By Melanie Lee

SHANGHAI, Nov 16 (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama's call on Monday for Internet freedom in China met with wariness and cynicism from many Chinese Internet users, suggesting his effort to win over the country's youth has some way to go.

Some were intensely patriotic in their comments, citing China's status as the largest holder of U.S. government debt as a reason for Obama's polite overtures at a town hall-style meeting with students in Shanghai. [ID:nPEK158853]

"The purpose of Obama's visit to China is to get China to help the U.S. economy's health. It's like a fox in a chicken coop," said one netizen XinDeGuiHui.

China has cut access to popular social networking sites Facebook since March and Twitter since July, citing the need for social harmony. The frontier region of Xinjiang has been unable to access any outside websites since deadly ethnic riots in July.

Chinese portals such as NetEase.com and Sina help fill the gap, with Facebook and Twitter clones and forums teeming with activity by some of China's 350 million Internet users, who outnumber the U.S. population.

"Everyone has to work to earn a living. Who has time for Obama? China is so big with many people, will all of them be able to indulge in his visit?" read a posting on NetEase news forums by Lan Shi Zi.

Some Western governments and censorship experts say China's ban of Facebook and Twitter is a ploy to strengthen censorship and control the flow of information.

"I've always been a strong supporter of open Internet use. I'm a big supporter of non-censorship," Obama said at the town hall event in Shanghai, where he answered questions from university students as well as some submitted over the Internet.