Closer Look: Why the Public is Telling Officials to Jump in a Lake

BEIJING – In March, the new president, Xi Jinping, had some words of advice for the major of Suzhou, in the eastern province of Jiangsu.

The mayor had just outlined a plan improve the water quality of the city's lakes. But Xi said that, at least as far as Net users were concerned, the best measure of quality was whether the mayor himself dared to dive into local bodies of water.