The Chinese government has hired tens of thousands of scholars to create an online version of the national encyclopedia, which will compete in size and scope with the Chinese-language version of Wikipedia.

The third edition of the Chinese Encyclopaedia will be "the nation's first digital book of 'everything,'" featuring 300,000 entries of about 1,000 words each, according to the South China Morning Post, which reported the news on Sunday. More than 20,000 authors from universities and research institutes will contribute to the effort. Ultimately, that will make the Chinese Encyclopaedia twice as large as Encyclopedia Brittanica and about the same size as the Chinese-language Wikipedia.

Wikipedia has a long history of partial and sometimes full blocks in China. Currently, the SCMP reports that most of the Chinese-language Wikipedia is available in mainland China, but searching for articles on sensitive topics, such as the Dalai Lama, will lead to a lost connection.

Yang Muzhi, the editor-in-chief of the project and the chairman of the Book and Periodicals Distribution Association of China, spoke about the project at a meeting at the headquarters of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) in Beijing on April 12, according to the academy's website.

"The Chinese Encyclopaedia is not a book, but a Great Wall of culture," said Yang.

The Chinese Encyclopaedia was dreamed up in the late 1970s, with the first edition being published in 1993. The volumes contained the work of hundreds of scientists, historians, and other writers. The volumes were paid for and overseen by the Chinese government, leading to "omissions and distortions," according to the SCMP.

The SCMP also reviewed Yang's comments about Wikipedia in an article in a mainland newspaper late last year. He described Wikipedia as a tough competitor, but one that he intends to beat.

"The readers regarded it to be authoritative, accurate, and it branded itself as a ‘free encyclopaedia that anyone can edit’, which is quite bewitching," wrote Yang. "But we have the biggest, most high-quality author team in the world... our goal is not to catch up, but overtake."