Ctrip.com (CTRP) today announced the company will unconditionally refund its customers impacted by the earthquake and the ensuing tsunamis in South Asia.

Comtech (COGO.OB) announced that its Board of Directors has authorized a reverse stock split in the range between one-for-two shares and one-for-three shares.

Four domestic mobile phone businesses have started a joint venture to become the largest mobile phone sales network in the western area of China. These companies are Sichuan Great Wall Telecom Investment Management Company, China Postal Appliance Company, Shaanxi Cell Star Company and Yunnan Dechun Telecom.

AsiaInfo (ASIA) announced that it has signed a contract with Beijing Mobile, a branch of China Mobile, to implement phase II upgrades to the carrier's Operational Customer Relationship Management (OCRM) system, China's first telecommunications OCRM system.

With Changhong's stock price dropping this week on more news of its bad debt, local media report that some investors plan to sue top management for non-disclosure of the company's poor situation.

Hitachi Global Storage Technologies, a joint venture between Japan's Hitachi and US-based IBM, has launched a lawsuit in the US against China's Magicstor, accusing Magicstor of violating several Hitachi patents.

Following its recent purchase of India-based Indiagames, local media are reporting that Tom Online (TOMO) is planning to expand into the overseas market.

SecuGen Corporation announced that the Chinese Patent Office, under the State Intellectual Property Office, has granted SecuGen a patent for its key fingerprint recognition sensor hardware patent.

KongZhong (KONG) announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to invest $0.5 million in eFriendsNet Entertainment Corporation, an online social networking community in China.

By Perry Wu
So what were the big China Internet events of 2004? There were so many stories–some published and some yet to be released–that shaped this year's events. In general we can look at four main areas: China Mobile used its strength, the bubble did not burst on China, America started getting serious about Chinese [...]

The China Finance Certification Authority (CFCA) has established business relations with more than 20 banks, 16 securities dealers and 13 fund operators for the purpose of protecting online usernames and passwords.

A new type of Chinese inputting method called "Chinese T9″ has received authentication from the China National Language Commission and Language Standard Testing Center.

Japan's NTT DoCoMo (DCM) announced that it will invest $4 million in newly issued stock for an equity stake in Emcore Technology Inc, which has a Chinese location-based service subsidiary, in January 2005.

Seven netizen representatives including a Ms. Zhang from Haikou, Dong Ge from Shijiangzhuang and a user whose alias translates as "Wolf Owner" from Ningbo came to 263.net's Beijing offices to ask the website operator to allow the users back into online chatrooms.

Local media report that McDonald's (MCD) website was attacked by a hacker at around 10PM on December 25. As a result, the homepage of the website was altered to show a "head of death" on a black background.