. The GIO hopes in future to set up its own sites overseas in order to gather, use and disseminate information more effectively.