中国网上信访首日系统瘫痪

For centuries, China has offered its people a chance to come to Beijing to petition the emperor directly to address grievances.

几百年来，中国一直给百姓提供一个前往京城申诉不满的机会。

But starting Monday, Chinese officials offered a new way for those not inclined to make the trip: petition online. That makes the process more convenient, said officials who spoke to state media, and allows them to track the process of their pleas.

但从周一开始，中国官员向那些无意跋涉到北京的人们提供了一个新途径：网上信访。有关负责人对国家媒体说，这样会让信访过程更加便捷，他们也可追踪民众的上访过程。

As it turned out, progress was scant: The website crashed on the first day. While it came back online Monday afternoon, the morning failure triggered mockery across China＊s social media platforms, including the popular Twitter-like Sina Weibo microblogging service.

事实证明，这方面的进展十分有限。中国国家信访局网上投诉系统第一天就出现瘫痪。虽然周一下午已恢复使用，但当天上午的瘫痪仍在新浪微博等中国社交媒体平台上引发了网民的嘲讽。

※Sorry! Weibo brought too many people to the page,§ said Li Kaifu, CEO of Innovation Works, who has more than 46 million followers on the site.

在新浪微博上拥有4,600多万粉丝的创新工场(Innovation Works)首席执行长李开复说：抱歉，微博带来太多围观上访者！

Many Weibo users said they expected the crash due to the number of potential petitioners. Some interpreted the government＊s use of a server that couldn＊t handle the first-day traffic as a sign of insincerity.

很多新浪微博用户说，由于潜在上访者数量庞大，他们已料到网站会出现崩溃。对于政府使用的服务器无法处理首日流量一事，有人将其解释为这是缺乏诚意的表现。

Petitioning, or shangfang, is the modern form of an ancient system in which people who faced injustice at home came to the capital to voice their grievances directly to the State Bureau for Letters and Calls acts as a communication channel for petitioners and the central government. While the bureau has long been criticized for a lack of effectiveness, local officials often go out of their way to keep petitioners from reaching it so as to avoid being criticized by Beijing. Hired thugs often threaten protesters or even haul them away to unofficial prisons known as black jails.

上访是一种古老制度的现代形式。以前，人们在家乡受到不公正的待遇时，便到帝都直接向皇上表达不满。中国国家信访局充当的是上访者与中央政府之间的沟通渠道。信访局一直被外界批评缺乏效率，而另一方面，中国地方政府官员为了不挨中央的批评，经常“不辞辛劳”地阻止上访者来北京。雇来的打手常会威胁上访者，甚至把他们关进黑监狱。

Many of China＊s Internet users argued that the online petitioning system, like its real-world counterpart, both suffers limitations and offers avenues for abuse. Online petitioners have to register with their verified information including national identification number, potentially exposing them to retribution. Additionally, the site only works on Internet Explorer and limits the amount of supporting materials that can be uploaded to a paltry two megabytes for each case.

很多中国网友认为，网上信访系统与上访者亲自赴京上访一样，都有局限性，也都为权力滥用提供了空间。网上信访者须注册身份证号码等经验证的信息，而此举可能会让他们遭到报复。此外，信访局网站只支持IE浏览器，并且对上传资料的大小进行限制。每件投诉事项仅可附带小得可怜的2MB附件。

Isn't it easier for local officials to suppress complaints and take revenge? said one Weibo user.

一位网友在新浪微博上说：地方官员压制投诉和打击报复难道不是更容易了？

Some described the new system as a poor imitation of the White House＊s online petition service ※We the People,which requires only an email address to register and which recently attracted a flood of petitions from Chinese Internet users eager to mock their own government＊s lack of responsiveness.

有人说这套新系统是对美国白宫网上请愿服务“我们人民”(We the People)的拙劣模仿。白宫的这项服务只需用电子邮件地址就可申请注册，而且前不久还吸引了来自中国网友的大量请愿。他们这么做是为了讽刺本国政府的不闻不问。

The bureau chief of SBLC promised in an interview with the official Xinhua news agency that every case made through the new online service would garner a response.

信访局局长接受中国官方通讯社新华社采访时承诺，网上信访要事事有着落、件件有回音。

An editorial in the Communist Party mouthpiece People＊s Daily, on the other hand, questioned whether the online service would evolve into an excuse for local officials to keep the petitioners from going to Beijing. It also asked whether the bureau will do more than simply passing on the complaints to local officials without any further accountability.

中共喉舌《人民日报》(People’s Daily)刊登的一篇评论文章则提出疑问：网上信访是否会变成地方官员阻止民众去北京上访的一个借口？此外，文章还问道：信访局是直接将投诉交给地方官员，没有进一步的责问，还是会不止于此？

In a potentially not-good sign for responsiveness, China Real Time＊s attempts to call the only phone number on the bureau＊s website ended with a recording that said the number didn＊t exist.

“中国实时报”栏目记者按照信访局网站上提供的唯一一个电话号码拨了过去，听到的却是该号码不存在的录音，这大概不是个件件有回音的好征兆。