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"We discussed how blogs may change China," Mao said in an interview."We didn't imagine how this would make social and even political changes to the whole Chinese community in the next five years."
In Communist Party-ruled China, the media — including the regular internet — is tightly controlled by the government.
But blogs offer a means of dodging the censors, allowing more freedom of expression and, ultimately, freedom of thought.
"It's only natural for human beings to express themselves and share their views.
But the Chinese people have been
repressed for so long and they have always kept silent.
They couldn't find an exit," Mao said.
"They need this tool to give them the freedom to express themselves.
Blogs can be a very empowering tool to them," he said.
The power of Chinese blogs was demonstrated recently by the international coverage given to a lone woman whose defiance of developers had spared her home from demolition in central China's Chongqing city.
Photographs of her house balanced precariously on a mound in the midst of a construction site were circulated all over the world after first appearing in China's blogosphere.
Bloggers manage to evade the censors by posting their comments on websites and then linking the site to many other blogs and webpages, allowing them to form a social network.
Learning to trust
"Due to political reasons from the past, Chinese people don't like to share their viewpoints, they tend to hide themselves so they
don...
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