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According to my own research, real-name registration for the internet is done by many countries around the world. But first it requires a basis in the law. In the mobile phone sector now we’re only at about 58 percent real-name registered, and about 40 percent of the market remains unregistered. This is a process, and it has to be explained. The trials with real-name registration on the Weibo are for the sake of the orderly and healthy development of the internet — in order to protect the privacy and secrecy of individuals, corporations and the nation.

Chinese citizens are busy dissecting and taunting the meeting on social media. While Premier Wen Jiabao was pledging that the government would “quickly” reverse the widening gap between rich and poor—last year he said it would do so “gradually”—Chinese Web users were scrutinizing photos of delegates arriving for the meeting, and posting photos of their nine-hundred dollar Hermès belts and Birkin and Celine and Louis Vuitton purses that retail for car prices. As Danwei points out, an image that has been making the rounds with particular relish shows the C.E.O. of China Power International Development Ltd, Li Xiaolin, in a salmon-colored suit from Emilio Pucci’s spring-summer 2012 collection—price: nearly two thousand dollars. Web user Cairangduoji paired her photo with the image of dirt-covered barefoot kids in the countryside and the comment: “That amount could help two hundred children wear warm clothes, and avoid the chilly attacks of winter.” And it appended a quote from Li, of the salmon suit, who purportedly once said, “I think we should open a morality file on all citizens to control everyone and give them a ‘sense of shame.’” (This is no ordinary delegate: Li Xiaolin happens to be the daughter of former Premier Li Peng, who oversaw the crackdown at Tiananmen Square.)

Another message making the rounds uses an official high-res photo of the gathering to zoom in on delegates who were captured fast asleep or typing on their smart phones.

make it easier for users to define their relationships with other users—such as by labeling those who are real friends, as opposed to those who are just "fans." And there will be special services, like "personal assistants," to help the site's most influential users with technical questions.

Social-networking sites have taken off in much of the world, with users across the globe becoming increasingly interconnected. But unlike many other markets, China—which has more than 450 million Internet users, more than any other country—isn't dominated by big U.S. companies like Twitter Inc. and Facebook Inc. In fact, China's government blocks access to those two sites for users inside the country. MySpace China, an affiliate of the U.S. social-networking site that is partly owned by News Corp., has struggled. News Corp. also owns The Wall Street Journal.

a host of domestic Chinese companies are competing to fill the space. RenRen Inc., which runs one of the biggest Facebook-like sites in China, raised $743 million in a U.S. initial public offering in May that it is using to beef up its offerings. Rival Kaixin001, held by Happy Networks Ltd., also operates a social-networking site similar to Facebook. Chinese search giant Baidu Inc. is trying to turn its popular message board, Baidu Tieba, or Postbar, into more of a social network, and had its own microblogging service, Baidu Shuoba, or Baidu Talk, which failed to gain traction against Sina and now has been suspended. Sohu.com Inc. and NetEase.com Inc. offer microblogs.