Seeking Truth, an official journal of the central CCP leadership, has run a new piece criticizing the use of the internet to attack the government and spread negativity about China.
The piece, which attempts to analyze the logic (or illogic) and ethos of China’s internet, concludes:

We must have an accurate grasp of online public opinion. The government must . . . see online public opinion as a way to understand the popular mood . . . At the same time, we must recognise that China’s mainstream are those who are busy going to work everyday, those employees busy at their jobs; they are those men and women pushing their carts at the supermarket; they are those strolling at the park on the holidays. In the online world, they are the silent majority, and they are the principal part of our modern society. . . When a voice emerges, one must ask who that voice represents, and how many people it can represent. One cannot listen to the wind and simply assume there is rain.

Seeking Truth, however, seems not to realize those people at the supermarket and strolling through the park are increasingly using smartphones.



David Bandurski

CMP Director

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