Chinese netizens bombard Obama

U.S. President Barack Obama will arrive in Shanghai tonight to start his three-day visit to China. His popularity in the country is obvious as millions of Chinese netizens have raised tons of questions regarding his policies and personal life.

More than 2,000 questions were collected by the end of Saturday at a forum jointly opened by the state-run news agencies Xinhua and People's Daily on Friday morning. Selected questions will be handed to Obama on Monday when he is in Shanghai, reports Xinhua. Netizens show great concern over Sino-U.S. relations with questions like "Why does U.S. keep imposing high import duties on some products from China?" And "Will you sell weapons to Taiwan?" In the meantime, Obama's plan of meeting Tibet's spiritual leader in exile, the Dalai Lama, after the visit has apparently triggered widespread discontent among the Chinese. In comparison, some Chinese people are asking how the U.S. would react if Chinese officials met Osama bin Laden, U.S. embassy spokeswoman Susan Stevenson told AFP on Saturday. There are also surprising questions targeting Obama's personal life and his family. For example, one contributor asked how much wine he could drink, while another asked for the key to keeping a successful marriage. Although all questions were censored by the two news agencies, some critical voices of government corruption still managed to slip through; one online user nicknamed "Women love perfection" asked if those gorgeous dresses Michelle Obama wears at the important events are bought by herself or by the U.S. government. China's heavy hands on Internet control was also a hot topic. One user asked, "What do you think of the typically Chinese way of interpreting freedom of expression, with a propaganda department that filters comments and removes messages?" More than 330 million online users in China are suffering from the country's infamous great firewall, which blocks websites considered "inappropriate," including Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.