The censorship in China of hundreds of academic papers from a prominent journal will have little impact because readership is small –and if Western institutions don’t like the way things are done in China they can leave, the state-run Global Times newspaper said in an editorial on Monday.
The editorial appeared after news that Cambridge University Press (CUP) had blocked access on its site in China to 300 papers and book reviews from the China Quarterly, which the Chinese government had asked to be removed.
Cambridge said it had complied so that the larger body of its academic and educational materials could remain available in China. But critics argue that the publisher had undermined the principles of academic freedom and independence and lent its name to China’s censorship efforts.
The articles and book reviews touched on subjects deemed sensitive by the Chinese government, including the 1989 pro-democracy demonstrations in Tiananmen Square, the 1965-75 Cultural Revolution, Taiwan, Xinjiang and Tibet.
“Western institutions have the freedom to choose. If they don’t like the Chinese way, they can stop engaging with us,” said the editorial in the Global Times, a nationalistic tabloid under the Communist Party’s official People’s Daily newspaper.
“If they think China’s Internet market is so important that they can’t miss out, they need to respect Chinese law and adapt to the Chinese way.”
The Chinese version of the editorial characterized the clash of principles as a “contest of power”. “Time will tell who’s right and who’s wrong,” it said.
News about the decision by CUP, the centuries-old publishing arm of Cambridge University, set off a torrent of criticism including from overseas scholars who study Chinese affairs.
In an open letter posted on Medium, James A Millward, a history professor at Georgetown University, said the decision was “a craven, shameful and destructive concession to China’s growing censorship regime” and a violation of academic independence.
“The result is a misleading, neutered simulacrum of China Quarterly for the China market,” he wrote.
“This is not only disrespectful of CUP’s authors; it demonstrates a repugnant disdain for Chinese readers, for whom CUP apparently deems a watered-down product to be good enough.”
President Xi Jinping has tightened China’s already strict censorship since coming to power in 2012 as he seeks to cement the Communist Party’s grip on power.
Misinformation, inciting hatred, lies, propaganda, etc should be removed. Good policy. For every critical reader, there are also a number of naive readers who can be fooled. Western nations have laws against hate speech, incitment of unrest, Al Qaeda ;iterature, nazi salutes, etc.
For one thing, the Tiananmen protests were over corruption in the government and not about democracy. The infamous photo of the man blocking a tank was taken when the tanks were LEAVING the Tiananmen square. These lies have been perpetuated hundreds of thousands of times in western media.
This is Mao dynasty song to George Washington Dynasty
Friend or Kinsman,teacher,King
Must be kept from tresspassing
if they cling to evil still,
they will bend you to their will,
Tirellessly benevolent
Save a comrade on evil bent
This is Mao’s Perfect song
Every substitute is wrong
Tibetian dynasty in exile replies back
No thought of profit or of right
Can headstrong monarchs stay
who like bull elephants amuck
pursue their reckless way
they blame the world &
forget their proper naughtiness
The West needs to leave China high and dry. We are selling our souls and children’s future freedom for a cheap buck. Not worth it. These are tyrants.
And the lies about the Cultural Revolution? I know Chinese now in the United States. You know what happened, but your government keeps thinking that maybe you shouldn’t. So sad.
Keep China to yourselves then. And stay there. The free world would rather that than become like you.
When it comes to a Free Press are access to information——–it is the Chinese way are the highway. The Chinese don’t care what others say——-especially if the others are correct———–the Chinese jsst march forward!!
I sampled only 1% of the banned articles and concluded that they should have been retracted decades ago. Academically speaking, they’re garbage.
safddsdsg
Yana Hylton
What lies? The chinese acknowledge themselves that the Cultural Revolution was a great tragedy. Millions died of starvation when harvests failed due to the extermination of birds and the resulting explosion in the insect population. Hundreds of thousands of academics were imprisoned and a large number died. There were repeated idealogical battles similar to the extermination of communists in USA and the American civil war.
Nevertheless the chinese realised their mistakes and many of the victims were reinstated in the government bureaucracy and restore services and order.
Liu Shaoqi (pronounced [ljǒu ʂâutɕʰǐ]; Chinese: 刘少奇; 24 November 1898 – 12 November 1969) was a Chinese revolutionary, statesman, and theorist. He was Chairman of the NPC Standing Committee from 1954 to 1959, First Vice Chairman of the Communist Party of China from 1956 to 1966 and President of the People’s Republic of China, China’s de jure head of state, from 1959 to 1968, during which he implemented policies of economic reconstruction in China.
For 15 years, President Liu was the third most powerful man in China, behind only Chairman Mao Zedong and Premier Zhou Enlai. Originally groomed as the successor to Mao, Liu antagonized Mao in the early 1960s before the Cultural Revolution and was criticized, then purged, by Mao starting in 1966. Liu disappeared from public life in 1968 and was labelled the "commander of China’s bourgeoisie headquarters", China’s foremost "capitalist-roader", and a traitor to the revolution.
He died under harsh treatment in late 1969, but was posthumously rehabilitated by Deng Xiaoping’s government in 1980 and granted a national memorial service. I have visited the large beautiful memorial park in Hengshan halfway up the Nanyue sacred Taoist moutnain.
Today China is 98% self sufficient in food production and close to 1 billion people lifted out of dire poverty. Cities, railways, highways, dams, schools,hospitals, clean water supply, sewerage. electricity etc. have been built for the citizens.
You need to be more critical in your thinking rather than be brainwashed and repeat old propaganda.