August 21, 2017

The press gives into pressure

located:	China, United Kingdom
editor:	Gurmeet Singh

Cambridge University Press is the oldest publishing house in the world. Its prestige is real and deserved - it's published breakthrough articles, journals and books throughout its entire lifetime, by writers such as John Milton and Stephen Hawking.

It's also now - likely - capitulated to the Communist Party of China, by expunging or censoring over 300 politically-sensitive articles from the China Quarterly on its Chinese website. The articles focusing on China, discuss a diverse range of topics, from the 1989 Tiananmen massacre, to Mao Zedong’s catastrophic Cultural Revolution, from Hong Kong’s fight for democracy to ethnic tensions in Xinjiang and Tibet.

The move by the press has received widespread condemnation, and many commentators, both in the University and in the publishing industry have commented that it represents a worrying trend of capitulation to China.

“Pragmatic is one word, pathetic more apt,” tweeted Rory Medcalf, the head of the national security college at the Australian National University. What's more, Renee Xia, the international director of the Chinese Human Rights Defenders network, accused the publisher of having “sold its soul for millions of Chinese govt dollars”.

Although the press itself has said it is committed to freedom of thought, it claimed it faced increased requests from China for censorship.

One can see how this is a difficult for the press; a powerful nation demands its version of a story be circulated, else it would trade something in - perhaps it would refuse to cooperate in the future, perhaps it would withdraw funding. But dare I say such reasoning should be tossed out the window when it comes to the academy - and powerful voices should be defied. The press has now become complicit in China's rewriting of history - lending its prestigious name to that history.

We talk a lot these days about fake news. What about actual instances of academically endorsed fake-history? It's worrying to think where this path will lead. Thankfully, we have the example of Liu Xiaobo and other activists to always speak truth to power, and not to lie on its behalf.