SHANGHAI -- It really doesn't matter whether China's most intriguing new blogger is also the country's Public Enemy No. 1, fugitive businessman Lai Changxing, typing missives from his refuge in Vancouver.
The fact that so many Chinese netizens - or cybercitizens - think it is him, is what makes the blogger interesting as does the positive reaction he is garnering.
Fat-Xing, as he is calling himself, posted his first blog on Feb. 27, a fairly benign introduction telling who he was and where he came from. It seemed to some, however, to be a thinly-veiled biography of Lai and less than a week later word went out on the web: "Lai is blogging, what is he trying to say?"
The reaction was immediate - and surprising.
In the past decade Chinese citizens have heard nothing but official denunciations of Lai - a cheat, a smuggler, a man who deserved to be executed more than once.
Faced with what they consider to be his own words, however, the country's cybercitizens appear to be discounting what they were told and are taking a shine to Lai.
Fat-Xing's blog appears to be operating underneath Beijing's radar. Since it isn't dealing with sensitive political issues or blatantly criticizing the regime, it wouldn't immediately attract the attention of China's omni-present Internet censors. When and if it does, it is difficult to say how they will react. The only thing that is certain, is they won't be happy to see a rehabilitation of Lai's reputation underway.
One Chinese web surfer, who called himself "president of the nubi party," wrote: "I heard your name (Lai) everyday before. Now I finally have a chance to respond to you. Waking up from a dream, I found I have been fooled so much and for so long. So are many of my countrymen. Keep blogging. We stand now with your freedom."
Youlongnaida wrote: "As a Xiamen citizen I am proud of you."
And Xuanzi said: "Hope you have a good life in Canada."
Only one dissenting voice stood out among the positive responses on Fat-Xing's blog.
"How come Lai has so many fans? Chinese people's morality has decayed to extreme," Old Ma wrote.
The Chinese government maintains Lai ran a $10 billion US smuggling ring in Xiamen, one of the coastal cities chosen to be a laboratory when China began to experiment with capitalism. One step ahead of the Chinese police, he fled to Canada in 1999 and has used the legal system to remain there ever since.
In February, Lai was even granted a work permit.
Lai's defenders, however, have long argued that his business practices only reflected the wild west atmosphere prevalent in Xiamen in the heady years after Deng Xiaoping declared: "To be rich is glorious." Fat-Xing seems to want to make the same point in his blog.
"Let me talk about smuggling. My understanding is that smuggling is just to bring the good things from abroad to China. Nobody wants bad things. About a decade or two ago, all that is smuggled are of high quality," Fat-Xing wrote.
He goes on to describe smuggling as "a redistribution of wealth" and notes that in Western countries "smugglers are simply fined."
Real crooks harm people, he said, like the dairy bosses so blatantly did when they sold melamine-laced baby milk formula in China last year.
You could almost see netizens nodding in agreement when they read that post.
One wrote, Lai "didn't kill people or cause fire, nor did he disturb society." The blog poster went on - anonymously - to suggest the Chinese government stop putting so much effort into trying to get Canada ("the paradise for criminals") to extradite Lai and use its energy to amend its own laws. "It is better to mend the fence after the sheep is lost than to lose everything."
In his latest post, Fat-Xing, has begun to interact with his fans, notably one who asks the alleged crook for advice on setting up a business in China.
Online, Fat-Xing made one faint-hearted attempt to discourage speculation that he is Lai.
"Please don't guess who, who, who I am," he wrote. "I am not who, who, who."
But later, he pumps up the intrigue by saying, "(I'm) missing my hometown where I've left for over 10 years." That's just how long Lai has been in Canada.
China's demand for Lai's return and Canada's refusal to produce him until he exhausts his legal appeals, have soured Sino-Canadian relations for almost a decade. Perhaps sensitive to this, Lai has kept a low profile for most of his sojourn in Vancouver, giving only a few interviews over the years and saying very little about his case.
And, he may still be lying low now, but you would be hard pressed to convince Chinese netizens of it.
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