China's bosses join battle of the
blogs By David Pan
GUANGZHOU - Weblogs, or Internet diaries
that allow individuals, groups or corporations to
record their activities, thoughts or beliefs,
providing a forum to allow site visitors to leave
comments, have become increasingly popular among
millions of ordinary Internet users in China. Now
they are being joined by the bosses.
Not
only have celebrities and movie stars set up their
own blogs to boost their reputation and fame, but
some savvy business people have also opened Web
diaries to promote the image of their companies
and products. And many of the business people's
blogs are as popular as, if not more popular than,
the ones run by
celebrities. Now even the
police are beginning to make use of this new
medium to communicate with the public.
According to the China Internet Network
Information Center, by the end of June the number
of Internet users in the country reached 123
million, up 19.4% from a year before. Nearly
two-thirds of them, or 77 million, were wideband
users. And the number of websites totaled 788,400.
And according to a report by the Xinhua
News Agency, the number of blog users this year is
about 60 million, which means almost half of
Chinese Internet users have blogs. It is estimated
that the number of blog users could reach 100
million next year and 150 million in 2008.
Blogs have come to be seen as a new and
seemingly limitless channel for promoting the
enterprises. When coupled with the mobile phone,
this offers real-time communication among the
suppliers and the customers, which is seen to be
highly advantageous.
But a recent, notable
development in China is the use of blogs by the
bosses of big businesses themselves to express
their views and to influence the markets. In the
latter sense, blogs are considered a new
battlefield of business competition.
Blogs for the bosses Xiang
Wenbo, chief executive officer of Sanyi Heavy
Industries, started to write his blog on Sina.com
only a few months ago. He had never imagined that
his blog could be regarded as "China's first ever
financial blog". It enjoys more than a million
visitors, even though the main subject of his blog
is fairly technical: the transfer of shares in
Chinese companies.
The notoriety of his
site comes from the fact that Xiang's comments on
his blog about the takeover of the
state-controlled Xuzhou Machine Group Ltd by the
US-based Kelly Co helped squelch the transaction.
The Chinese government has halted the deal amid
criticism of "selling state assets cheaply".
Xiang's company had been competing with Kelly in
taking over Xuzhou Machine.
"The motive of
writing my blog comes from a sense of
responsibility," Xiang once told journalists, "No
matter whether the blog writers are private or
state entrepreneurs, they have an important social
role to play, ie, to offer their experience and
knowledge to the society. My special experience in
starting, conducting and developing a private
enterprise and also in introducing reforms in the
allocation of stock shares of an enterprise enable
me to share them with all that may concern."
Consequently, Xiang has posted a series of
articles with titles such as "The takeover of
Xuzhou Machine - a beautiful lie"; "Price cheating
in the Xuzhou Machine purchasing case"; "See how
Xuzhou Machine was cheaply sold out"; "The
takeover of Xuzhou Machine by Kelly is an illegal
transaction".
Because Xiang did not hide
"the intention of Sanyi to purchase Xuzhou
Machine" and complained that "Xuzhou did not give
Sanyi such an opportunity", he was accused by
many, especially by staffers with Xuzhou Machine,
of working out of total self-interest. However,
there was no lack of praise for Xiang by many
visitors to his blog.
Hou Xiaoqiang,
deputy general editor of Sina.com, maintained that
Xiang's trying to express his own personal views
on a merger and acquisition via the blog made good
sense. As long as such views were law-abiding and
did not go against general morality, his move
should be regarded as something positive - bosses
should exert their own considerable influence and
make use of the stupendous information flow of the
'Net to attract people concerned with business
matters.
Besides Xiang, other big cheeses
such as Pan Shiyi, board chairman of property
developer SOHO (China) Ltd, Jiang Nan Chun, board
chairman of the Dazhong Media, Ren Zhiqiang,
president of the Hua Yuan Group, and Li Shufu,
board chairman of car maker Geely Group, all have
blogs on Sina.com.
Pan Shiyi's blog alone
has received 15.57 million visitors so far, and he
also has compiled his blog articles for a book
soon to be published.
However, it is
generally accepted that the blog activities of
these big bosses should not violate
insider-trading laws. Would the heated dispute
about the Xuzhou Machine case be considered such a
violation, as it did disclose some commercial
secrets? Who is to monitor or supervise the "blogs
of the big bosses"?
Some specialists argue
that blogs are not just private diaries, they are
a form of media. The writing of blogs should in no
way breach established laws and regulations.
Unfortunately, such laws and regulations are still
lacking in China. This poses new problems in the
monitoring of the blogs of bosses. The
preferential use of the blog by the big business
bosses to express their views, to obtain new
resources and communicate with the public is
precisely due to its having few restrictions.
China's first police blog It is
not only blogs by big bosses that attract public
attention. The People's Daily reported that
China's first "police blog", launched last year by
Hebei province's Public
Security Bureau, is even more popular than the
blogs of many pop stars.
The founder, Hao
Chao, is a policeman and is proud of introducing
something new, initially to the media and now to
the public, in an effort to showcase the hardships
that police face and difficulties they experience
at work. The police blog was an overnight hit,
claiming more than a million visitors in its first
two months.
Internet visitors approve of
the project, saying it has helped them learn more
about the police, their work and lives. They say
they have learned that police officers are
ordinary people who need understanding, support
and communication, according to the People's
Daily, the flagship newspaper of the Chinese
Communist Party.
The blog has also allowed
the public to submit suggestions on how the police
force can improve. Some say police in high-ranking
positions should be encouraged to improve law
enforcement and be more efficient when making
decisions. Others write the police should own up
to their mistakes instead of covering them up.
The police hope their blog will help boost
their influence. They now plan to increase the
content on the blog, including discussions of
typical crime cases and open forums on the law and
police work.
David Pan is a
freelance writer based in Guangzhou.
(Copyright 2006 Asia Times Online Ltd. All
rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing
.)
