Posted on 09/15/2010 1:42:57 AM PDT by bruinbirdman
The entrance to Zhongnanhai, the huge and secretive compound in the heart of Beijing where China’s leaders live and work, is heavily guarded, and no Chinese citizen in their right mind would try just to walk in.
In the virtual world, however, citizens can do just that. Direct Line to Zhongnanhai, an online message board where internet users can write to their political leaders, carries an image of Xinhua Gate, its large red wooden doors swinging open welcomingly to reveal the characters who “serve the people”.
“The site appears to be an effort to persuade people that the leadership is listening to their very personal concerns and not just developing grand strategies for the country,” said Russell Leigh Moses, a Beijing-based political analyst. “It is clearly designed to demonstrate that the leadership is attentive and sensitive.”
China’s leadership has demonstrated for a while that it considers monitoring and managing public opinion to be a serious task.
But the Communist party, which runs a parallel political universe behind the government institutions and holds the real power, has in the past held the public at arm’s length. It was only last year that the party started to appoint spokespeople for several of its departments, and only in June this year that it introduced most of them to the press.
“The party used to be a mystery, very inaccessible,” said Dong Guanpeng, a professor of media and politics at the State Council’s national school of administration, who trains officials in how to deal with the media. “This whole effort of becoming more transparent, more responsive, started in the government and it is now beginning to take root in the party,” he added.
Although the new message board is trying to demonstrate responsiveness, it does not actually provide responses from the leaders addressed. None of the messages displayed on its first day was a question written in a way suggesting an answer might be necessary or expected. Most were reasonably friendly submissions.
“Please, Mr Secretary-General, pay attention to public opinion, pay attention to housing prices,” said a message posted under the name Wang Yong.
Several other posts also tackled the issue of property prices as well as public housing, expressing concern that housing designed for low-income residents could be misappropriated.
That theme echoed an article on the front page of the People’s Daily on how the municipality of Chongqing is trying to prevent misappropriation. Moreover, messages appeared to be displayed with a time lag of more than nine hours.
Media experts see the site as one more example of what Hu Jintao, China’s president, has called “public opinion channelling” or “public opinion guidance”.
“Messages are apparently being picked and edited in a way that they suggest leaders are dealing with the very ills that everyone knows exist,” said Mr Moses.
In spite of the silence with which internet users’ messages are greeted, experts see the site as the sign of a new culture emerging within the party.
“In the past, officials would stick to the principle that the more you talk, the more mistakes you can make. But now, being talkative is becoming a virtue,” said Mr Dong. He pointed to Wang Qishan, a vice-premier, and Bo Xilai, party head of Chongqing municipality who grabbed national attention with an anti-crime campaign last year, as examples of talkative politicians likely to rise into top leadership ranks.
www.democrats.org
Subsidiary forums located at DailyKos, DU and HuffPo.
It’s a twofer online forum involving Democrats and RINOS.
“The site appears to be an effort to persuade people that the leadership is listening to their very personal concerns and not just developing grand strategies for the country,”
Big deal. The communists in Washington have a Potemkin website also.
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