{"id":8461,"date":"2017-08-22T13:37:19","date_gmt":"2017-08-22T03:37:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chinaheritage.net\/?p=8461"},"modified":"2017-10-22T23:35:30","modified_gmt":"2017-10-22T13:35:30","slug":"burn-the-books-bury-the-scholars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chinaheritage.net\/journal\/burn-the-books-bury-the-scholars\/","title":{"rendered":"Burn the Books, Bury the Scholars!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Over the past four days, Cambridge University Press (CUP), a venerable academic publishing house that operates under the aegis of the even more venerable Cambridge University, has been the focus of international news reports. This has followed from the revelation that\u00a0CUP\u00a0had acceded to requests from the Beijing authorities to block readers in China from access to controversial articles about the People&#8217;s Republic published in <em>China Quarterly<\/em>, a leading journal on contemporary Chinese affairs.<\/p>\n<p>For reports on this piquant contretemps in\u00a0<em>The Guardian<\/em>, and two open letters registering protest, see:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li class=\"content__headline\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/education\/2017\/aug\/18\/cambridge-university-press-blocks-readers-china-quarterly\">Cambridge University Press blocks readers in China from articles<\/a>, 18 August 2017<\/li>\n<li class=\"content__headline\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2017\/aug\/19\/cambridge-university-press-accused-of-selling-its-soul-over-chinese-censorship\">Cambridge University Press accused of &#8216;selling its soul&#8217; over Chinese censorship<\/a>, 19 August 2017<\/li>\n<li id=\"c35a\" class=\"graf graf--h3 graf--leading graf--title\">James A. Millward, <a href=\"https:\/\/medium.com\/@millwarj\/open-letter-to-cambridge-university-press-about-its-censorship-of-the-journal-china-quarterly-c366f76dcdac\">Open Letter to Cambridge University Press about its censorship of the <em class=\"markup--em markup--h3-em\">China Quarterly<\/em><\/a>, 19 August 2017<\/li>\n<li class=\"content__headline\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/uk-news\/2017\/aug\/20\/cambridge-university-press-censorship-exposes-xi-jinpings-authoritarian-shift\">Cambridge University Press censorship &#8216;exposes Xi Jinping&#8217;s authoritarian shift&#8217;<\/a>, 20 August 2017<\/li>\n<li class=\"content__headline\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/education\/2017\/aug\/21\/cambridge-university-press-faces-boycott-over-china-censorship\">Cambridge University Press faces boycott over China censorship<\/a>, 21 August 2017<\/li>\n<li class=\"content__headline\">Tim Pringle,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/commentisfree\/2017\/aug\/21\/china-bid-block-china-quarterly-attack-academic-freedom\">China\u2019s bid to block my journal\u2019s articles is a new attack on academic freedom<\/a>, 21 August 2017<\/li>\n<li class=\"content__headline\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/education\/2017\/aug\/21\/cambridge-university-press-to-back-down-over-china-censorship\">Cambridge University Press backs down over China censorship<\/a>, 22 August 2017<\/li>\n<li class=\"content__headline\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.google.co.nz\/amp\/s\/amp.theguardian.com\/world\/2017\/aug\/22\/cambridge-university-censorship-u-turn-china\">Cambridge University censorship U-turn is censored by China<\/a>, 22 August 2017<\/li>\n<li class=\"content__headline\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/books\/2017\/aug\/22\/ipa-urges-china-respect-decision-cambridge-university-press-restore-articles\">IPA urges China to &#8216;respect the decision&#8217; of Cambridge University Press to restore articles<\/a>, 23 August 2017<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"text-align: right;\">\u2014 Geremie R. Barm\u00e9, Editor, <i>China Heritage<\/i><br \/>\n22 August 2017<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Burn the Books, Bury the Scholars!<\/strong><\/h2>\n<h3 style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Geremie R. Barm\u00e9*<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Chinese censorship has come a long way.<\/p>\n<p>During his rule in the second century BCE, the First Emperor \u79e6\u59cb\u7687 of a unified China, Ying Zheng \u5b34\u653f, famously quashed\u00a0the intellectual diversity of his day by &#8216;burning the books and burying the scholars&#8217; \u711a\u66f8\u5751\u5112. He not only got rid of troublesome texts, he deleted their authors and potential readers as well.<\/p>\n<p>This infamy would be decried throughout Chinese history until, in May 1958 at the Second Plenary Session of the Eighth Communist Party Congress Central Committee, Mao Zedong, founder of the People\u2019s Republic of China, asked his like-minded comrades:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>What&#8217;s so impressive about the First Emperor? He only buried 460 scholars alive, while we\u2019ve buried 46,000. When we suppressed counterrevolutionaries, didn\u2019t we also kill some counterrevolutionary intellectuals? I once debated with people in the Democratic Parties: You accuse us of acting like the First Emperor, but you\u2019re wrong; we\u2019ve outdone him 100 times over! You decry us for being dictatorial like the First Emperor; we readily admit it. What&#8217;s pathetic is that you sell us short; we always have to fill in the details for you. (<i>General laughter<\/i>)<\/p>\n<p>\u79e6\u59cb\u7687\u7b97\u4ec0\u9ebc\uff1f\u4ed6\u53ea\u5751\u4e86\u56db\u767e\u516d\u5341\u516b\u500b\u5112\uff0c\u6211\u5011\u5751\u4e86\u56db\u842c\u516d\u5343\u500b\u5112\u2026\u2026 \u6211\u5011\u8207\u6c11\u4e3b\u4eba\u58eb\u8faf\u8ad6\u904e\uff0c\u300c\u4f60\u7f75\u6211\u5011\u662f\u79e6\u59cb\u7687\uff0c\u4e0d\u5c0d\uff0c\u6211\u5011\u8d85\u904e\u4e86\u79e6\u59cb\u7687\u4e00\u767e\u500d\uff1b\u7f75\u6211\u5011\u662f\u79e6\u59cb\u7687\uff0c\u662f\u7368\u88c1\u8005\uff0c\u6211\u5011\u4e00\u6982\u627f\u8a8d\u3002\u53ef\u60dc\u7684\u662f\u4f60\u5011\u8aaa\u7684\u4e0d\u5920\uff0c\u5f80\u5f80\u8981\u6211\u5011\u52a0\u4ee5\u88dc\u5145\u3002\u300d\uff08\u5927\u7b11\uff09<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">***<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_8475\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-8475\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-8475\" src=\"https:\/\/chinaheritage.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/\u6bdb\u6cfd\u4e1c\u79e6\u59cb\u7687-300x211.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"211\" srcset=\"https:\/\/chinaheritage.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/\u6bdb\u6cfd\u4e1c\u79e6\u59cb\u7687-300x211.png 300w, https:\/\/chinaheritage.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/\u6bdb\u6cfd\u4e1c\u79e6\u59cb\u7687-768x540.png 768w, https:\/\/chinaheritage.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/\u6bdb\u6cfd\u4e1c\u79e6\u59cb\u7687.png 970w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-8475\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Mao Zedong and Ying Zheng, First Emperor of the Qin dynasty.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Today, the 22nd August 2017, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/education\/2017\/aug\/21\/cambridge-university-press-to-back-down-over-china-censorship\"><em>The Guardian<\/em><\/a> reported that Cambridge University Press (CUP), publisher of <i>China Quarterly,<\/i> one of the most prestigious academic journals on contemporary China, would reinstate content deleted from the online version of the journal available in China. CUP had previously, and surreptitiously, bowed to pressure from Beijing to censor the <i>China Quarterly<\/i> site available to Chinese university readers ridding it of\u00a0articles on such nettlesome topics as Tibetan independence, Xinjiang, the 1989 Protest Movement and the June Fourth Massacre. Now, following this unsightly wobble CUP has\u00a0reaffirmed\u00a0its commitment to\u00a0&#8216;upholding the principle of academic freedom on which the university\u2019s work is founded.&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>As a senior academic working on China, and later as founding director of a major China research centre, I\u2019ve sat through my fair share of meetings with academocrats obsessed with international rankings, income streams and their beloved business models.<\/p>\n<p>As I\u2019ve followed the furore surrounding CUP\u2019s self-censorship of <i>China Quarterly<\/i> (a journal for which I, like so many international colleagues, have acted as a peer reviewer, and one in which I have also published work), I could all but hear the academic number crunchers feverishly working behind the scenes with the lofty CUP and Cambridge executive administrators. My guess is they were busy coming\u00a0up with a few back-of-the-envelop calculations. The\u00a0ledger of pluses and minuses probably looked something like this:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>PLUS: Access to the academic market of China + continued inflows of fee-paying Chinese students to Cambridge + China\u2019s party-state approval + increased across-the-board China sales with the support of an appreciative censoriate\u2026<\/li>\n<li>MINUS: Unwelcome international media attention + snowballing academic protests and petitions + pressure from high-ranking peer institutions + public disgust + long-term disaffection of an academic community that provides free services via peer review + loss of existing and potential authors + permanent damage to CUP\u2019s carefully sculpted\u00a0reputation + unpredictable threats to Cambridge&#8217;s position in the world university rankings\u00a0league tables \u2026<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The report in today\u2019s <i>Guardian<\/i> makes it clear: lofty principles aside, the bottom line is the only defensible line. CUP\u2019s brand, although somewhat tarnished, has been salvaged. Is this what they call a &#8216;lose-win&#8217; scenario? Having struggled to achieve the <em>status quo ante<\/em> one can well imagine that the boffins at Cambridge might even have the gall to congratulate themselves. <i>H\u00e9las, la perfide Albion!<\/i><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">***<\/p>\n<p>Not long after the death of Mao Zedong, a man known as the First Emperor #2, a new journal was founded in Beijing called <i>Reading <\/i>\u8b80\u66f8. The inaugural issue,\u00a0which appeared\u00a0in April 1979, featured an article by Li Honglin \u674e\u6d2a\u6797. It was\u00a0titled &#8216;There Are No Forbidden Zones for Readers&#8217; <a href=\"http:\/\/cul.qq.com\/a\/20151225\/037399.htm\">\u8b80\u66f8\u7121\u7981\u5340<\/a>. After thirty years of draconian Party censorship, this ushered in a new era in publishing, and reading. However, Li&#8217;s essay was published only days\u00a0after\u00a0Deng Xiaoping had attacked the threat of &#8216;Bourgeois Liberalism&#8217; \u2014 i.e., free expression and democracy \u2014 and announced Four Cardinal Principles that affirmed the absolute authority of the Communist Party over Chinese life. Ever since then the country\u2019s publishers, librarians, writers, book merchants and readers have played cat-and-mouse with a capricious system of censorship.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_8473\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-8473\" style=\"width: 400px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-8473\" src=\"https:\/\/chinaheritage.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/Img452481675.jpeg\" width=\"400\" height=\"579\" srcset=\"https:\/\/chinaheritage.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/Img452481675.jpeg 553w, https:\/\/chinaheritage.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/Img452481675-207x300.jpeg 207w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-8473\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The first page of the manuscript of Li Honglin&#8217;s essay.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>During periods of relative laxity, all manner of work has been available in China, and generally readers with the requisite linguistic ability, and access, have been able relatively freely to read non-Chinese scholarship and works. There have even been surprises for Chinese-only readers: in the 1980s one old friend, the famous translator Dong Leshan \u8463\u6a02\u5c71, was able to shepherd his translation of George Orwell\u2019s <em>1984<\/em> passed the censors, and in 2015 the former Hungarian dissident Mikl\u00f3s Haraszti\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/chinaheritage.net\/journal\/elephants-anacondas\/\"><em>The Velvet Prison: artists under state socialism<\/em><\/a>\u00a0was published by the Central Compilation Bureau, an august body that also oversees the translation and dissemination of Marxist-Leninist classics.<\/p>\n<p>But, under the rule of China\u2019s Chairman of Everything, Xi Jinping, a man who has more than a little of Mao about him, the noose has been tightening once more. No books have been burned yet (but who knows how many manuscripts have been relegated by the censors to data death on hard drives or to desk draws where they lie in wait for some future relaxation?), although the imprisoned scholar <a href=\"https:\/\/chinaheritage.net\/journal\/mourning\/\">Liu Xiaobo<\/a> was recently subjected to murder-by-state-neglect.<\/p>\n<p>Yesterday, before CUP banned its ban on <em>China Quarterly<\/em>, the <a href=\"http:\/\/opinion.huanqiu.com\/editorial\/2017-08\/11153080.html\"><em>Global Times<\/em> \u74b0\u7403\u6642\u5831<\/a>, a rabble-rousing daily that gives unofficial voice to the official line, reported on the kerfuffle and concluded:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>It\u2019s no big deal if a few articles in the archive of <em>China Quarterly<\/em> that only attract a meagre readership are no longer available on the Chinese Internet. In terms of the larger picture, questions of principle on both sides are involved. The real issue is: whose principles better reflect the age in which we live? In this case it\u2019s not true that \u2018everyone is entitled to their own opinion\u2019. This is about power play. Only time will tell who is in the right.\u00a0\u300a\u4e2d\u570b\u5b63\u520a\u300b\u7684\u8cc7\u6599\u5eab\u6709\u5e7e\u7bc7\u8b80\u8005\u4e0d\u591a\u7684\u6587\u7ae0,\u4ee5\u53ca\u90a3\u5e7e\u7bc7\u6587\u7ae0\u5f8c\u4f86\u5728\u4e2d\u570b\u4e92\u806f\u7db2\u4e0a\u627e\u4e0d\u5230\u4e86,\u90fd\u975e\u5927\u4e8b\u3002\u7136\u800c\u4e0d\u932f,\u5f80\u5927\u4e86\u8aaa,\u5b83\u5011\u89f8\u53ca\u4e86\u96d9\u65b9\u5404\u81ea\u5728\u610f\u7684\u539f\u5247\u3002\u90a3\u9ebc\u8ab0\u7684\u539f\u5247\u66f4\u5951\u5408\u9019\u500b\u6642\u4ee3,\u9019\u4e0d\u662f\u300c\u516c\u8aaa\u516c\u6709\u7406\u5a46\u8aaa\u5a46\u6709\u7406\u300d\u7684\u4e8b,\u800c\u662f\u529b\u91cf\u7684\u535a\u5f08\u3002\u6642\u9593\u6703\u6700\u7d42\u88c1\u5b9a\u8ab0\u5c0d\u8ab0\u932f\u7684\u3002<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The Communist party-state of China plays a long game, the problem is it only allows its readers to bet on one side.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">***<\/p>\n<p><b>Postscript<\/b>:<\/p>\n<p>As this delicious fiasco drew to a close, as if playing a cameo role in a Borgesian short story while still true to form, the censors in Beijing now censored the news that CUP had rejected their censorship. Bravissimo!<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><i>EXUENT OMNES<\/i><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>* A shorter version of this essay was written for <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.lowyinstitute.org\/the-interpreter\/burn-books-bury-scholars\">The Lowy Interpreter<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>at the suggestion of Rory Metcalf. This longer version was reprinted by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.chinafile.com\/reporting-opinion\/viewpoint\/burn-books-bury-scholars\">ChinaFile<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Further Reading:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thechinastory.org\/2012\/12\/a-letter-to-the-embassy-of-the-peoples-republic-of-china-2\/\">A Letter to the Embassy\u00a0of the People&#8217;s Republic of China<\/a>, <em>The China Story<\/em>,\u00a031 December 2012<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/chinaheritage.net\/journal\/an-educated-man-is-not-a-pot-\u541b\u5b50\u4e0d\u5668\/\">An Educated Man is Not a Pot<\/a>, <i>China Heritage<\/i> e-publication, March 2017<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/chinaheritage.net\/journal\/memory-holes-old-new\/\">Memory Holes, old &amp; new<\/a>,\u00a0<em>China Heritage<\/em>, 29 May 2017<\/li>\n<li>Xu Zhiyuan, <a href=\"https:\/\/chinaheritage.net\/journal\/elephants-anacondas\/\">Elephants &amp; Anacondas<\/a>, <em>China Heritage<\/em>, 28 June 2017<\/li>\n<li>Glenn D. Tiffert, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/r\/2010-2019\/WashingtonPost\/2017\/08\/23\/Editorial-Opinion\/Graphics\/Tiffert-Peering_down_the_memory_hole_2017.pdf?tid=a_inl\">Peering Down the Memory Hole: history, censorship and the digital turn<\/a>, 21 August 2017<\/li>\n<li>Michel Bonnin, <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.lareviewofbooks.org\/chinablog\/dear-censor-china-quarterly-contributor-speaks\/\">Dear Censor: A <em>China Quarterly<\/em> Contributor Speaks Out<\/a>, 29 August 2017<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Over the past four days, Cambridge University Press (CUP), a venerable academic publishing house that operates under the aegis of the even more venerable Cambridge University, has been the focus of international news reports. This has followed from the revelation that\u00a0CUP\u00a0had acceded to requests from the Beijing authorities to block readers in China from access [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[12,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8461","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-essays","category-journal"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9gcZ6-2ct","post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chinaheritage.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8461"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chinaheritage.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chinaheritage.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chinaheritage.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chinaheritage.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8461"}],"version-history":[{"count":75,"href":"https:\/\/chinaheritage.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8461\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9606,"href":"https:\/\/chinaheritage.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8461\/revisions\/9606"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chinaheritage.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chinaheritage.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8461"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chinaheritage.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}