PLA Navy officers scatter flowers into the ocean to commemorate the First Sino-Japanese War, one of the historical events that has caused complicated relationships between Chinese and Japanese. (Photo : Reuters)
The People's Liberation Army (PLA) Navy’s micro blog had garnered more than 140,000 followers, despite having only nine published posts, the China Daily reported.
The PLA Navy is the first branch of the Chinese military to create a micro blog site on people.com.cn, the flagship website of People's Daily, the report said.
Senior Captain Shen Liqing, director of the publicity department at the navy's Beijing headquarters, said that the micro blog was created to improve the navy's communication and publicity capabilities, improve transparency, provide a platform for discussion between the public and the service, and allow the PLA navy to respond to issues.
Shen said that the blog will also provide a place where important navy events can be publicized as well as provide information, history, achievements and recruitment notices.
According to China Daily, the blog published its first post on April 22, Wednesday, urging the country's microbloggers to witness the development of the site and called on viewers to follow their posts.
The blog's second post published on April 23, Thursday, invited the public to visit vessels at ports in Shanghai, Qingdao in Shandong Province, and Xiamen in Fujian Province, during the celebration of the 66th anniversary of the founding of the PLA navy.
The report said that after barely a week, the blog got more than 140,000 followers, even though only nine posts had been published.
"As the navy takes part in an increasing number of humanitarian missions and long-distance ocean training and joint drills with foreign navies, its exposure on social media keeps rising. Having its own micro blog enables it to publish information in a timely manner, and shows that the navy is open and transparent in its operations," Zhang Junshe, a senior researcher at the PLA Naval Military Studies Research Institute, was quoted as saying.
The Global Times said that the navy will use the micro blog to correct and disprove inaccurate statements or rumors about the navy.
The PLA Navy said that the micro blog was created after a micro blogger charged several top navy commanders of alleged corruptions. The blogger was later penalized and placed under detention.
According to PLA, the incident made the military realize that creating their own micro blogs and accounts on WeChat can help in promoting and defending their image and ideology from wrongful accusations.
