The Communist Party secretary of Suqian looks like any other Chinese apparatchik, with his old-fashioned square spectacles. But he is very different.

Zhang Xinshi writes an official blog and has persuaded many other local officials to follow his lead.

Mr Zhang, who smiles easily, can hardly contain his delight as he recounts the joys of blogging. His aim is simple: he wants to know what the people think and to exchange ideas with them. “I don’t write in the way I deliver public speeches,” he said. “This is a more direct and informal way to communicate with the people.”

Mr Zhang sees his blog as a political duty at a time when China’s Communist leaders are looking for ways to answer mounting discontent over issues such as the income gap, rising costs of healthcare and education, appropriation of farmland and official corruption.

Mr Zhang believes that his medium is more efficient than traditional forms. “My aim is to get closer to the masses, to help to guide them and to hear their views,” he said. “This is about a way to serve the people. That is my public duty.”

This may sound simple, but Mr Zhang, boss of this new industrial city in a poor area of wealthy eastern Jiangsu province, has won both approval and opprobrium for it.

His blog, launched three months ago, is already a talking point nationwide. It started almost by accident when an essay that he posted on the local government website, www.suqian.gov.cn, criticised local officials for such lapses of etiquette as spitting in the street, shouting into their mobile phones and even failing to flush the lavatory. The resulting hullabaloo — he received 17,000 responses — was the start of a regular posting.

Mr Zhang eagerly opens his laptop to show off his latest efforts — three in a single day — on the Voice of the Government. (It was a Sunday, after all, and he had a little more private time.) Many of his blogs read like paternalistic tutorials on topics such as best practice in chicken farming or land use.

“This is not to entertain people,” he said. “If readers want that they should read the blogs of celebrities.”

Mr Zhang takes satisfaction from the impact his blog has in Suqian, which is eager to attract foreign and domestic investment to boost the incomes of the mainly poor farmers of the region.

After one official commented on the waste of public funds through multiple subscriptions to party-run newspapers, Mr Zhang acted to curb the practice. A blog he wrote about China’s recent policy to create a “new socialist countryside” triggered a spate of responses from farmers unhappy at plans to replace their villages with new buildings. Mr Zhang decided that the farmers had a point and changed policy.

He bristles at suggestions that the blog is a ploy to further his career. But such criticisms have been voiced in the media and he has learnt to cope with brickbats as well as bouquets when he opens his e-mail.

He will not be deterred, however, and has already ordered more than 20 local officials to join China’s 100 million bloggers so that they can improve relations with the public.

Thought for the day: push, struggle, achieve

January 1 blog
by Zhang Xinshi

It's New Year's Day and everything is new. I set out at 8.38 in the morning for the opening ceremony for some new projects in Suxiang district. We had just entered Jiangshan road when I caught sight of a red-painted banner hanging over an arch that read: “Raise high the flag of a strong industrial district, chant the song of creating a prosperous people.”

District party secretary comrade Xu Bujian said “this is the main task for our expanded party committee, it is also the guiding spirit for the whole year.”

Suxiang district this year is starting 16 projects with investment of 1.137 billion yuan, it has nine village projects with investment of 18 billion yuan and 8 city district projects with investment of 718 million yuan.

As Comrade Xu Bujian said: “To grasp the economy you must grasp industry; to grasp industry you must grasp projects and to grasp projects you must grasp big projects.” So that means that for big projects the essential is “push, struggle, achieve”.

Wishing the whole city such a New Year, such a New Custom!

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