2006 CHINESE BLOGGERS CONFERENCE

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 SHANGHAI 007098

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DEPT FOR EAP/CM AND DRL/PHD
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E.O. 12958: DECL: 12/1/2031
TAGS: PHUM PGOV ECPS CH
SUBJECT: 2006 CHINESE BLOGGERS CONFERENCE

REF: 05 SHANGHAI 4636

CLASSIFIED BY: Mary Tarnowka, Section Chief, Political/Economic
Section, U.S. Consulate Shanghai.
REASON: 1.4 (b),(d)




1. (C) Summary: The Second Annual Chinese Bloggers Conference
took place in Hangzhou from October 28-29. Organizers had
problems in holding the conference and had to switch venues
twice. While the public sessions suffered from uninspiring
speakers, a conference organizer said there were 20 private
sessions in which participants discussed issues such as
overcoming China's firewall, human rights and NGOs. In
discussions with Poloff, most conference participants opposed
the government's plans to force bloggers to register with their
real names. Organizers plan to modify the format at next year's
conference to make sessions more focused and provide for
participation by invitation only. End Summary.



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Conference Venues

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2. (C) Poloff and FSN Political Assistant attended the Second
Annual Chinese Blogger Conference in Hangzhou on October 28-29.
Like the first conference, which was held in Shanghai last year
(reftel),the 2006 conference was organized by local bloggers
without government involvement. Conference organizer and
prominent blogger Isaac Mao in a discussion with Poloff on
November 7, said around 300 people attended the conference.
While most of the participants were from mainland China, a few
came from Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore and the United States.
Mao added that over 500 people had registered online to attend,
but many did not show up because the conference changed its
venue two times in the final weeks before the event.




3. (C) According to one organizer's blog, the conference was
originally scheduled to be held at a conference center located
at Zhejiang University. In early October, organizers had to
move to another venue after they were told that there would be a
governmental meeting at Zhejiang University at the same time as
the conference. All of the buildings on the campus were needed
for the meeting. The second site was located at Hangzhou
University. The day before the conference was scheduled to
begin, organizers were told that power was going to be cut off
from the building in which the conference was to be held.
Organizers quickly found another venue located at a hotel far
from the city center.




4. (C) Participants with whom Poloff spoke were not surprised
that organizers had problems finding a venue and believed that
the power shut off was just an excuse. One participant who was
a blogger from Shanghai said he heard that university officials
were uncomfortable with the conference and pressured the
organizers to move. University officials were worried that
students would be attracted to the conference. Poloff stopped
by the Hangzhou University site after the end of the first day's
sessions and found that the building had electricity. Many of
the rooms had lights on and there was music playing in the
hallways.



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Uninspiring Speakers

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5. (C) As a result of the change in venues, the conference was
plagued by technical problems. The conference started late

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because most participants had to be bused from the Hangzhou
University site to the hotel. The microphones often did not
work and there were not enough seats for conference
participants. These problems made it difficult for participants
to focus on the speakers' presentations. By the afternoon of
the first day, many of the participants were not paying
attention to the speakers and were either talking to friends or
searching the Internet on their laptops.




6. (C) Only a few of the conference sessions touched on
substantive issues. Hong Bo who goes by the name Keso on his
blog and is one of China's most influential bloggers gave the
keynote speech. According to a conference participant, Keso was
one of the spiritual leaders of the Chinese blogging community
and received approximately 10,000 page views a day on his
website. In his speech, he warned against the
over-commercialization of Chinese blogs, which he said were
fundamentally non-commercial entities. He also criticized the
Chinese government's plans to force bloggers to use their real
names and said such a plan would have a negative affect on the
Chinese blogsphere. In another session, panelists said blogs
were a "grassroots media" that played an important role in
providing more accurate and diverse information.




7. (C) The other sessions were uninspiring and focused on
commercial and technical issues. Over half of the speakers
deviated from their assigned topics and spent most of their time
urging participants to visit their websites or use their
products. Most participants who spoke with Poloff and Political
Assistant were not concerned or surprised by the sessions. One
participant who was a blogger from Taiwan said that he had been
to similar conferences in Taiwan and these conferences always
focused on commercial and technical issues. Another participant
who had attended the conference last year in Shanghai explained
that most people attended last year's conference to meet friends
and have technical exchanges. Many found that it was a good
opportunity to promote their business and returned this year
with these goals in mind. He was disappointed by the conference
but said he would still return next year to keep in touch with
friends.




8. (C) In a discussion with Poloff on November 15, Fudan
University PHD candidate Robert Deng expressed similar views.
Deng is researching the role of bloggers in China and attended
the conference as a speaker. He said conference participants
were not representative of the blogging community in China.
Most of the conference participants were involved in the IT
field, in their late 20's or early 30's and male. According to
his research, bloggers in China were very diverse and many were
not computer experts. He also added that it was not surprising
that there was little debate or discussion about substantive
issues. He said most bloggers were not comfortable speaking out
in public settings and saved their opinions for their blogs.



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Real-Name Registration

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9. (C) Poloff and Political Assistant were able to talk to
some participants about the Chinese government's proposed plan
to require bloggers to register under their real names. Most
opposed the idea and said it would change what they wrote
online. In his talk on building trust on the Internet,
Zhongshan University Professor Cheng Lehua said that although
real-name registration would provide readers with more personal
information about bloggers, it would not increase trust on the
Internet and, therefore, was not needed. Deng said that
government efforts to control the internet such as real-name
registration only had limited effect. While it could prevent
people from expressing some views, blogs were important, not
because of their content, but because they teach people how to
express themselves. By having a blog or learning to use the

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Internet, people learned how to write and communicate. They
become more interested in the outside world and involved in
issues. Deng believed that this would lead to a fundamental
change in Chinese society.




10. (C) Mao said that real-name registration could actually
have a positive effect on the Internet. First, it would make
people realize the true nature of the Chinese government and
make some people more active in opposing governmental controls.
Second, it would force people to look for alternatives to
mainstream portals. More people would start place their blogs
on smaller portals or overseas portals not controlled by the
government.



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Small Group Sessions

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11. (C) Isaac Mao acknowledged that the conference had some
problems, but said that it was an overall success. According to
Mao, there were 20 private small group sessions that took place
on the margins of the conference in which bloggers discussed
issues such as how to overcome the "great firewall" (the system
used by the Chinese government to prevent internet users in
China from accessing anti-government websites),promoting human
rights, and working with NGOs. These sessions had approximately
10 people each and were invite-only. During the sessions,
participants came up with ideas on how to tackle sensitive
issues. For example, in the next few months participants would
introduce a website which would contain information on how to
get past the "great firewall" and gain access to controversial
websites. (Note: It is not clear if he was referring to
"psiphon," a program described in a November 11 International
Herald Tribune article that allowed users to circumvent
government censorship. End Note)




12. (C) Mao also defended the conference's commercial
character. First, he said it was natural for the conference to
take on a commercial focus since most participants were young
entrepreneurs who were looking for ways to improve their
businesses. Second, the conference's commercial veneer was
useful in preventing governmental interference. The group did
not register last year's conference and Mao was concerned that
it would not be able to pull off this year's conference without
registering it. So it registered the conference as a business
meeting and avoided sensitive subjects in the public sessions.




13. (C) According to Mao, the conference was created to provide
bloggers with an arena to discuss substantive issues. He said
that bloggers had been discussing sensitive issues for the past
few years online. To protect their privacy, bloggers used
programs like Skype to evade government censors. Soon
afterwards, a few bloggers decided that it would be useful to
meet in person and organized the first bloggers conference.
This conference was a great success and a core group of bloggers
emerged from it with an interest in promoting change. There
were approximately 20 people in this core group. Most of them
were male entrepreneurs or professionals in their early
thirties. Only one member of this core group was female. The
group wanted to hold a second conference to allow it to meet in
person since many members lived in different cities and some
even lived outside of China. These were the individuals who
participated in the private sessions. In addition to creating a
website on the "great firewall", the group planned to work with
NGOs to assist them in setting up websites. Mao noted that the
group wanted to promote change but was not confrontational. It
avoided controversial groups such as the Falun Gong or human
rights dissidents.



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Future Plans?

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14. (C) At the end of the conference, Mao announced that the
next bloggers conference would be held in Beijing. In private,
however, Mao told Poloff that the conference would likely be
held in a different city. He was not completely satisfied with
how this year's conference was organized. He said that the core
group of organizers, many of whom did not live in Hangzhou, left
the details of organizing the conference to volunteers in
Hangzhou. These volunteers were very naove. Not only had they
tried to reserve space on college campuses, but had also
publicized the conference to the local media. The propaganda
department banned the local media from covering the conference
and local officials began asking specific questions about
conference participants and speakers.




15. (C) Mao said the core group was discussing how to organize
next year's conference. Members wanted to maintain the
conference's independence and would likely allow people to
attend by invitation only. In addition, there would be multiple
tracks at the conference. One track would focus on commercial
issues, the other on social issues, and the third on NGOs.
JARRETT