
Behind-the-scenese with Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and TV host Yang Lan who hosted his Weibo conversation in China. Credit: UN Photo/Eskinder Debebe
One of the first things Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon did on his most-recent visit to China was to hold an online conversation with Sina Weibo followers. Sina Weibo is a popular Chinese microblogging platform which has over 350 million registered users.
After starting the conversation by introducing himself in Chinese, Mr. Ban answered 20 questions from Weibo users, selected from the 16,000-plus questions submitted ahead of and during the event on topics such as Rio+20, China-Africa cooperation and the role of social media.
So far, Weibo estimates the conversation attracted the attention of at least 20 million of internet users.
he then answered around 20 questions selected from the more than 16,000 questions submitted by Weibo followers
The United Nations account on Sina Weibo, updated several times a day in Chinese, has more than two million followers and many young people in China see the account as a great way to learn about United Nations.
The conversation was facilitated by TV host Yang Lan who expect to feature it on an upcoming episode of the her programme “Yang Lan One-on-One” show, which is seen by nearly 900 million people around the world.
Related story