Following Weibo from afar

Former Australian foreign minister Kevin Rudd has become the latest foreigner to tread into the microblogging sphere of China.

He opened a Weibo account on April 18 and quickly garnered more than 150,000 Chinese followers. Each of his posts, written in Chinese, receives hundreds, if not thousands, of comments.

This is a country where Weibo, not Twitter, rules.

Sina Weibo, the largest microblogging service provider in China, now claims 300 million users and 100 million messages on a daily basis.

An increasing number of foreigners or foreign agencies that want to draw the attention or tap into the market of the Chinese masses have been opening accounts on Weibo.

Foreign followers

Rudd's swift glut of Chinese followers has something to do with him aiding two Chinese students who were recently attacked in Australia.

According to the Weibo of one of the students, who called himself Xuanhao, he and his friend were robbed and beaten on board a train in Australia earlier this week. The message was forwarded to Rudd, who made some phone calls to police and immigration authorities. Six suspects were soon arrested "and the attack was not only directed at Chinese students," according to Rudd's Weibo.

If Rudd opened the Weibo account mainly to "keep in contact with his Chinese friends," as he posted earlier, three mayoral candidates from London might have a clearer goal.

In order to win the mayoral election that will be held on May 3, the candidates including Boris Johnson, Ken Livingstone and Brian Paddick all opened Sina Weibo accounts to gain attention from Chinese people who are living in London.

As the first to join a service, Boris Johnson not only attracted Chinese people's attention by using Chinese but also posted his photos with Li Yuchun, a Chinese pop singer and actress who won the nationwide singing contest Super Girl in 2005.

There are now 8 million accounts "based overseas," according to figures provided by Sina. These include 97 foreign government agencies, embassies and consulates, as well as many less high-profile groups, such as 75 tourism bureaus, jschina.com.cn, the official portal of Jiangsu Province, reported.

"Most registered foreign celebrities are sports stars from Europe and America and movie stars from Asia," Zhang Lan, a press officer with Sina Weibo, told the Global Times. "There are also some politicians that have registered Weibo accounts but they only account for a small scale."

According to Zhang, most sports stars and movie stars are invited to join Weibo by Sina employees, and most celebrities readily accept as they want to attract more Chinese fans.

"It is hard to say whether these stars wrote posts on Weibo themselves or through their assistants. As far as I know, around half of the stars are writing on Weibo by themselves," said Zhang, "and most stars have been verified by Sina Weibo for they have cooperation with Chinese companies."

Japanese adult star Sola Aoi is a popular celebrity using Sina Weibo with over 11 million followers. In order to attract Chinese fans, Aoi not only kept on writing in Chinese but also posted photos to illustrate her non-pornographic activities to Chinese fans.

However, Aoi has been the source of much controversy on Weibo and her dream of reshaping her image seems far off.

Weibo's great influence not only brings politicians and stars but also attracted the embassy of the United States to create an account to reach out to the Chinese public and create a promotional display for the US.

The US embassy has nearly 465,000 followers as it not only comments on US politics, culture, history and values but pays attention to Chinese issues such as house prices. Besides, the embassy has showed concern for the air quality of Chinese cities on Weibo and its posts about serious pollution in China have stirred up heated public discussion.

Except for famous people from abroad, Weibo has also attracted numerous ordinary foreigners who are not seeking popularity but to know more about Chinese culture.

"I opened a Weibo account as it will help me learn Chinese and meet more Chinese people," said Latin, a US student living in China. He sees the service as a must for foreigners really wanting to get to grips with China.

Olga, a Russian student, also believes that Weibo is a simple tool to discover the country, but still feels it falls behind due to government supervision, saying "the government doesn't erase posts from Facebook and Twitter."