VOTING for outstanding Party members, singing “red songs,” competing in Party history contests, Chinese netizens have been expressing their own best wishes for the Communist Party of China (CPC) ahead of its 90th birthday. As one of the most influential online events to commemorate the 90th anniversary of the founding of the CPC, a nationwide online recommendation activity for outstanding Party members has received so far 67.2 million votes. More than 540,000 netizens have participated in a Party history contest as of June 19. At weibo.com, China’s most popular microblogging service, the contest had more than 28,000 followers. Months before the founding anniversary that falls on tomorrow, many major Chinese Web sites, such as sina.com.cn, qq.com, sohu.com and xinhuanet.com, started to arrange special pages reporting news and historical events concerning the Party with the background theme of red. Figures show that an average of more than 1 million netizens visit these pages every day. However, official activities were not enough. Netizens’ red-themed passions also need to be satisfied. “The Founding of a Party,” an epic star-studded film marking the CPC’s 90th birthday, inspired more than 530,000 microblog posts at weibo.com. The film, which is expected to set a new box-office record in China, reaped more than 105 million yuan (US$16.15 million) as of June 19, five days after it was officially released. The figure accounted for more than 57 percent of the country’s box office at that time. A batch of red-themed songs that were once popular among the previous generations once again became popular search key words recently as many netizens sought a chance to listen to them or sing their own versions. “Without the Communist Party, there wouldn’t have been a new China” is said to be the most frequently used saying among tens of thousands of netizens’ posts addressing the Party’s 90th birthday. “It’s a profound truth expressed using the plainest words,” wrote a user at 163.com. | 