FT and WSJ stories on new online bulletin board where ordinary Chinese can leave messages to senior party leaders--at some personal risk, of course.
A good sign, of course, but mostly a defensive one:
. . . the internet has diluted the state media's traditional information monopoly. Corruption, abuse of power and the other ills of one-party rule are now being revealed online every day.
So yeah, an exercise in PR, but one that reveals the party's largely reactive mode and demonstrates their fear of popular unrest--and that alone represents a certain responsiveness to the public.