Standards for Taiwanese book imports by Chinese resellers have become stricter, an independent bookstore owner in Beijing said yesterday.
In the past, with the exception of titles written by exiled Chinese writer Gao Xingjian (高行健), most books published in Taiwan could be imported to China, the owner said, speaking anonymously.
However, now certain publishers that print works touching upon subjects that are sensitive in China, such as democracy, protests and human rights, are now blacklisted entirely, the person said, citing the experiences of Gusa Publishing (八旗文化).
Photo: CNA
In other cases, books are allowed to be imported, but have entire sections torn out, or have words replaced or removed, they said.
For resellers in China to import Taiwanese books, they must first submit a list of titles they wish to purchase to a state-owned import company, and then there is a wait time of three months — up from six weeks previously — to receive the books, they said.
Regarding the increased time to import books, the owner said that while COVID-19 pandemic restrictions added to delays, a considerable factor was likely the stricter censorship process.
Photo: CNA
“In the past, I would give a list of 100 Taiwanese books to the importer, and about 50 would be approved. Now only around 20 to 30 are approved,” the owner said, adding that the criteria used to approve books is unclear.
Most books on politics and religion, even history books, cannot touch upon China or Taiwan to be imported to China, the person said.
Examples of banned books include the British Museum’s China: A History in Objects, and a selection from the Chinese University of Hong Kong, the shop owner said.
Works by Chinese-American writer Eileen Chang (張愛玲) describing life in China under the communists — such as The Rice Sprout Song and Naked Earth — have always been banned in China.
However, more recently, a book by Malaysian-Taiwanese writer Ng Kim Chew (黃錦樹) published last year that discusses the Chinese Civil War was banned, the person said.
“Some books we could import last year are banned this year. The standards often change, so all we can do is submit our lists and see what happens,” the owner said.
Importers sometimes tell bookstore owners to review and revise their lists before submitting them.
“However, I try to avoid self-censorship. I just submit my list without removing things, unless it is clearly obvious that the book is critical of the Chinese Communist Party,” the owner said.
Secondhand bookstores have also been affected by stricter censorship, the person said, citing Shanghai-based used-book and fashion accessory store Duo Zhua Yu (多抓魚).
The shop was once a popular place to buy books printed in traditional Chinese, but has recently had their inventory drastically reduced, the person said.
“Given the current state of cross-strait relations many bookstores won’t promote Taiwanese books at all, as they are afraid of causing a stir,” the shop owner said.
TRICKED INTO MOVING: Local governments in China do not offer any help, and Taiwanese there must compete with Chinese in an unfamiliar setting, a researcher said Beijing’s incentives for Taiwanese businesspeople to invest in China are only intended to lure them across the Taiwan Strait, after which they receive no real support, an expert said on Sunday. Over the past few years, Beijing has been offering a number of incentives that “benefit Taiwanese in name, while benefiting China in reality,” a cross-strait affairs expert said on condition of anonymity. Strategies such as the “31 incentives” are intended to lure Taiwanese talent, capital and technology to help address China’s economic issues while also furthering its “united front” efforts, they said. Local governments in China do not offer much practical
Police have detained a Taoyuan couple suspected of over the past two months colluding with human trafficking rings and employment scammers in Southeast Asia to send nearly 100 Taiwanese jobseekers to Cambodia. At a media briefing in Taipei yesterday, the Criminal Investigation Bureau presented items seized from the couple, including alleged victims’ passports, forged COVID-19 vaccination records, mobile phones, bank documents, checks and cash. The man, surnamed Tsai (蔡), and his girlfriend, surnamed Tsan (詹), were taken into custody last month, after police at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport stopped four jobseekers from boarding a flight to Phnom Penh, said Dustin Lee (李泱輯),
PUBLIC POLL: More than half believe Chinese drills would make Taiwanese less willing to unify with China, while 36 percent said an invasion was highly unlikely Half of Taiwanese support independence, according to the results of a poll released yesterday by the Taiwanese Public Opinion Foundation, which also found that President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) support rating fell by 7 percentage points. Fifty percent of respondents supported independence, 25.7 percent supported maintaining the “status quo” and 11.8 percent supported unification, while 12.1 percent had no opinion, did not know or refused to answer, the foundation said. Support for independence is the new mainstream opinion, regardless of which party is in power, foundation chairman Michael You (游盈隆) said. Insinuations that Taiwan wants to maintain the “status quo” are a fabrication that
BILINGUAL PLAN: The 17 educators were recruited under a program that seeks to empower Taiwanese, the envoy to the Philippines said The Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in the Philippines on Thursday hosted a send-off event for the first group of English-language teachers from the country who were recruited for a Ministry of Education-initiated program to advance bilingual education in Taiwan. The 14 teachers and three teaching assistants are part of the Taiwan Foreign English Teacher Program, which aims to help find English-language instructors for Taiwan’s public elementary and junior-high schools, the office said. Seventy-seven teachers and 11 teaching assistants from the Philippines have been hired to teach in Taiwan in the coming school year, office data showed. Among the first group is 57-year-old
RSS