:: the topic for this week’s Friday 5 comes from my colleague (and former United States Ambassador to Singapore, 2001 – 05) Frank Lavin, based in Edelman’s Hong Kong office. Thanks Frank. If any readers have any ideas for future Friday 5s, please send through.

Due to China’s digital censorship regime (playfully known as the “Net Nanny”), politics can sometimes be tricky to talk about on the Chinese Internet. On websites affiliated with Chinese state-run / owned media organizations, conversation can carry on freely within the boundaries the sites have set up for themselves, but on more independent venues, Chinese netizens often have to resort to typographical tricks or character substitutions to mention people, places, and events whose names may be deemed “sensitive words” by the Net Nanny. In general, politics as a specific topic is fairly niche – online audiences are just not that interested. However, Daqi’s rankings list for politics forums (时政论坛排行) includes fourteen items. Expanding the view to rankings for “government” forums (政府论坛排行) extends the list to four pages and includes BBS discussion forums on topics such as anti-corruption, rule of law, policy, agricultural reform, and civic society. Below is a snapshot of the political / government landscape online in China – the places Chinese netizens go to converse / argue over politics, government affairs, and political figures.

general politics ::
Beijing’s Utopia BBS discussion forum may be the most well-known forum for debate about domestic and international issues. It tends to slant leftward, and has a special section for Mao Zedong. Leading special topics on Utopia currently include an ongoing critique of neoliberalism and articles on Lu Chuan’s Nanjing Massacre movie City of Life and Death. Marxist Review is a Beijing-based current events forum with an ostensibly Marxist slant. Recent topics include multi-party government, bureaucratic socialism, and democracy in the hands of revolutionary masses vs. the right. School of Athens is a academically-flavored community that slants in a liberal direction, particularly after absorbing many of the members of the liberal Fatianxia law commentary site following its harmonization in December, 2008 (and in fact, many pages on School of Athens imply that it actually is the successor to Fatianxia). Discussion involves the rule of law and civic society. A recent post that reposted an essay on freedom of speech by author Lin Da’s drew a comment thread in which netizens felt that Zhongnanhai (China’s White House) could learn something from it.

domestic politics ::
The forums at China.com are known for their nationalist leanings (they were at the forefront of the great Universal Values flamewar in 2008. The “Peace Forum” (和平论坛) sub-board has hundreds of pages worth of posts, most of them dealing with cross-straits Taiwan / Mainland China reunification. Conversations include “Taiwan still calls us Communist bandits,” dealing with a Taiwanese TV program’s interview with a guest who said his father beat him like a “Communist bandit.”  More recently, a May conversation discussed the short-sightedness of people who live in Taiwan, or more plainly, “Taiwan vs. China.” Caogen (草根), a blog host whose name means “grass-roots,” appears to lean left, and is home to sober commentary from noted public intellectuals like Li Changping (李昌平) and Ye Tan (叶檀), as well as other, more radical ideas. The site’s top-ranked blogger at the moment is Song Hongbing (宋鸿兵), author of the conspiracy-minded The Currency Wars, and other bloggers go off in even more unusual directions. A gem from April: “China should accept Mongolia’s request to return to the motherland” (中国应同意蒙古的回归请求) by Xu Zhaokang, who works in the Dongguan Municipal Copyright Bureau. Site-wide, top-ranked articles mostly have to do with assigning blame for the financial crisis and wondering whether the U.S. will collapse as a result. Young China features a May 4 tableau on its splash page alongside the slogan “embody the power of young China,” and continues the May 4 theme with an About-page image of students carrying a “Hello Mr. Democracy” sign on May 4, 1989. The main site is set up as a blog, but there’s also a nascent social networking site and an associated Marxist wikipedia. It’s hosted overseas, and it looks to be the work of one dedicated politics hound, but it’s still represents a political presence on mainland China’s Internet space.

international politics ::
The Chinese Foreign Ministry hosts a foreign affairs BBS discussion forum that dates back to November, 2001 (and still uses the clunky BBS software of that era). Although the last web-chat between a foreign ministry official took place in October 2008, the general interest board is still fairly active, drawing dozens of comments daily. According to the BBS’s information page, it’s only supposed to be open on weekdays between the hours of 10am and 5pm, but many comments are time-stamped outside those times. Newslist.com.cn has an International Affairs BBS discussion forum. Featured forums are aimed at students seeking to test into masters or PhD programs in international affairs, but the bulk of the site’s activity takes place in the Politics Talk forum, whose subject matter spans the globe. The Internet is home to specialized forums devoted to more specific topics in international affairs, such as China’s disputed territory and its relationship with Japan. China Non-Governmental Alliance to Protect the Diaoyu Islands (中国民间保钓联合会) has a BBS discussion forum that has sub-sections for the islands themselves, maritime rights, Sino-Japanese relations, and other related diplomatic and military topics. The China Non-Governmental Alliance to Seek Reparations from Japan has a similar set-up. A lot of discussion on these topics takes place on more general forums; traffic at these smaller websites seems to pick up when major events occur on the world stage.

local government ::
For local politics there are BBS discussion forums attached to the local Chinese government where citizens can voice their thoughts, such as the forum for locals in Nantong (南通) in Jiangsu province. That site has a section for local political affairs, which is split into three sub-sections: consultations, policy suggestions, and web-chats. Policy suggestions range from “ordinary people only want small things,” a complaint about bad traffic on a certain road to a direct appeal to the city mayor, Ding Dawei, about a chengguan (official urban control officers / thugs) without an official registration number who beat up a woman: “Who is beating up the people?” Although many local governments have set up websites, the level of political involvement differs. The city of Baoying has a government website that includes a citizens’ BBS discussion forum which claims 26,965 members, but unlike the previous government site, policy tends to be drowned out by everyday life. Of the more political-oriented conversations, “Responding to a problem” discussed road congestion partly caused by offices belonging to public security and the judiciary. As for government officials themselves, college-educated rural civil servants have a number of BBS discussion forums targeted specifically at people in their position. College Rural Official Forum features discussion boards where they can exchange information about rural governance, improve their skills, and learn the finer techniques of drawing up official documents. Politics-wise, there’s a discussion forum for current events that mostly seems to be concerned with the economic impact of college students choosing to take jobs as rural civil servants.

political personalities ::
Up until this Wednesday, the place to go to satisfy your passion for the PRC President and Communist Party / Military Commission Chairman Hu Jintao and PRC Premier Wen Jiabao was We All Love Hu and Wen (我们都爱胡总温总). On this website, fans could share stories, images, movie clips, and tributes to the beloved Chinese leaders. However, as of 5:17pm June 10, the site’s BBS discussion forum has been “suspended,” with the explanation: “The People Talk sub-board has been deleted.” People Talk was a place for fans of Hu and Wen to talk about their favorite domestic and international leaders. China’s strict rules protecting the image of domestic and world leaders had previously led the website to plead with users not to use photos of leaders in signatures or as avatars. Baidu has a Postbar devoted to the Wen Jiabao fan club, but posting is restricted to members (who number 30), and the last comment was submitted in July 2008. World leaders are a sensitive subject, too. Take U.S. President Barack Obama for example. He has his own forum on Baidu’s Postbar, but updates slowed after his election and ceased entirely after he took office in January. The forum notes that “because of relevant laws and policies,” only members (of whom there are 23) are allowed to post. Obama’s lucky — his forum still has 6,808 posts available for perusal. Ex-president Bush has no Postbar at all, only an apologetic “Sorry, the forum is temporarily unavailable based on relevant laws and policies.”

News link: A feature article posted to the Global Times website last night reported on the shutdown of unofficial fan club websites for national leaders.

[Friday 5 is the product of my work at Edelman Digital (China). Link here for the full Friday 5 archive. If you'd like to be added to the bilingual (English & Chinese) Friday 5 email distribution list, please send me an email at: adam DOT schokora AT edelman DOT com.]

:: an excellent documentary examining social media’s deconstruction / decentralization of institutions, decision-making, and organizations, and the impact the Internet is having (and potentially could have) on government, finance, collaboration / information sharing, and online / offline networking. Buy the DVD here (the video below is the full documentary). For more information, extra clips, and reviews, link here. To watch this documentary in other languages, link here. H/T Sean Leow. // AjS

:: March 15, World Consumer Rights Day, has been a big deal for several years now in China, and following all of the China-related product quality scares in 2008, the “day” has received considerable media attention this year. Although the promotion of consumer rights issues around March 15 heightens public awareness of the procedures individuals can follow to protect their legal rights, the most noticeable activity against companies and brands at this time of year is generated by Chinese government agencies and the media.

The number 315 has become a shorthand for consumer rights in China. Complaint hotlines often include the digits 315 (as in the national consumer complaint line 12315), and Web sites devoted to consumer product quality will often have 315 in the URL. For example, while the Chinese State Administration for Industry & Commerce (SAIC) provides a fairly bare-bones Consumer Rights Web site offering legal information, it falls to other 315 websites run by trade associations (and for-profit companies) to initiate legal action if enough consumers file online complaints. China 315 Consumer Rights Net is a well-known example, but a simple Baidu search for “315″ turns up a wealth of similar sites, both national and local in scope.

In addition to merely filing complaints, netizens can pursue consumer rights issues in a variety of ways via special sections set up on major Web portals, ad-hoc complaint groups, blogs, and standalone sites set up for particularly intractable problems. At seeisee’s China IWOM Blog, Sam Flemming explained how companies can use these Internet channels to reshape their relationship with consumers.

Below are some online / social media examples of activities from this year’s “315″ in China. Despite my best efforts to identify examples or case studies of companies / brands embracing 315 as an opportunity to engage with consumers / target audiences online, I am very much left with the impression that everything surrounding March 15 on the Chinese Internet is designed to teach businesses a lesson about the power of consumer rights / complaints. Stick-it-to-the man booby-traps abound. Companies and brands operating in China, beware! Muh ha ha…

web portal channels / sections ::
As consumer rights features blanketed the traditional / offline media, China’s major Internet portals also launched special channels devoted to March 15 activities. Sina’s 3-15 section is a typical example, and is built around links to articles and videos about major cases involving fake and poor-quality products / services. In terms of netizen-related content, the channel features a prominent link to MarchPhone (三月电话), a blog written by a consumer information hotline operator who describes how the job picks up every year around this time. The blog’s posts have hits in the hundreds of thousands, and the comments section is filled with people voicing complaints about products and services. Sina also hosted a Web chat with China Consumers’ Association vice-president Wu Gaohan and China Quality Long March magazine (中国质量万里行) president Wang Quelin (video, transcript). QQ has a fairly active sub-section on its Auto Channel devoted to aggregating information about car quality issues. The channel draws its information from news reports as well as the Auto Complaint section of QQ’s BBS. In general, however, most portal offerings were fairly similar, and all of them included instructions on how to report consumer issues to the authorities, as in this featured BBS post on Sohu.

a place to share gripes ::
To draw netizen participation, web portals held contests for consumer rights-related writing: blog and forum posts could be entered by putting a key phrase in the title. Some of the most popular posts were “inside stories” about how customers get screwed in various industries, as in these taken from Sohu: High markups on clothing, upselling and bait-and-switch in the wedding photos business, and the impotence of product standards enforcers. For netizens on the outside, the event was an opportunity to share gripes about how they had been ripped off in the past. On the local BBS for Xiaogan, Hubei, one netizen described how a supermarket was offering 5-yuan in cash for empty 5L oil jugs, but actually handed out 5-yuan coupons for future purchases. The solution: “I took out my mobile phone to call 12315, and the employee got nervous and immediately changed his attitude and said I could exchange the coupon.” “315″ is a shorthand on most BBS discussion forums for the consumer rights Board / group, typically a place where people complain about inferior products and shoddy services. Tianya’s 315 board is very well-trafficked, and even Youku has a 315 video section, although it only seems to receive new posts in early March.

ongoing issues ::
In November of last year, new homeowners in Xiamen’s Best Base Diadem (百源双玺) housing development discovered ceiling cracks throughout their apartments. A post to the development’s online BBS proposed joining forces against the developer, and a few homeowners exchanged email addresses. As World Consumer Rights Day approached, the residents staged a public protest outside the development, and held up a long banner complaining about their ceiling issues. Traffic and comments to the original post surged during March. Nationally, there’s a growing effort among netizens to hold Johnson & Johnson accountable for allergic reactions its products have allegedly caused in infants. On Sohu’s 315 Blog Group, a community set up in January 2009 for bloggers to pool information about consumer rights activities, J&J-related complaints are currently the top-ranked posts. Bloggers have tagged their posts with “Lodge a complaint against J&J” (投诉强生) and have shared photos of their babies’ skin rashes. One blogger recently posted a call for parents to join together to pool results of blood tests and use them against the company to attempt to prove that its products were directly involved in causing their babies’ allergies.

loser: China Mobile ::
Personal privacy has been a big issue in the past year, and one major consumer rights case this month involved China Mobile and spam SMS messages. A CCTV expose revealed that China Mobile branches in Shandong were operating bulk SMS services and had sold customer information to third parties (transcript on Sina with 1773 netizen comments). Although the revelations drew angry responses from netizens (toward China Mobile and toward CCTV as well), there were others who hailed China Mobile’s swift response to the expose as a qualified success — the company had quickly communicated not only to the traditional media but to online media as well that it would investigate the problem and work to correct it. China Mobile customer service was the focus of a post made to the Tianya BBS on March 14 by a netizen claiming to be a receptionist at the company’s customer service hotline (10086). The post ran through a long list of complaints about the job — strict performance requirements, long hours, unpaid bathroom breaks, and rage from callers. The post was promoted to featured status and drew more than 200,000 views and nearly 1,000 comments. Yet another complaint about China Mobile — this time warning about possibly fraudulent billing practices in Tianjin — was put up Sohu’s BBS on February 26, and was promoted to “3.15” featured status in the wake of CCTV’s expose, where it has registered more than 8,700 views.

notable online efforts ::
Netizens complain about shoddy products and services year-round. In 2008, one notable example was Huang Jing’s lawsuit against Asus for getting her tossed into jail on blackmail charges when she sought compensation for a faulty repair job. This led to a 315 Web site about the case and an effort to drum up a boycott against the computer company. Public opinion is divided as to whether she’s an ordinary consumer who’s been mistreated, or a scammer who got caught, but her persistence in taking advantage of all available media channels has kept the issue alive much longer than otherwise. Also in 2008, seventeen netizens filed a lawsuit against Tencent over QQ IDs they’d lost and that the company refused to return to them. In October, when the Nanshan court finally accepted the case, only eleven elected to pay the 1,000 filing fee. The blogger who had been reporting on the case at his blog has since taken down all posts related to the case, and no resolution has been made public.

// AjS

[Friday 5 is the product of my work at Edelman Digital (China). Link here for the full Friday 5 archive. If you'd like to be added to the bilingual (English & Chinese) Friday 5 email distribution list, please send me an email at: adam DOT schokora AT edelman DOT com.]