The Chinese government likes to control every aspect of the information and communications people living in China consume. So it will come as no surprise that China is getting its own version of Wikipedia based on the existing Chinese Encyclopedia.

It's being dubbed China's first "digital book of everything" and is expected to come online next year. The project was first approved in 2011, but work didn't commence until recently. Initially it will include over 300,000 entries, each of which will consist of roughly 1,000 word explanations.

Content will be gathered from the third, and most up-to-date edition of the Chinese Encyclopedia, which pools information from over 20,000 authors consisting of university and research institute staff. In total, over 100 different disciplines are covered by the encyclopedia, and this is surely only going to expand once the move to an online resource is complete.

According to the South China Morning Post, the encyclopedia is referred to as "a Great Wall of culture" by the project's editor-in-chief Yang Muzhi. Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) president Bai Chunli said, "It would showcase China's latest science and technology developments, promote historical heritage, increase cultural soft power and strengthen the core values of socialism."

However, don't expect the content this online encyclopedia contains to be anywhere near as open and accurate as what appears on Wikipedia. All content will inevitably be pre-approved, and anything on Wikipedia currently blocked by China is unlikely to appear in the Chinese alternative, at least not before being censored.