Chinese passengers who go back home for the Chinese Lunar New Year use their smartphones to surf the Internet. Photo: Imaginechian/Hu Yan
Communist Party app is said to contain code that could run 'arbitrary commands' – like a backdoor – on certain phones. Photo: Imaginechina/ Hu Yan

China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has announced that the country will eliminate long-distance roaming fees for mobile phone users in October of this year, state media reported Monday. The move is part of the government’s efforts to tap into the potential of a faster and less expensive internet to support economic development. According to government statistics there are now 770 million 4G users in China, up from just 100 million in 2014.