BEIJING — The nine people selected later this year as China’s top leaders will largely determine whether, and how much, the country’s authoritarian political system yields to demands for change.
And pushing them from the bottom will be a growing grass-roots army of bloggers,microbloggers and online activists who are demanding more accountability and gradually pressing the boundaries of freedom in this tightly controlled Communist-ruled country.
These blogger-activists are far from revolutionary. Like the incoming leaders, many are children of Communist Party officials. They are patriots, but they want the nation’s institutions to work better and on behalf of the people. They take on corrupt corporations as much as they do the government. They are just as concerned about kidnapped children and AIDS victims as they are about voting rights and free elections.
The best known among them, including scholar Yu Jianrong, whose microblog tries to connect begging street children with their parents, have more than a million followers. And they must contend with ever-changing censorship rules. Many popu¬lar microbloggers have had their accounts suspended or terminated in a government crackdown this year on Internet “rumors,” after aggressive reporting on the case of ousted Politburo member Bo Xilai.
The bloggers risk death threats and harassment to raise civic awareness, bring powerful people to book and give a voice to the voiceless.
“If I speak in a high-profile way, it’s because I love this country,” said Wang Xiaoshan, 45, a well-known journalist and active microblogger who has led a boycott campaign against a large dairy company called Mengniu, which is at the center of several recent food-safety scandals.
