Surveying Internet Users in China: Comparing Representative Survey Data with Official Statistics

China is well known for providing official data, but how to treat these data is a longstanding debate among China scholars. We advance understandings of how to interpret Chinese official statistics about the Internet. Using standards for evaluating surveys in the Social Sciences, we systematically compare official data from the China Network Information Center (CNNIC) under the supervision of China’s main regulator of Internet policy with the China Internet Survey 2018 (CIS), to our knowledge the first nationally representative survey on Internet use in China. Based on three examples we illustrate how methodological differences in sampling design and measurement lead to vastly different conclusions about key indicators about Internet use in mainland China, including the percentage of Internet users, their regional and urban-rural digital divide, and the percentage of specific social media platforms. We discuss the challenges of survey work on Internet use in China and provide recommendations about how to interpret official statistics, especially in light of limitations for researchers to conduct face-to-face surveys in China.