Government censorship in China has increasingly targeted books, bookstores, and publishers. Last fall, over a dozen bookstores were shuttered or targeted for closure, generating a chilling effect on China’s publishing industry. Last April, an online repository of pirated ebooks closed its WeChat account under mounting pressure from authorities. In October 2023, a book on the last Ming emperor was recalled from shelves and all mention of it banned on social media, allegedly because the cover could be construed as a criticism of Xi Jinping. In the face of such pressure, some bookstores have become sites of subtle ideological protest, with Xi’s works placed next to more progressive scholarly works in order to make a political point.
Recent media pieces show that these repressive trends in publishing have continued. Last week, Rachel Cheung at The Wire China wrote about the existential crisis facing book publishers as a result of commercial and political pressures. Drawing on interviews with over a dozen publishers, editors, and writers, Cheung described the “vicious cycle” that is corroding the publishing industry and rewriting the rules of the game:
Today the industry faces a dual predicament, according to Zhang Shizhi, a former executive at a major state-owned publisher in Sichuan. It is, he says, both “encircled” by an ever-tightening censorship regime on the political front, while on the commercial front publishers are being “chased” to the bottom by intense competition and financial pressures. “Everybody is embroiled in a price war,” he says. “Publishers are wailing — it is very difficult. If this situation does not change, there will be no books worth reading in China in five to ten years.”
[…] State publishers’ political calculations have also shifted. Since its introduction, the shuhao system [for issuing ISBNs, International Standard Book Numbers] has effectively turned them into frontline censors. The onus is largely on them to read between the lines and screen for problematic content. They have toed the party line over the course of Xi’s 13 years in power. But in order to play it safe, some are self-censoring even more than is really necessary.
[…] “The whole system is based on strategic ambiguity,” says Peter Goff, co-founder of the Bookworm, which operated outlets in Beijing, Chengdu and Suzhou for over a decade until they closed in 2019. “There’s no clear definition of what’s okay and what’s not okay. Everybody is almost by definition extremely conservative in their approach because they know that if the spotlight is put on them or a particular title, the repercussions can be serious.” [Source]
A similar situation is occurring in Hong Kong. This week, three independent local publishers stated that they were inexplicably barred from participating in this year’s Hong Kong Book Fair, the city’s largest book fair and one of Asia’s largest literary events. One of the publishers, Bbluesky Publishing, had participated in the book fair every year from 2020 to 2024. Vivian Au at the South China Morning Post described some of the books that the fair’s organizers had told the publishers to remove last year:
Last year, Bbluesky Publishing was told by the organiser to remove five titles – two by the late former opposition lawmaker Shiu Ka-chun and three by veteran journalist Allan Au Ka-lu – from the shelves of its booth.
However, it insisted on keeping one of Au’s books on its shelves as it was “merely about travel in Hong Kong”.
Au, a veteran journalist, was arrested by national security police for allegedly conspiring to publish and reproduce seditious materials in 2022 but was not charged.
[…] Shiu, who died in January at the age of 55 after a battle with stomach cancer, was jailed for eight months in 2019 for his role in the 79-day Occupy movement protests in 2014 that called for universal suffrage.
Boundary Bookstore was also asked to remove three titles, including a new book by Au on journalistic ethics, which the organiser said it had received complaints about. Another was a novel by poet Liu Wai-tong which touched on social movements. The bookstore complied. [Source]
These latest developments in Hong Kong are part of a longer history of book censorship following the 2020 National Security Law. In September 2022, a judge sentenced each of the authors of an illustrated children’s book to 19 months in prison for sedition. In May 2023, local media reported that the Hong Kong government purged hundreds of books on politically sensitive topics from the city’s public libraries. Brian Kern recently wrote about the different stages of Hong Kong’s crackdown on books, which moved from public libraries to book fairs. He highlighted the unique role that independent bookstores play in sustaining “soft resistance” and the government harassment they increasingly face:
Besides selling books, independent bookstores in Hong Kong often hold gatherings of various kinds including book talks, lectures, and other cultural events. In this regard, they act almost as community centers, giving like-minded people the opportunity to meet and talk. This is an especially important role at a time when independent civil society has been decimated and virtually no public gatherings let alone protests are allowed. As such, the regime regards independent bookstores as potential vectors of “soft resistance”—軟對抗, a phrase coined by the regime in early 2023 that it began to use regularly to signal that it felt confident it had wiped out “hard resistance” and was now moving on to focus on other areas.
[…] In January 2025, ten different shops in the Sheung Wan area held an independent book fair involving twenty publishers. This made it harder for the authorities to crack down on one particular venue, but several dozen police officers showed up anyway around the neighborhood. They demanded IDs from attendees and checked their bags. Police later explained they and FEHD [Food and Environmental Hygiene Department] were checking for “illegal extensions,” but if that was the case, it hardly justified checking attendees’ IDs and bags. [Source]
Prominent publishers have also been targeted, including Li Yanhe, a Chinese book publisher based in Taiwan who was detained in China in March 2023 and sentenced in a secret trial this February to three years in prison for “inciting secession.” In April, the One Free Press Coalition included Li among its annual “10 Most Urgent” list of journalists imprisoned for seeking to tell the truth. Reporters Without Borders has called for his immediate release and provided more details on Li’s case and the persecution of Chinese publishers:
Better known by the pen name Fucha, Li Yanhe is the founder and editor-in-chief of Taiwanese publishing house Gūsa Press which, among other topics, specialises in books on Chinese politics, many of which have been banned by Beijing’s regime. He has been detained incommunicado since March 2023. Born in China and based in Taiwan since 2009, he was reportedly on a trip to Shanghai to cancel his household registration in the country. Taiwanese media recently reported that the journalist’s family has been pressured not to speak publicly about his situation, threatening that his sentence could be extended.
[…] Li Yanhe is far from the only publisher detained in China. In 2015, five Hong Kong-based publishers suddenly disappeared and their fate was only made known months later when they appeared on Chinese public TV as detainees. One of them, Swedish book publisher Gui Minhai, is still behind bars, sentenced to ten years in prison in 2020 on bogus espionage charges. Despite his daughter’s continued fight for his freedom, the Chinese authorities have given no updates on his fate or whereabouts in five years, raising questions about his well-being. [Source]