Most of my regular readers here at ADM.com are well-aware of colleague Damjan DeNoble’s Sino-following pedigree and of our strong China-centric collaborations. For those others of you who are relatively fresh to this piece of online real estate, you might want to click on through to Asia Health Care Blog, its sister China Health Care Blog, or Damjan’s LinkedIn profile to acquaint yourself a wee bit better with the man behind the lexical magic and a hint of an explanation why I am honored to call myself Damjan’s friend and fellow China traveler.

Warning: don’t shoot the messenger (read: me) if you end up spending more than a couple of hours at any of his sites. On offer: a hot heap of snappy content like news, videos, opinion pieces, and a collection of comments of general interest to the blogging professional.

I got up to chatting with D the other day – as we’re wont to do — and we had a good guffaw about how there are plenty of “China bloggers” out there in cyberland shilling their phantasmal China expertise, yet there are virtually no fast-talking “America bloggers” anywhere to be found, or at least anyone prepared to refer to themselves as such.

Now, granted, I can’t speak at all for the all-China blogs written in the Chinese vernacular, Putonghua, and what they’re saying about America. Given how they’re beyond the limited purview of this blog’s Roman character readership, I’ll need some of my Chinese readers to chime in with their feedback. I’m almost certain there are plenty of China scholars who are avid USA pundits, offering up their expertise and English-language skills to the legions of Chinese tycoons and nouveau-riche entrepreneurs raring for a go at the US market and its associated regulatory mechanisms. These folks likely charge high rates for their consulting services and are well-compensated for their US-based guanxi (pronounced guan-shee) and for their abilities to sew up deals or connect the dots on a US deal map. Power to them, and if you know of any of these kindly let us know in the comments below.

But as for English-speaking “America bloggers?” Would or could an American (or any other English speaker finding themselves firmly within the US sphere of influence like Canada or the British “special relationship” set) have the brazen chutzpah to refer to themselves as an “America specialist” without being heckled the hell out of the conference room?

Surely the US is too gargantuan an entity with way too much going on for any one homo Sapiens Sapiens to get a grasp on what’s going on in such an enormously complex and interconnected country? At least this is what their detractors and critics would cry.

And even if, granted, I conceded to you your lofty title and handed you the accolade on a China-made silver platter – Esteemed Madame America Blogger – is that a self-appointed moniker or have your credentials been vetted by a higher authority? Do you hand out cards at parties boasting of your USA wisdom to all and sundry who would listen to you? Did you give this title to yourself?

You see where this is going?

The Self-Anointed “China Blogger”:

Which is why Damjan and I (as I’m sure a welter of other online denizens) have deep trouble understanding how some can gallivant around online to claim how much they know enough about the abundantly more gi-normous PRC to unrepentantly refer to themselves as avowed “China experts,” “China specialists,” or – ugh! — “China bloggers.”

China consultants, maybe. Sure I can dig that. To advertise about one’s success in operating within a particular sandbox of play – like a wind power salesman or about how to sell Jilin shellfish to hungry Russian consumers up in East Coast Vladivostok – or perhaps someone’s who’s been involved in a particular industry, like the tech field, for more than just a token handful of months. Sure, I’ll agree.

Of course I’m thinking of cats like David Feng, marketer extraordinaire David Wolf, Kaiser Kuo, or programmer Ryan McLaughlin of Lost Laowai. To them, I prostrate myself lowly and deeply in the humble and fulsome ketou.

Someone who’s been immersed in a particular region of today’s PRC (“this ain’t your daddy’s China, kids!”) like Josh Summers up in far western and restive Xinjiang province, a truly intrepid American who’s lived there over a period of years and who’s even established sufficient bona fides to be taken completely seriously by the world’s mass media organs? Sure, that person can definitely shimmy closer to the expert side of the “China expertise continuum” and I’ll believe it. I’ll even go around online referring to this person as a “China blogger,” of sorts, qualifying it with the specific sort of blogger they are.

Or perhaps you’re thinking of a striving lawyer with cast iron chops and the biggest meanest spherical sac of poisonous venom who knows how to hammer it to the other side if there’s been a contractual violation of some sort?

Someone who lives and breathes the dutiful concept of habit and who, moreover, offers up his countless hours of hard-won legal savvy – absolutely free – at his firm’s award-winning blog, day after day without fail? If you’ve guessed Dan Harris, of Harris Moure and blog meister at China Law Blog, then you’re indeed tapped into the China scene.

These people have joined the esteemed pantheon of “China blogging” Shangri-la. But these other run-of-the-mill lumps shilling snake oil and sauce? Do they?

The answer is a firm and rock-solid no.

Enter the Birth of a New Terminology:

Which is why we desperately need a new terminology for those people interested in blogging about China, Sinology, or other things related to the PRC in general, but who don’t have any basis on which to make “expert” claims.

We must engage in a narrowing of the formerly expansive nomenclature, a tightening up of this truly exclusive field, and a better and proper way of referring to these folks so that they don’t completely humiliate themselves as they stuff their yob with hot canapés at the cocktail party or around the tiddlywinks table when people ask them what they do and they reply with faux gusto: “Oh, me? Well I’m a China blogger.”

No you’re not! You can’t possibly be. And why? Because there’s no such thing as one, Frank!

If there’s no such thing as an America blogger, there’s certainly no such thing as a China blogger.

Ten years ago, “China blogging” might have been an appropriate terminology. We were still in internet flux. Web 2.0 was still but a glimmer in Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and Twitter’s Biz Stone and Evan Williams’ eyes.

Today it doesn’t hold any baijiu, my friends.

So how, then, are we going to refer to these people?

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