Xi Jinping, the presumed heir to the current General Secretary and President Hu Jintao, has been away from the public eye for ten days now, producing various rumors about his whereabouts. It is an urgent matter for China because Beijing is expected to hold its 18th party convention for transfer of power in a month.

Xi canceled meetings with the US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong on September 5 and another meeting with the Danish Prime Minister on September 10, without notice. Yet the Chinese government has not explained why this happened and it is an unprecedented matter for China, which puts a lot of stress on the protocol.

Xi attended a speech held at the Central Party School on September 1, and that was the last time Xi was seen in public. Hong Kong’s Apple Daily reported that Xi might have health problems or might even be resigned because of pressure from the other party members.

Meanwhile, some foreign media, including the New York Times, reported that health issues may in fact be the case, but that they are not believed to be critical or in any position to cause problems for the transfer of power to Xi. However, the Chinese government has not said anything so far regarding this matter, making people more curious about what is happening in China.

Foreign media has suggested several scenarios of what could have happened to Xi. They range from recovering from an injury while playing soccer or swimming, to involvement in a car accident at the hand of supporters of Bo Xilai, Xi’s competitor, or having suffered a heart attack. Among these possibilities, many have emphasized the first one.

On September 13, Hong Kong’s Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy (ICHRD) said in a press release that Xi had surgery last month because of liver cancer at the People’s Liberation Army 301 Hospital in Beijing, and is currently recovering but otherwise has no problem with his health. However, there is no way of confirming this because the Chinese government is continuing its silence about Xi.

Xi Jinping, born on June 1, 1953, is a high-ranking politician of the People’s Republic of China. He studied at Tsinghua University, one of the most prestigious schools in China, and started his early career serving mostly in the Fujian province. He currently serves as the country’s Vice President. He is supported by both right wings and left wings and considered as China’s future leader.

Image Courtesy of   Antonio Villaraigosa

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Social Media is everywhere; it’s all over the world. There are blogs, social networking sites, podcasts, discussion forums, photo sharing and microblogs. China even has its very own microblog. It is so popular and rapidly growing that, in fact, an anonymous group of individuals in China have created their own version of Twitter. This is China’s largest microblogging service, and “critics are saying this is the latest attempt of the Chinese Government to censor social media,” according to Chinese Correspondent, Angus Walker. This microblog is known as Sina Weibo and has an estimated 300 million users.

Speculation of censorship of the website began earlier this year after people began spreading false rumors of senior politician and former Governor of Chongqing, Bo Xilai. The government had warned users to stop, but users continued to post photographs of tanks in the streets of Beijing, “claiming a military coup was underway in the wake of the sacking of Xilai,” according to ITV News.

As a result, the government has created a rule system for all users of the microblogging system to abide by. Under this system, every user of the site will start with 80 points. A convention for the rules has been created known as the “community convention” and if a user breaks any of the rules, they will receive a deduction in points. If enough points are deducted, they will be banned from the site. Thus far, the rules are as follows:

As stated by Walker, “the company that runs the site, Sina, has not come up with the idea itself and it remains to be seen whether the regulations will be imposed and policed. Using social media to criticize government policies or chat about political events has become a new way for “netizens”, as they are called, to voice their opinions.” And, “with a half a billion people online in China, around 300 million are using microblogging sites – that is roughly the population of the United States all making comments on a regular basis.”

China has some of the strictest social media censorship regulations in the world, with Facebook still being banned in the country to this day. According to Clifford Coonan, a Beijing Reporter with ‘The Independent,’ even though micro-blogging in China started less than three years go, it has become enormously popular, with growth quadrupling last year. Nearly half of all Chinese internet users now use micro-blogs.”

Thus far, Sina has been incredibly cooperative with the rules and regulations proposed in order to avoid further censorship and clashes with the Chinese government in the future

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