The collected works of Ye Yonglie Photo: CFP

It was no doubt a gruesome scene. The battle had dragged on for 12 days and there had been many casualties. The bodies of fallen soldiers littering the battlefield were rotting under the Myanmar's April heat. The stench was terrible.

Both the Kuomintang and Japanese soldiers were weary of fighting when they agreed to a one-hour truce to bury the bodies of their comrades.

"The truce was made out of respect for the dead. Japanese soldiers treated their dead with perhaps even more dignity than we did ours," Qiu Dui, writer of the TV series Zhongguo Yuanzhengjun (Chinese Expeditionary Force), said of his motive for writing the scene set during the WWII.

"The authorities said it was humanitarianism without principle and unnecessary, and asked me to cut it," said Qiu, who was caught in a dilemma. He didn't want to cut the historically accurate scene because he felt it shed some humane light on the story, but if he didn't follow instructions, he knew his screenplay would never be approved.

"So I added an explanation for the truce, saying it was done for tactical purposes so the Chinese army could withdraw to safety," said Qiu. The revision worked and the altered scene was approved.

Deterring creativity

What Qiu encountered is familiar to almost every writer in China. Faced with sometimes ambiguous regulations that are often blamed for stifling artistic creativity, some writers give up, some put up a fight, but most seem to cooperate.

The manuscript of a book usually needs to be reviewed at least three times by the publishing house. Depending on the subject matter the General Administration of Press and Publications (GAPP), various propaganda departments and other government agencies may also be involved in the approval process. Television and movie productions require the approval of the State Administration for Radio, Film and Television (SARFT).

"There is also self-censoring, and writers and playwrights are very sensitive to this," said Shi Hang, a playwright who has written dozens of TV series, mostly historical dramas.

Some writers avoid certain topics that they know are likely to raise alarm bells with the authorities, such as the Cultural Revolution (1966-76) and issues involving religion and ethnic minorities.