Pen report stokes ill feeling with China

Source:Global Times Published: 2015-5-23 0:08:04

The New York-based Pen American Center published a 30-page report on May 20, saying China has been censoring sensitive content when publishing translated books written by Western authors. The report used "mutilate" and "editor's scalpel" to describe such moves, claiming that many authors are not even aware of the removal of part of their writings.

The report will do no good to the Sino-US exchanges in publishing, except for adding another shell for Western media to attack China.

Compare with the West, China's social development has taken a different path and is at a different level. The publishing industry in the West has been going along with its social and political progress. Currently, the sensitive spots in cultural and political areas are in parallel, and there are not many misfits or conflicts.

China came up later. In the past century, the country has introduced a large number of books covering cultural, economic, political and other areas. These resources have experienced various degrees of transformation to fit into the Chinese social system. Nowadays, Western elements are ubiquitous in China, but they do not constitute the core of Chinese culture or society.

Chinese society has accepted the concept of a free press. But some sensitive spots still need to be considered for a society that has not been opened up too long. Many books' content is generally good for China, but parts of them touched on China's sensitive realities. The best solution that benefits Chinese readers, the publishers and Western authors is to go on to publish these books in China after taking out or changing some content.

China has gone from the days when almost no Western books were allowed to come in to publishing a large number of books by Western authors. It is great progress. Many forbidden areas are being broken, and the areas of sensitive topics are shrinking. The Chinese public has been exchanging with the outside world in a more direct way.

Most Western authors showed their understanding of China's publishing environment. But the Pen American Center's provocative report seems to be stirring up conflicts.

It is easy for a developing country to learn from the West about "free press," but if the freedom comes with social turmoil, no one but the developing country will take care of its own wounds.

The Chinese public has got used to such criticism. We know what it is intended to do.

Actually there are also sensitive areas in Western societies that will limit the so-called freedom of the press. China's science-fiction novel The Three-Body Problem reportedly went through content changes before being published in the US because of feminist concerns.



Posted in: Editorial

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