Ban to chat with Chinese micro bloggers

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will engage with Chinese micro blog users in a live interactive chat session on Tuesday as part of his three-day visit to China from Tuesday to Thursday.

It will be conducted from 19:30 to 20:15 on Sina Weibo, a popular micro-blogging website in China. The Chinese version of the UN official website will also cover it live.

Questions are being collected in advance through a special page dedicated to Ban's appearance on Sina. A select number of questions will be answered by the secretary-general, according to the Office of the United Nations Resident Coordinator in China.

According to UN Radio, more than 2,000 questions have been submitted, covering issues including the obligations of the UN head, the Syrian crisis, youth unemployment and human rights.

The international body has put more and more emphasis on interactive social networks to get closer to the global public.

In September 2011, Ban became the first UN chief to hold a live "global conversation" with the public through Facebook, LiveStream, Twitter, Sina Weibo and other social media networks. The UN received questions in the six official UN languages — Chinese, Arabic, English, French, Russian and Spanish — as well as Portuguese and Swahili.

Around 70,000 Chinese questions were submitted to Ban on Sina Weibo, of which three were answered by him during the one-hour chat.

The account of the UN on Sina Weibo currently has more than 2 million followers since being established in 2010, becoming one of the most active platforms of social networking within the UN organization.

In Beijing, Ban will meet Chinese leaders and attend the opening ceremony of the Fifth Ministerial Meeting of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation to be held from Thursday to Friday.

It is Ban's fifth visit to China since taking up his job in 2007 and the first one after assuming his second term earlier this year.