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December 05, 2005

What happened to the Chinese Premier's blog?

WenjiabaoblogAbout 12 hours ago, I learned via ChinaDigitalTimes, via Danwei, that China's Premier Wen Jiabao  has a blog hosted on the Chinese blog-hosting service bokee.com.

It was pretty straightforward - mainly showing his schedule, plus a summary of an event he recently spoke at. There were no comments enabled on the posts but there was a "chat" function on the left-hand column where visitors could post comments. On the same day that the blog became known, ChinadigitalTimes also linked to this very positive article on the Chinese state-run Xinhua news agency, interviewing Bokee's CEO Fang Xindong, titled "Blogging's Future in China." So I wondered whether hosting Wen's blog was a successful move by Bokee to win official acceptance of blogs.

Now the blog is no longer accessible. Danwei theorizes this probably means it was a fake. 

...or maybe they got freaked out by bloggers from all over the world like this Swede trying to post comments?  Does anybody out there know anything more?

UPDATE: I have confirmed IT WAS DEFINITELY A FAKE, according to somebody at Bokee.  I hope Wen Jiabao's office doesn't get too angry at the blogosphere. That could be bad.. especially given the recent rumors that new regulations dealing with blogs specifically could come out at the end of the year.

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