Wen Jiabao on facebook!

Surprise, surprise…. What an eye opener! China’s primier Wen Jiaobao on facebook! Wen must be the first Chinese leader to use popular, non-state-owned media to promote himself. Whether it is really him who set it up doesn’t really matter, it is the proactive outreaching that shines.

An NYT article says:

• The page offers a few bits of biographical information: His interests are Chinese literature and baseball, and his employer is the Central Government of the People.
• The page does not have popular Facebook applications like Scrabulous, Cities I’ve Visited and Shelfari Books, but what it lacks in technical pizazz it makes up for in emotional reach.
• It has a video showing horrific scenes from the earthquake playing beneath a mournful pop song. It has a photo of Mr. Wen holding up a schoolchild’s dusty backpack and white sneaker while atop rubble, and one of him crouching and looking at rescue workers digging in a hole.
• It also has photos from playful times, like ones of him wearing a baseball uniform and catching a ball with a mitt.
• The vast majority of supporters appear to be Chinese living overseas, from Taiwan to Vancouver to Milwaukee (including me… i just left mine :) ).

This one’s fun:

• At last look, Mr. Wen was 12th, lagging behind luminaries like Barack Obama (the leader, with more than 861,000 fans) and Arnold Schwarzenegger (nearly 21,000). But Mr. Wen was well ahead of Hugo Chávez, Princess Diana and Ronald Reagan.

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