When Communist Party leader Xi Jinping made his first official trip outside the capital recently, to the prosperous southern province of Guangdong, his every movement was fawningly chronicled by a mysterious new microblog that seemed always one step — and many days — ahead of the official media.
The microblog, called the "Learning from Xi Fan Club," accurately reported his planned visits to Guangzhou, Shenzhen and other southern cities well before the news was run on state-run CCTV television, and days before the official Xinhua news agency, which waited to make any mention of Xi's trip until it was complete.
The fan site posted rare early photographs of Xi and his family members — highly unusual in China, where the private lives of officials remain shrouded in secrecy. There are references to Xi's mottos and favorite sports, and the site even refers to the Communist Party's top leader by an affectionate nickname, "Pingping."