Waging Peace:  China

Advancing Political Reform Through Opening Internet Dialogue

Websites sponsored by The Carter Center since September 2002 have become an important portal for political reform in China, engaging large audiences with articles in both Chinese and English and offering a platform to debate current affairs in a traditionally closed society. The goal of the websites, http://www.chinaelections.org/ (Chinese language) and http://www.chinaelectionsblog.net/ (English language), is to foster discussion among Chinese citizens on political reform, better governance, and elections in China.

The Chinese language site provides Chinese officials at all levels a resource center for governance and election affairs and gives scholars worldwide the opportunity to study Chinese politics and offer reform measures. Users can access news, articles, academic papers, laws and regulations, and data on Chinese elections and governance on all levels. The site also features special reports on election and governance matters commissioned by the project and carries recommendations generated by the project.

With more 200,000 articles online and an average of 3 million Web hits every month, it is the most authoritative resource on Chinese elections and governance.  In 2009, the weekly Chinese newspaper Southern Weekend, popular in China for its independent streak and in-depth investigative journalism, named chinaelections.org "website of the year," stating: "Its influence has quickly surpassed that normally enjoyed by the small coterie of academia, becoming a common point of navigation for citizens and officials alike in this era of learning." Another publication, Nanfeng Chuang magazine, named the website in its 2009 annual public interest awards, praising it as an "exemplar of organizations persevering against the odds in the current political environment."