The Strong China Forum, run by the People’s Daily website, is a very dynamic online forum. Though it is a closely monitored and vetted online community, it also has hundreds of thousands of registered users and thousands of active participants, commenting on and debating current affairs. During the 17th Party Congress, the site has highlighted some short comments from netizens on issues on the Congress agenda. While a great deal of information about the Party Congress has been censored from Chinese cyberspace, this forum shows what level of public commentary is tolerated or even encouraged by official media sites. Here are some selected comments, translated by CDT:
On 17th Party Congress:
* One should sing all good songs during the Party’s birthday, and talk about problems during the Party’s congress. – Yichiwong (ÊòìÁó¥ÁøÅ)
On Housing Reform: [Minister of Construction reported that “Housing reform is very succesful”]
* Housing reform “very succesful?” As long as one closes his eyes, there is no cliff in front of him. ” cuolaishi (ÂóüÔºåÊù•È£ü )
* Different people think differently. It’s very hard for people with no house such as me to think of it as “very successful” ” jiaruozhenshizhenyijia ( ÂÅáËã•ÁúüÊó∂Áúü‰∫¶ÂÅá)
* I dare not know the housing price these days. I wish I could live in the middle of the mountains. “Shijibingchuan (‰∏ñÁ∫™ÂÜ∞Â∑ù)
* People see everything. Officials are often foolish. ” Zhenghuajin (ÈÉëÂçéÊ∑¶)
„ÄÄ„ÄÄ„ÄÄ„ÄÄ„ÄÄ„ÄÄ„ÄÄ„ÄÄ„ÄÄ„ÄÄ„ÄÄ„ÄÄ„ÄÄ„ÄÄ„ÄÄ„ÄÄ„ÄÄ„ÄÄ„ÄÄ„ÄÄ„ÄÄ„ÄÄ„ÄÄ
On Education Reform:
* The state should make teachers rich; The parents of students should not make teachers rich. “yiersanwu (‰∏ĉ∫å‰∏â‰∫î)
* Commercializing the education enterprise is the wrong way to go and is very short sighted. A multigenerational enterprise now has now become a business for one semester or one academic year, and the long term development of students is often ignored. ” manyoushijie (ʺ´Ê∏∏‰∏ñÁïå)
On Anti-Corruption work:
* In order to encourage the development of a middle class, (The Party) must effectively manage corruption. Otherwise, the real middle class will not benefit. Рwuzhou (五洲)
* To minimize the phenomenon of “using public power to gain personal interest”, the most important thing is to reduce the number of “public power” positions, thereby reducing opportunities to spend public money, “play” with public capital, and allow the market to handle more problems.”(jicengxinsheng)
[Image source: techfreep.com]
Read also: Radio Free Asia: Listener comments on 17th Party Congress.
