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O 261112Z FEB 07
FM AMEMBASSY BEIJING
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 5004
INFO RUEHOO/CHINA POSTS COLLECTIVE
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C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 BEIJING 001238 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 02/26/2032 
TAGS: PGOV PHUM KCUL SOCI CH
SUBJECT: CHINA'S BLOGS: NATIONALISM, SEX AND ONLINE 
VIGILANTES 
 
REF: A. 05 BEIJING 15837 
     ¶B. 05 BEIJING 17896 
     ¶C. 06 BEIJING 2682 
 
Classified By: Political Section Internal Unit Chief Susan A. Thornton. 
  Reasons 1.4 (b/d). 
 
Summary 
------- 
 
¶1.  (C) The blossoming world of blogs, ranging from 
patriotic to religious to racy, is captivating China's 
surging population of Internet users, with some 
unexpected results. 
 
-- A blog petition launched by a popular television 
anchor calling for the Forbidden City Palace Museum to 
boot Starbucks from its premises in January has 
incited intense debate in media, academic and policy 
circles. 
 
-- A famous sexologist's blog post on wife-swapping 
touched off an online skirmish with a Christian 
blogger. 
 
-- A woman who crushed a kitten on video was exposed 
by bloggers and forced to publicly apologize. 
 
 
Beyond these notable cases, the proliferation of blogs 
trumpeting patriotic causes poses a conundrum for the 
authorities, who want to foster national pride but 
also fear the emergence of online mass movements that 
could harm social stability or threaten Party rule. 
Despite extensive official efforts aimed at 
controlling Internet content, no consensus has emerged 
about who should be responsible for keeping blogs 
within the bounds of what the Government deems 
appropriate.  In this context, although traditional 
redlines apply, blogs offer the broadest space of any 
media for airing (sometimes sensitive) views, contacts 
told us.  As such, blogs are bolstering one of the 
biggest social changes of the last generation:  The 
unprecedented ability of Chinese people to communicate 
with one another.  End Summary. 
 
China Blogs by the Numbers 
-------------------------- 
 
¶2.  (C) More than 20 million Chinese have launched 
their own web logs on the Internet as of the end of 
2006, official statistics indicate.  Year-end figures 
also show that the country has more than 137 million 
netizens (although the true number is almost certainly 
higher), a rise of 23.4 percent over the previous 
year, according to the state-run China Internet 
Network Information Center.  In the blogosphere, the 
vast majority of sites are personal journals meant for 
consumption by a small circle of friends and 
relatives, said Zhao Mu (protect), the head of 
Internet portal Sohu.com's blog hosting service.  He 
added that Sohu.com, home to approximately 5 million 
personal sites, is among the three most popular 
portals in China, with Sina.com and BlogChina also 
hosting millions of blogs. 
 
Forbidden Starbucks: Thanks a Latte (But No Thanks) 
--------------------------------------------- ------ 
 
¶3.  (C) Blogging in China made international headlines 
in January when popular China Central Television 
anchor Rui Chenggang used his personal site to call on 
the Forbidden City Palace Museum to evict its 
Starbucks outlet.  The message struck a chord among 
netizens, attracting half a million supporters to sign 
an online petition.  In addition, dozens of domestic 
newspapers ran articles about the petition.  The 
museum responded by promising to review the situation 
and make a decision about Starbucks' presence by June, 
the official Xinhua news service reported.  (Note: As 
of February 26, the cafe is still there.)  In 
statements to the media, Rui, who has traveled 
repeatedly to the United States and spent one year at 
Yale University on a fellowship, has denied any intent 
to fan nationalist fervor.  Instead, his online 
activism was meant to inspire others to safeguard 
China's historical elics, Rui has told the press.  In 
a recent conversation with Emboff, Rui commented that 
he enjoys Starbucks himself but does not feel it 
should be located in a national heritage site, 
equating it to putting "a foreign cafe in the White 
 
BEIJING 00001238  002 OF 003 
 
 
House."  Other contacts surmised that less noble goals 
motivated Rui's campaign, suggesting that as a 
celebrity, he is most interested in attracting 
attention to himself.  "It was a clever bit of 
showmanship," said Zhao. 
 
Seeds of Cyber-Nationalism 
-------------------------- 
 
¶4.  (C) Zhao added, however, that the anti-Starbucks 
campaign underscores the power nationalist messages 
can carry in today's China -- and the quickness and 
efficiency with which blogs can disseminate them.  In 
fact, blog content that spurs extremist passions is 
precisely the kind of material the Government would 
like to control.  Zhao recalled the anti-Japan rallies 
in April 2005 (ref B), noting that planning for the 
protests spread mainly via web sites, e-mails and cell 
phone text messages.  The Government is not 
necessarily afraid of isolated cases of individuals 
posting contrarian or sensitive material on their 
blogs, Zhao said.  Instead, the paramount concern that 
a mass movement might emerge, born on blogs or through 
another electronic medium, to reduce the Government's 
maneuvering room on a sensitive issue or challenge 
Party authority. 
 
¶5.  (C) Nationalistic blogs remain among the most 
popular sites for China's netizens.  The blog of 
Beijing University literature professor Kong Qingdong, 
who is widely known for his nationalistic views on 
foreign policy issues, particularly Japan, is a 
regular feature on China Daily's weekly lineup of 
most-visited Chinese blogs.  Blogger and China Youth 
Daily editor Qiu Haiping launched a cyberstorm 
recently when he urged Chinese netizens to view an on- 
line video clip called "The Rape Of Nanking" and to be 
sure to share it with their children. 
 
¶6.  (C) Yun Jie, a scholar at the Chinese Academy of 
Social Sciences Institute of Political Science who 
focuses on Internet issues, downplayed the notion that 
blogs themselves are stoking nationalism in China. 
Other important influences are at work, from how 
history is taught in schools to China's new economic 
clout.  Blogs are, however, a fast, convenient and 
unfiltered outlet for communicating strong views, 
including about China's rising status on the world 
stage, Yun maintained. 
 
Who Should Implement Controls? 
------------------------------ 
 
¶7.  (C) Against this backdrop, blogs are China's most 
open forum for freewheeling discourse.  Internet 
service providers, many of which have blog hosting 
services, constitute the country's first private media 
and sit in a gray zone of propaganda control (ref A). 
For a Government that does not view a genuinely free 
media, including the Internet, as conducive to social 
stability, how to regulate blogs has become a central 
question, our contacts said.  Some say the State 
Council Information Office or the Ministry of Culture 
should take the lead.  Others, including Yun of CASS, 
contend that Internet portals themselves should be 
answerable for content that crosses censors' red 
lines.  For now, it appears that the State Council 
Information Office (SCIO) is nominally in charge, said 
Zhao of Sohu, adding that Sohu's service allows 
bloggers to post whatever they want.  Zhao related 
that the SCIO employs hundreds of censors who monitor 
Sohu and other blog hosting services for inappropriate 
content.  When cybersleuths hit upon such topics, they 
have the technical ability to block access or "erase" 
a page.  But sensitive content inevitably slips 
through.  "There are not enough people to check every 
blog out there," said Yun of CASS. 
 
¶8.  (C) To help officials more easily discern who is 
writing what, the Government is considering 
instituting a rule requiring netizens to register 
their blogs using real names, even if they sign their 
entries with a pseudonym, the Xinhua News Service has 
reported.  Yun and other contacts told us such a rule 
would be impossible to enforce for technical reasons. 
Determined Internet users are generally able to find 
ways to mask their identities online.  Moreover, such 
a measure misses the point, said He Jiangtao, the web- 
savvy Beijing bureau chief of Citizen Magazine.  He 
stressed that the people who are willing to go public 
with the most controversial views are usually 
 
 
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