Is the era of handwritten letters ending in China?

China Post mail carrier Zhao Mincui (right) brings letters to villages in Shaanxi province. She delivers newspapers and small parcels, among other items. Zou Hong / For China Daily

In China, where some 700 million people from a total population of nearly 1.4 billion are estimated users of the Internet, Shiquan isn't the only place to signal the fast disappearance of handwritten letters.

According to the State Post Bureau, a central government organization that oversees China Post－the sector's monolith－the country handled 5.6 billion "paper post" in 2014, showing a 10 percent drop from the previous year. Letter-post articles included newspapers, magazines, commercial correspondence, money orders and typed or handwritten personal letters, with the latter in the least volume.

In addition, interviews with dozens of postal officials, countryside dwellers, analysts and scholars suggest that the era of handwritten letters is likely on its last legs in China.

A top official of the bureau in Beijing, however, denied the possibility of a wipeout, saying that for many people such as prison inmates, writing and receiving letters still work as basic rights where access to phones and the Internet is legally barred. Today, there are 53,000 post offices on the mainland. In the 1980s, there were 70,000 or so.

While it is true that hundreds of new post offices have been opened in villages and small towns in China since 2010, in the years before, post offices had been shut down also as part of a reforms program to prepare China Post for the modern world. It has since successfully diversified into express mail, small-package deliveries (of up to 2 kilograms) and big logistics, among other newer ventures.