China's censorship machine endures

But pressure to conform to political norms, which never went away, has been strongly reasserted in recent months, people in the industry say.

Propaganda officials have increased their presence inside news, culture and entertainment organizations, and have refined a system for pre-censorship that leaves less discretion in the hands of editors.

"It used to be that they would punish people who made too many mistakes," said the editor of a leading political magazine. "Now, you don't have the leeway to make mistakes."

Among topics now considered off-limits, the media are no longer permitted to investigate corruption without approval. That limits what many had seen as one of the few effective checks on official wrongdoing, reporters and editors said.

Hu and Premier Wen Jiabao (溫家寶) have been promoting themselves as populists determined to address poverty in the countryside.

But when two writers in Anhui Province wrote an in-depth critique of the handling of such problems, called An Investigative Report on Chinese Peasants, the book was banned and the publishing house that issued it came under pressure, possibly because the book argued that the most severe problems had been caused by officials.