Blogging, a form of citizen journalism, has caught on so much in
China that even some government officials are getting into it.
The highest-ranking official or former official to write a blog
is Zhao Qizheng, former director of the State Council Information
Office, now president of the Journalism School of Renmin University
in Beijing.
He launched the blog "Zhao Qizheng and his books" (http://blog.sina.com.cn/zhaoqizheng)
on August 3 and uploaded several chapters of his latest work In the
One World - 101 Tips on How to Communicate with Foreigners. One of
them, about the importance of smiling, has been read by nearly
40,000 netizens since it was posted a week ago.
In a letter of August 14, Zhao thanked netizens for reading and
commenting on his blog and apologized that he could not respond to
each comment or question because he could only surf the Internet
for limited time every day, and that he was a slow typist.
Some netizens have used his blog to speak directly with the
former top news official.
One of them, called "Peach", a journalism student complained of
a perceived lack of jobs in the industry and asked for his
advice.
The direct interaction between bloggers is one of the most
appealing elements about this form of communication.
Arguably the most popular blog run by an official is that of
Liao Xinbo, deputy director of the provincial health bureau of
South China's Guangdong Province.
Liao calls himself "Doctor Brother Bozi" and his blog (http://blog.sina.com.cn/liaoxinbo)
has been read more than 650,000 times since it was launched last
April. At present it ranks the sixth most popular blog in
Guangdong.
The health official is known for being outspoken. On Monday, he
posted an article by an anonymous doctor which blamed China's
apparent failure on medical reform over the last 30 years on the
lack of fair pay for doctors.
"If the situation continues, the next medical reform is doomed
to fail again," the post warned.
Liao also argued in his blog that health services were not a
commodity that should be "bought" by patients, a key point that
health providers need to serve the public, instead of trying to
rake in money.
Netizens who agreed with Liao proposed the official lobby his
allies at the provincial people's congress - the legislative body -
to draft a law especially for medical contracts.
Netizens even went as far as drafting their own medical contract
law, which Liao posted on August 24 commenting: "I have never
studied laws and cannot give any comments. I wish my friends who
are interested to give their ideas".
Dozens of lawyers responded.
According to one of them, legal tangles in the medical sector
were difficult to settle because there were already too many laws,
but not one powerful or specific enough to tackle problems with
malpractice disputes.
The netizen proposed that it was with some urgency that a law
was drafted that covered the entire sector, instead of one that
specifically dealt with contracts.
Whether or not the fact the netizens' law proposals were right
or wrong, their interaction with this sort of blogging demonstrates
how ordinary people can debate the merits of such proposals.
Liao's blog, with its inspiring discussions, provides a prime
example of a form of "direct democracy".
There are no figures available as to how many officials have
blogs in China.
However, in Suqian, a mid-sized city in east China's Jiangsu
Province, 81 middle and high-ranking officials in the municipal
government have opened blogs on the government website (http://blog.suqian.gov.cn/).
Their Communist Party secretary, Zhang Xinshi, took the
lead.
"Zhang hopes that those who are in charge at the different
government organs can also have blogs so that they can express
their ideas, attract people's discussions and build an efficient
channel of communication between officials and ordinary citizens,"
said a Suqian Daily report about a working conference this
April.
Zhang has updated his blog almost every day and written long
articles on weekends about a wide range of topics from global
climate change to professional education.
An article on "civilized behavior" prompted the local Suqian
Daily to open a column about the topic, and more than 100,000
pupils and high school students distributed pamphlets on civilized
behavior in the streets of his city.
Almost each of Zhang's online articles was read more than 400
times, but there have been few posted responses from the
public.
When a comment was made, it often turned out to be a pledge of a
subordinate to implement the Party secretary's ideas, not public
feedback.
A report in the People's Daily last month said officials in
Suqian had published more than 1,700 articles on their blogs and
these articles were read by more than 760,000 netizens.
"It is a good thing that officials opened blogs and strengthen
their communication with the ordinary citizens," Xie Chuntao,
professor at the Party School of the Central Committee of the
Communist Party of China in Beijing, said.
As part of China's e-governance construction, 12,000 government
websites have been built in the past decade, according a report by
Xinhua News Agency last December.
More than 96 percent of the central government organs, 90
percent of provincial governments, 96 percent of municipal
governments and 77 percent of county governments have their own
websites.
"By further exploring the communication possibilities of blogs,
officials may better win the citizens' trust if there is successful
communication between the two sides," said Mao Shoulong, political
science professor at Renmin University of China in a commentary in
the People's Daily last year.
But he also feared that some officials may have their opinion
influenced by the "small club in cyberspace".
"Actually, if we want the government to get nearer to the
ordinary citizens, we can make more efforts on improving our
democratic system instead of using the highly personalized blogs,"
he said.
"At the current stage, we can improve the government websites
that widely exist, and make them work better in publicizing
policies and communicating with netizens. This is a more
constructive choice."
(Xinhua News Agency August 30, 2007)