Some Chinese Government Websites Haven’t Been Updated in Years

The Beijing Government site is actually pretty decent

Perhaps it’s just because everyone is moving to Weibo, but a lot of Chinese government websites — sites that represent the official online face of city governments, departments, bureaus, etc. — haven’t been updated in a long time. How long? In some cases, we’re talking years.

A Southern Metropolis Daily reporter conducted an investigation of city government websites around the country, and found that nearly 30 percent of them had problems like infrequent updates or being no longer maintained. Additionally, the reporter found that many sites hadn’t posted phone hotline numbers, or that the numbers that were posted were disconnected, went unanswered during office hours, or even were so out of date that they were actually the phone numbers of private residences.

Unsurprisingly, government spokesmen responded that the relevant departments would oversee and correct this issue going forward.

Although there are plenty of bad things one could say about the American government these days, I was reminded just yesterday while doing some research for a post of just how thorough and up-to-date many of the official government websites are, and how useful that is to me sometimes as a citizen. They’re not always brilliantly designed, but the information you’re looking for is usually there. This is in sharp contrast to a lot of Chinese government sites, which are even more poorly designed and — apparently — also frequently outdated.

Of course, with Weibo platforms and the like, the government seems to be leaning increasingly on professionals like Sina (NASDAQ:SINA) to help with their web presences. But we do hope some of their sites can be updated and overhauled. Microblogging is nice, but when you’re looking for specific information, nothing beats an actual website with a nice clear nav bar and a functional search feature!

[Southern Metropolis Daily via Sina Tech]