Opinion | Kunming mayor stays true to his promise and opens microblog account

The mayor of Kunming, Li Wenrong, has posted his first message on a Sina Weibo microblog in a move aimed at showing government transparency in the Yunnan provincial capital.

Li had promised to open the account on Thursday, when he met with hundreds of protesters on Kunming's streets. The angry crowd had ignored official intimidation to voice their opposition against a petrochemical project on the city's outskirts.

Within an hour from opening the account, Li had more than 8,000 followers and his blog post had been discussed by more than 3,000 people.

While some praised him, most commenting online urged him to move the refinery project away from Kunming.

The project, run by China's biggest state-owned refiner China National Petrochemical Corporation lies at the end of a pipeline which links gas fields in the Bay of Bengal with China's southwest. It has been a decade in the making.