Blogs abound in China. The software is available to the Chinese and they have taken advantage of it, according to a piece by Dan Gillmor in today’s San Jose Mercury News (free subscription required). Gillmor, travelling through China, spent time with bloggers in Shanghai. One tried to emulate Western blogs, graphically chronicling her sexual exploits. The government shut her down, then went after her provider. The police stopped a student-run blog. Chinese bloggers seem to have gotten the message; few are trying to push the boundaries of free speech.

Fons Tuinstra, a foreign correspondent from Europe who has lived in Shanghai for a decade, has high hopes for free speech here but thinks Americans have a somewhat naive view of how fast Chinese society can change. A blogger himself (www.chinaherald.net), he notes that blogging software is just a tool, not a road to political or social paradise.