If you ask me about what is the hottest event in China in this week, I think I probably have to say that is the “two sessions”.

The “two sessions” refer to the once-a-year full conferences of the National People’s Congress (NPC), China’s parliament, and the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), the country’s top advisory body.

I am not a guy who has strong interests in the politics. So I won’t discuss about those hot topics (e.g. economic, welfare, medicare) here. Actually, what most impressive thing in my mind is that few days before the two sessions, on February 28th, Premier Wen Jiabao engaged in his first ever online chat facing nearly 300,000 netizens and answering 29 questions over two hours.

The chat, second of its kind for a Chinese top leader, came several days before Wen is to deliver his annual work report at a meeting of the national legislature on March 5. Last year in June, President Hu Jintao became the first Chinese leader to engage in online chat with the public, in which he spent four minutes to have a brief Q&A with netizens at the “Qiang Guo Forum” on the website of People’s Daily.

In the last few months, President Barack Obama was highly admired by marketers and strategists due to his cutting-edge social media success in the election. There are so many great blog posts and articles summarize how it works, so today I won’t repeat another one (esp. it is a little bit out-of-date now). If you are interested at this topic, one of the most comprehensive studies I recommend you read is a Edelman Digital’s white paper “Social Pulpit – Barack Obama’s Social Media Toolkit”. You can download it here (PDF) and/or read it directly here.

There are 298 million netizens in China (according to the 23rd CNNIC Statistical Reports), it equals to 22.6% of China Population.

I don’t know whether Wen’s 2hrs online chat is inspired by Obama, or the insufficiency of Hu’s last engagement, or others. At least, it recognizes the increasing importance of online social media in China. Moreover, government leaders’ actions also tell marketers that listening to online buzz is not enough (of course it’s better than those who ignore IWOM). It is more and more essential for company to participate into online communities to engage with netizens. They are not only consumers, but also suppliers, employees, investors, and competitors. They are all stakeholders for a company.

Hu answered questions from netizens, Wen chatted with public, Obama interacted with electorates. What about you, market executives?