Range of Operation
The Ministry of Culture of the People's Republic of China now holds regular training sessions, whose participants are required to pass an exam after which they are issued a job certification. Some estimates claim thousands of such commentators while other estimates put their numbers as high as 280,000–300,000.
According to the Chinese Communists' opinions of the recruitment of university Work Committee (tentative), the university Internet commentators are mainly selected from cadres or student cadres at Communist Party Publicity Department of universities, Youth League, Office of Academic Affairs, Network Center, Admissions Employment Department, Political Theory Department, Teaching Department and other units.
The court of Qinghe District, Huai'an organized a team of 12 commentators. Gansu Province hired 650 commentators, sorted by their writing abilities. Suqian Municipal Publicity Department's first 26 commentators' team were reported by Yangtse Evening Post in April 2005. According to high-profile independent Chinese blogger Li Ming, the pro-Chinese government web commentators must number "at least in the tens of thousands".
Wen Yunchao (温云超), a formal Internet commentator said that there were about 20 full-time commentators for the local news websites in Guangdong. A county-level discipline inspection commission's Internet commentator estimated more than 100 spare-time Internet commentator in his county, whose population was about 1 million. Hu Yong, an Internet expert from Peking University, said that "the public opinion molders have already penetrated different layers of Chinese society", he found public opinion watchmen that deal with negative information on the forums in tourist city's airport and county-level middle school.
Amnesty International secretary-general Salil Shetty in March 2011 warned that countries, like China and Iran, were investing "considerable resources into pro-government blogs" in an effort to cement state power.
Every large Chinese website is instructed by the Information Office to create a trained team of Internet commentators.
In a leaked propaganda directive to 50 cent party internet commentators, their objective was stated as:
In order to circumscribe the influence of Taiwanese democracy, in order to progress further in the work of guiding public opinion, and in accordance with the requirements established by higher authorities to “be strategic, be skilled,” we hope that internet commentators conscientiously study the mindset of netizens, grasp international developments, and better perform the work of being an internet commentator. For this purpose, this notice is promulgated as set forth below:
- (1) To the extent possible make America the target of criticism. Play down the existence of Taiwan.
- (2) Do not directly confront democracy; rather, frame the argument in terms of “what kind of system can truly implement democracy.”
- (3) To the extent possible, choose various examples in Western countries of violence and unreasonable circumstances to explain how democracy is not well-suited to capitalism.
- (4) Use America’s and other countries’ interference in international affairs to explain how Western democracy is actually an invasion of other countries and is forcibly pushing Western values.
- (5) Use the bloody and tear-stained history of a weak people to stir up pro-Party and patriotic emotions.
- (6) Increase the exposure that positive developments inside China receive; further accommodate the work of maintaining stability.
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