This post made to Sina Weibo by Ma Qiji (马旗戟), former vice-president of CR-Nielsen, a joint venture of the global market research firm Nielsen in China, was deleted from Sina Weibo sometime before 3:45 a.m. today, November 5, 2012. The post points out that while China’s new generation of leaders will take the stage in just days, Chinese media can only focus on the presidential elections in the United States because the 18th National Congress of the CCP is shrouded in secrecy. Ma Qiji currently has more than 41,000 followers, according to numbers from Sina Weibo. [More on deleted posts at the WeiboScope Search, by the Journalism and Media Studies Centre].[Homepage image by “vectorportal” posted to Flickr.com under Creative Commons license.]

We are just about to Sparta ourselves [NOTE: This is Chinese web slang for “go crazy” or “slide into hysteria”], to choose the new boss for our secret society [NOTE: Ma is referring to the Chinese Communist Party], but our media can only show interest in and dramatize the American presidential elections.

The original post in Chinese follows:

我们马上就要斯巴达，要确定帮会新大哥，但我们的媒体却只能好奇和只敢渲染美国总统谁会当选。我朝带表党的威势，真牛逼。