From a Southern Weekly article translated by Danwei.org, a story emerged this week about Feng Chongyi, a noted Chinese academic, who is suing Chinese customs for confiscating books he was trying to bring into the mainland.  Feng argued that because there’s no clear public list of banned materials, Customs had no right to confiscate his property.  Lawsuits like this haven’t been successful in the past, but it does bring up an interesting question:  Is what He Qinglian calls the “Fog of Censorship” preferable to a definitive list of banned materials? 

Most people probably think that there‘s a clear line between what’s allowed and what’s not in China today, but in fact that’s not the case.  Censorship is all over the map, and inconsistently applied.  For example, a blog post mentioning Tiananmen Square may squeeze through the censors on one blogging platform, but be rejected from another on grounds that it’s “too sensitive.” (Read More)

We’ve even heard stories about our Black Series books being distributed at certain universities in China with no problems, but we know that they’re “banned” by the government.  The net effect of China’s version of censorship is that most people and companies over-censor themselves in order to avoid a possible encounter with invisible line dividing what’s acceptable and what’s not.   That can produce a chilling effect that runs throughout all forms of cultural production – books, movies, even blog posts.  Speaking of which, the original Southern Weekly article breaking this story has mysteriously disappeared…those trying to access it are greeted with a message saying “the content you are seeking has been deleted.”  Brrr……