China twitters over blogger who may be in Canada

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.

Vietnam regulator bans subversive blogging

HANOI, VIETNAM - Vietnam's Ministry of Information and Communication, which regulates the Internet in the country, has banned blogs that are subversive or reveal state, security or economic secrets, a newspaper reported on Wednesday.
Blogs should facilitate connectivity and information sharing, follow the traditions and laws of Vietnam, and be written in "clean and wholesome" Vietnamese, the newspaper Hanoi Moi quoted a ministry circular issued on Tuesday as saying.
Internet use has exploded in Vietnam in recent years, and blogging has become wildly popular.
Some 21 million people use the Internet in the country now -- or about a quarter of the population, according to the ministry's Vietnam Internet Center. Last year, Vietnam had 17.7 million Internet users, and in 2006 the figure was 14.7 million.
Internet service providers would be held responsible for the content on blogs they host, the circular said.
It did not say what would happen in the case of blogs on overseas hosts, like the highly popular Yahoo!360.
The ministry planned to contact Yahoo and Google to seek their cooperation in "creating the best and healthiest environment for bloggers" the newspaper Thanh Nien Daily reported earlier this month.
Vietnam issued a decree on the management, provision and use of the Internet and e-information in August.
Unlike its Communist brother to the north, where the so-called "Great Firewall of China" actively filters and blocks a huge range of Web sites and Internet communications, the Vietnamese government's Web monitoring has been more haphazard. --REUTERS

Vietnam To Police Blogs With Random Checks

Vietnam To Police Blogs With Random Checks, Self-ReportingBANGKOK—Vietnamese authorities plan to police the content of dissident blogs through random checks and self-policing by the country’s blogging community, a senior Vietnamese Internet security expert has told Radio Free Asia (RFA)“There should be a legal corridor to assure better operation of the blogs,” the director of the state-run Bach Khoa Internet Security Center, Nguyen Tu Quang, told RFA’s Vietnamese service. “We’ll manage them by randomly checking—we don’t need to control all the blogs.”“When we create a legal corridor, determining what is legal and what is a violation of Vietnamese law, the blog community will detect such things on its own and will let the government know of violations,” Quang said.Earlier this month, Information and Communication Deputy Minister Do Quy Doan was quoted as saying Hanoi would seek cooperation from Internet giants Google and Yahoo! to help "regulate" the country's flourishing blogging scene.The government will soon announce new rules, stressing that Weblogs should serve as personal online diaries and not organs to disseminate opinions about politics, religion, and society, senior officials were quoted as saying.The regulations aim "to create a legal base for bloggers and related agencies to tackle violations in the area of blogging," said Information and Communication Deputy Minister Do Quy Doan, according to the official Thanh Nien daily.The ministry "will contact Google and Yahoo! for cooperation in creating the best and the healthiest environment for bloggers," he added.Quang, speaking in a telephone interview, said getting help from Google and Yahoo! would be helpful but not critical. “Our effort to detect blogs will be more convenient if we can get help from the Internet companies,” he said, but added: “We can detect blogs without help from Internet companies.”
more info-->>>Vietnam To Police Blogs With Random Checks

Media watchdog urges Vietnam to release blogger

A media rights watchdog on Thursday urged Vietnamese authorities to free a blogger arrested before the Olympic torch relay who the group said was being targetted for his political views.
Nguyen Hoang Hai, who blogs under the pseudonym of Dieu Cay, was arrested April 19 for tax fraud. Authorities accuse him of not paying taxes for 10 years on a property that he owns, said the group, Reporters Without Borders (RSF).
"Tax fraud was just a pretext to prevent Dieu Cay from demonstrating when the Olympic torch went through Ho Chi Minh City and from criticising the communist party online," RSF said in a statement received Thursday.
The Beijing flame was dogged by protests against China's rule of Tibet and other human rights issues on several stops on its global journey.
Dieu Cay's arrest came 10 days before the torch passed through the former Saigon. The blogger is known for his opposition to Beijing's claim of sovereignty over the disputed Paracel and Spratleys archipelagos in the South China Sea -- island chains that Vietnam also claims.
"Dieu Cay had posted articles on his blog about protests worldwide during the Olympic torch's progress through various cities, along with articles critical of China's policy in Tibet and the Parcel and Spratly archipelagos," RSF said.
"He had called for demonstrations as the torch passed through Ho Chi Minh City," the group added.
In Vietnam, anti-Chinese sentiment had flared in rallies since late last year over the Spratly and Paracel archipelagos, and the issue was hotly debated on unofficial weblogs ahead of the torch relay.
Vietnam initially allowed peaceful demonstrations outside Chinese diplomatic missions last December but later deployed police to stop repeat rallies.
The Spratly and Paracel island chains have been flashpoints for years.
The Spratlys are claimed in full or part by China and Vietnam as well as the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan, and the Paracels are claimed by China, which now occupies them, as well as by Vietnam and Taiwan.