*what* progress on human rights? -- part two

[realthog]

From today's issue of The Australian:

China forces edits of Australian books

THE Chinese government is stopping the production of Australian books which refer to subjects like the Dalai Lama and the China-Tibet border.

Melbourne publisher Hardie Grant and academic publisher UNSW Press were both advised to remove content from their books being printed in China, Fairfax newspapers report.

A printing company in Guangdong in southern China told the UNSW Press a reference to the "China-Tibet border", included in a biography by Felicity Jack about her great-grandfather Robert Logan Jack, needed to be removed.

After the book was printed the printer sent an email to UNSW Press which said: "Chinese authorities have found sentences within the text which infringe their sovereignty and have refused to grant an export authorisation".

The full story is here.

The obvious comparison is with the reality-distorting shenanigans of Nineteen Eighty-Four, but this sort of crap is really equivalent to book-burning, isn't it? -- the attempt to negate the content of books through destruction.