China lifts brief ban on blog sites

China’s two biggest microblogging sites resumed normal service yesterday after a three-day ban on posting comments amid the country’s worst high-level political crisis in years.

The temporary suspension by Sina’s Weibo.com and Tencent’s t.qq.com followed a flurry of rumours online about the downfall of a prominent Communist Party figure, Bo Xilai. Authorities have closed a dozen websites and detained six people for circulating rumours of a coup.

The two firms said the shutdown was aimed at “cleaning up” illegal and harmful information posted on some accounts.

The clampdown underscores the party’s anxiety over an digitally literate public that is eager to discuss political events despite censorship and threats of punishment. Sina and Tencent say they have a total of nearly 700 million microblog accounts.

Mr Bo, a populist once seen as a contender for a seat on the ruling Politburo Standing Committee, was dismissed last month as party secretary of Chongqing.

Zhao Xiao, an economics professor at University of Science and Technology Beijing, said the public was sharing rumours because the government released so little information.