According to Xinhua, the word “Baoxian 保先” (Preserving the Progressiveness (of the CCP)”) is among top ten “most searched key words” on Chinese search engine Baidu, together with “Shenzhou VI Spacecraft” and “super voice girls.”
And here is a quote from Fang Xingdong, the CEO of bokee.com, China’s largest blog-hosting service: “among the million users of bokee.com, whose blog is the hottest? I did not think of, no one has probably thought of it. It is not Mu Zimei, not Furongjiejie, not Liumang Yan. Of course it is not my blog either. Recently the top two blogs attracting traffic are all bloggers providing studying/writing materials for the education of party members.”
What does this fact tell us? Domination of CCP ideology in the Internet era and among the internet generation? Not quite so. Chinese webmasters and bloggers set up sites where they can attract a lot of traffic and then use the site to sell commercials. Sites now routinely provide pre-prepared versions of papers, which Party members are required to submit at ideological education study sessions, in order to attract traffic to their site and thereby sell ads.
Here is China’s top IT blogger Keso’s comment on this phenomena:
“There are so many blogs and websites on this subject. Like this one, and this one. They are comprehensive, have all different customized versions of papers, even ‘version for director of street committee’, ‘version for deputy secretary of Party committee’, ‘standard version’, ‘general version’ etc. There’s got to be one version that fits your needs. High traffic volume to these sites means there is good match of demands and supplies. If you really could not find the proper version [for you to copy/paste to submit and pass your study section]. You can also go to Baidu’s specific bulletin bloard for this.
The hotness of (searching) ‘preserve the progressiveness’ can match the hotness of (searching) ‘thesis’. It is even more entertaining then ‘thesis’. Website cheats Party members, Party members cheat their Party boss, and their boss cheats boss’ boss; in the end everyone cheats the Party all together. This is the comedy of our time. “
