China’s foreign ministry finally starts using Weibo to promote its message to millennials
- Spokesman’s office makes first post 10 years after platform opened, as bureaucrats ‘wake up’ to importance of new media
The official voice of China’s foreign ministry has made its debut on Weibo, one of the country’s biggest social media platforms, as it tries to better connect with younger Chinese, 10 years after the microblogging site first began operations.
The effort to use social media to promote the government’s official line comes amid the escalating confrontation with the United States and was described by one observer as a sign of a bureaucracy that was belatedly “waking up” to social media.
Without the singular rhetoric of US President Donald Trump’s early morning tweets, foreign ministry spokesman Lu Kang announced the official opening of the ministry’s Weibo account in a 10-second video clip posted on Monday afternoon.
By late Tuesday, the post had received 7.9 million clicks and the account had gained around 530,000 followers.
Many of the most enthusiastic responses came from other official accounts, including ones from state broadcaster CCTV and the Communist Party mouthpiece People’s Daily.