Unofficial fan club for Party leaders closed
- Source: Global Times
- [20:01 June 11 2009]
- Comments
By Zhang Feifei
College students hold portraits of President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao and shout "Come on, China! Come on, Olympics!" when the Olympic torch relay passes through Xi’an, capital of Shaanxi Province, West China on July 4. Some political leaders are winning online fans among young generation.
He came hunting for news of “handsome Wang”, officially Wang Yang, the Party secretary of Guangdong Province. Mao Rui instead found a notice on the homepage of the Fans Club for PRC Officials: “Closed ‘for personal reasons’” on February 5.
“I was so surprised,” said the 31-year-old white-collar worker. “It’s such a pity. It was so fresh and bold lately.”
Meanwhile in a city of about 2,000,000 in central Zhejiang Province of East China, the website’s founder logged on to an even bigger surprise.
“It was a very unpleasant experience,” said Yang Yunhe in an interview with the Global Times. “It happened so fast I didn’t even have enough time to back up all the files.”
The 34-year-old Yiwu resident declined to share details of the sudden closure, but simply intimated all was not handled as he might have wished.
“My mobile phone may be under surveillance,” said Yang, “and my landlord just asked me to move out immediately.”
To understand why, Yang tried to contact the local communications administration. “The staff there told me they just followed orders from superior officials.”
In a telephone interview with the Global Times, a sector chief of the Information Office of Zhejiang provincial government who refused to give his name said, “Yang’s website was registered as a personal website which has no right to release news. It violates the relevant Internet information management treaty.”
Both Zhejiang Province and Yiwu information offices declined to explain the closure.
“It looks like the local government still think it’s too early to have such fans’ things,” said Professor Mao Shoulong, associate dean of the Academy of Public Policy in Renmin University of China, Beijing. “They may still worry about some radical comments and reactions of fans on the Internet will endanger the stability of local society.”
Said Professor Liu Qinglong of the School of Public Policy and Management at Tsinghua University in Beijing, “A site based on pure grass roots usually lacks efficient management, and communication can easily get out of control.
“Even if talking with fans, the leaders prefer to choose media within the official publicity system, which are usually more professional and organized.”