The evolution of China's mobile telecommunications industry 115 privatisation. This industry has achieved a sustained development over the past few years despite the sluggish development of the global telecommunications market. The number of mobile subscribers in China had doubled each year from 1994 to 2001. By the end of 2002 China had 206.3 million mobile telecommunications subscribers(MPT, MIl, 1994-2002), and had become one of the hottest spots for the international and domestic telecom operators, equipment and phone manufacturers. The evolution of Chinas mobile telecom industry since its inception in 1987 appears to be a multistage industrial development process with policy intervention and market competition. This research traces the periods of the evolutionary process to capture the patterns and drivers in such a process There is extensive literature on the relationship between industrial structure, entry and telecommunications circles, systemic innovation examples are these ry. In the mobile the diffusion of technology in the telecommunications indt ccessive generation of first generation(IG), second generation (2G)and third generation(3G) systems The revolution will impact not only our daily lives and the way business is conducted (Siau and Shen, 2003; Maitland et al., 2002; Barnes and Corbitt, 2003). The time span of developing a new cellular system was longer than ten years, and demanded access to vast amount of resources. Thus, a mandate to develop such a system from policy makers including the government, or corporate boards was needed (Hughes, 1987; Lyytinen and Damsgaard, 2001; Haug, 2002). Some studies have considered individual or a limited number of countries, focusing on mobile telecommunications market conduct(Parker and Roller, 1997); on the role of country characteristics(Dekimpe et al., 1998); or on the new service adoption and diffusion behaviour(Anil et al., 2003; Gruber and Verboven, 2001). Other studies paid more attentions to the technology trajectory aspect(Helo, 2003) Gruber and Verboven(1999) looked at the effects of competition on diffusion in European countries, emphasising the importance of capacity increase due to the transition from analogue to digital technologies However, previous literature in mobile telecommunications cycle falls short in exploring the roles of policy design and market competition in large developing countries'industry development without privatisation. This paper aims to map out the structure and dynamics of the Chinese mobile telecommunications service industry within the actor-network perspective. Actor-network can be used to examine the processes including the interactions, connections and activities of the actors ( Comber, 2003). There are a large number of enterprises and bureaucracies contending for economic advantage and power within Chinas domestic mobile telecommunications sector with different involvement in the industry development. For analytical purposes, it is useful to first reduce these entities into three distinct actor groups: the regulator, the ncumbent operator and the competitive operator We have conducted an empirical study on Chinas mobile telecommunications industry. Interviews were conducted with key managers from the two existing mobile operators and some govemment regulatory officials. Secondary data was collected from government statistics, industry report, and other corporate reports. The data collected over a period of time in the course of the industry's development will be used for in-depth analysis. Mintzberg and Waters(1985) proposed the use of a mapping technique to identify patterns and interactions among multiple interrelated variables. The interactions among different actors in China,'s mobile telecommunications industry and the linkages of their activities are mapped according to Mintzberg's technique.The evolution of China’s mobile telecommunications industry 115 privatisation. This industry has achieved a sustained development over the past few years despite the sluggish development of the global telecommunications market. The number of mobile subscribers in China had doubled each year from 1994 to 2001. By the end of 2002 China had 206.3 million mobile telecommunications subscribers (MPT, MII, 1994–2002), and had become one of the hottest spots for the international and domestic telecom operators, equipment and phone manufacturers. The evolution of China’s mobile telecom industry since its inception in 1987 appears to be a multistage industrial development process with policy intervention and market competition. This research traces the periods of the evolutionary process to capture the patterns and drivers in such a process. There is extensive literature on the relationship between industrial structure, entry and the diffusion of technology in the telecommunications industry. In the mobile telecommunications circles, systemic innovation examples are the successive generations of first generation (1G), second generation (2G) and third generation (3G) systems. The revolution will impact not only our daily lives and the way business is conducted (Siau and Shen, 2003; Maitland et al., 2002; Barnes and Corbitt, 2003). The time span of developing a new cellular system was longer than ten years, and demanded access to vast amount of resources. Thus, a mandate to develop such a system from policy makers including the government, or corporate boards was needed (Hughes, 1987; Lyytinen and Damsgaard, 2001; Haug, 2002). Some studies have considered individual or a limited number of countries, focusing on mobile telecommunications market conduct (Parker and Röller, 1997); on the role of country characteristics (Dekimpe et al., 1998); or on the new service adoption and diffusion behaviour (Anil et al., 2003; Gruber and Verboven, 2001). Other studies paid more attentions to the technology trajectory aspect (Helo, 2003). Gruber and Verboven (1999) looked at the effects of competition on diffusion in European countries, emphasising the importance of capacity increase due to the transition from analogue to digital technologies. However, previous literature in mobile telecommunications cycle falls short in exploring the roles of policy design and market competition in large developing countries’ industry development without privatisation. This paper aims to map out the structure and dynamics of the Chinese mobile telecommunications service industry within the actor-network perspective. Actor–network can be used to examine the processes including the interactions, connections and activities of the actors (Comber, 2003). There are a large number of enterprises and bureaucracies contending for economic advantage and power within China’s domestic mobile telecommunications sector with different involvement in the industry development. For analytical purposes, it is useful to first reduce these entities into three distinct actor groups: the regulator, the incumbent operator and the competitive operator. We have conducted an empirical study on China’s mobile telecommunications industry. Interviews were conducted with key managers from the two existing mobile operators and some government regulatory officials. Secondary data was collected from government statistics, industry report, and other corporate reports. The data collected over a period of time in the course of the industry’s development will be used for in-depth analysis. Mintzberg and Waters (1985) proposed the use of a mapping technique to identify patterns and interactions among multiple interrelated variables. The interactions among different actors in China’s mobile telecommunications industry and the linkages of their activities are mapped according to Mintzberg’s technique