Embodiments of the application provide a polar coding method for communicating information in a wireless network. Information bits are encoded using a polar code process to obtain a polar-coded bit sequence. A rate matched bit sequence is output based on the polar-coded bit sequence. The rate matched bit sequence includes a quantity M of bits from the polar-coded bit sequence, and the M bits from the polar-coded bit sequence correspond to M channel indexes in a channel index sequence S. The channel index sequence S is obtained based on a puncturing/shortening proportion P′ and a prestored channel index sequence S′. Channel indexes in the prestored channel index sequence S′ are sorted by channel reliability or channel capacity, and a sorting order of the M channel indexes in the channel index sequence S is the same as a sorting order of the channel indexes in the prestored channel index sequence S′.