Chinese Government Turns to Blogging

The Chinese government is attempting to boost public interest and support of its Parliament by permitting members to set up Web logs to communicate with citizens. While so far only eight of some 5,000-plus delegated have been approved to post, many more have applied. The state-owned People's Daily newspaper runs the blog site.

While most entries are not surprisingly pro-party, some seem to air some of the discontents of China's 1.3 billion inhabitants. Representative Pan Shiyi was quoted in the Associated Press as writing about how he disagrees with the new city construction underway in the country that separates the rich and the poor, and promised to focus on it during his term. The blogs, in Chinese, can be found at blog.people.com.cn.