Media Summary: Chinese Authorities Seized Over 300,000 "Illegal Political Publications" in 2004

August 16, 2005

In January 2005, Xinhua reported that government officials seized over 200,000,000 "illegal publications" in 2004, and a CECC review of official reports shows that authorities seized hundreds of thousands of these publications solely because of their political content. This censorship appears to be in addition to the General Administration of Press and Publication's banning of 170 publications with "problematic topic selections" in 2004 that the People's Daily reported in February 2005. Instead, the Chinese agency responsible for this political censorship is called the National Sweep Away Pornography and Strike Down Illegal Publications Task Force (sometimes translated as the "Office for Eliminating Pornography and Illegal Publications," or the "Office of National Anti-Piracy and Pornography Working Committee"). The Task Force is comprised of 17 Communist Party and government agencies, including the General Administration of Press and Publication and the Central Propaganda Department.

In January 2005, Xinhua reported that government officials seized over 200,000,000 "illegal publications" in 2004, and a CECC review of official reports shows that authorities seized hundreds of thousands of these publications solely because of their political content. This censorship appears to be in addition to the General Administration of Press and Publication's banning of 170 publications with "problematic topic selections" in 2004 that the People's Daily reported in February 2005. Instead, the Chinese agency responsible for this political censorship is called the National Sweep Away Pornography and Strike Down Illegal Publications Task Force (sometimes translated as the "Office for Eliminating Pornography and Illegal Publications," or the "Office of National Anti-Piracy and Pornography Working Committee"). The Task Force is comprised of 17 Communist Party and government agencies, including the General Administration of Press and Publication and the Central Propaganda Department.

A review of Task Force and state controlled media reports indicates that the following cities and provinces have reported confiscating thousands of "illegal political publications":

Fuzhou: 2,000
Hubei: 7,632
Sichuan: 8,500
Anhui: 30,000
Xi'an: 260,000

The Task Force's focus in 2005, these reports also say, will be "stopping, investigating, and confiscating illegal political publications," and that Task Force members should use "legal weapons" as part of the campaign. The reports also provide insight into the policy objectives motivating the Party and the government to deploy tens of thousands of law enforcement personnel to censor political works:

Throughout the history of the process of building socialism with Chinese characteristics, international and domestic hostile forces have incessantly used publications to carry out political and cultural infiltration of our country, attempting to create ideological chaos, disrupting our country's political quietude and social stability, and thereby achieve their political scheme of westernization and division. Therefore, "Sweeping Away Pornography" and "Striking Down Illegal Publications" is first of all an anti-infiltration and anti-subversion political struggle.

Click on "more" below for partial translations of several of these reports.
 


Persist in Striking Down Illegal Publication Activities, Work Hard to Create an Environment Conducive to Social Culture - The 18th National "Sweep Away Pornography" and "Strike Down Illegal Publications" Task Force Teleconference Opens in Beijing Task Force Web Site (2005-03-03)

Liu Yunshan [Member of the Political Bureau and Secretariat and Director of the Communist Party's Central Propaganda Department] pointed out that, the fundamental way to implement treatment of both the symptoms and the root cause of problems in the publishing market is to build perfected mechanisms for investigating and prosecuting in accordance with the law, enforcing law in a cooperative way, and comprehensively administering public order. It is necessary to have a complete grasp and proper utilization of legal weapons, to investigate and prosecute cases in a timely manner, and use the power of the law to intimidate criminals illegal publishing behavior.

Shi Zongyuan, Director of the General Administration of Press and Publication, Director of the National Copyright Office, and Deputy Chief of National "Sweep Away Pornography" and "Strike Down Illegal Publications" Task Force also spoke at the meeting. Throughout 2005 the work of "Sweeping Away Pornography" and "Striking Down Illegal Publications" will most heavily emphasize stopping, investigating, and confiscating illegal political publications.

Anhui
Anhui Launches a Unified Action to Destroy Illegal Publications Throughout the Province Xinhua (2004-09-14)

According to incomplete statistics, as of today, throughout the city [authorities] have shut down a total of 325 street stands, and have collected 3,820,000 illegal publications of all kinds, including over 30,000 illegal political publications, and over 70,000 obscene and pornographic publications, worth a total of over 30,300,000 yuan.

Fuzhou
Fuzhou to Wipe Out Illegal Publications, Establish Long Term Supervision Mechanisms Xinhua (2005-05-17)

According to statistics, as of today, throughout the city [authorities] have shut down a total of 110 street stands, and have tracked down 250,000 units of illegal and pirated publications, of which over 2,000 volumes were illegal political books and periodicals, over 3,000 volumes were pornographic and obscene books and periodicals, over 50,000 volumes were illegal and pirated books, and over 110,000 units were illegal and pirated electronic publications.

Xian
Xian's "Sweep Away Pornography" and "Strike Down Illegal Publications" Work Attained Notable Results in 2004 Task Force Web Site (2005-01-10)

While monitoring postal merchandise, Xian customs uncovered 1,826 VCDs propandizing the "Falun Gong" evil cult mailed from places abroad like America, Japan, and Malaysia. They uncovered a batch of illegal political publications and propaganda materials with reactionary content, and were effective in preventing these illegal political publications from being disseminated in Xian. In 2004, [officials] city-wide confiscated over 260,000 volumes of illegal political publications, and 280,000 volumes of illegal pornographic publications.

Inner Mongolia
Inner Mongolia Determines Three Major Focal Points for this year's "Sweep Away Pornography" and "Strike Down Illegal Publications" Activites Task Force Web Site (2005-03-15)

According to reports, currently the publications market continues to have some outstanding problems. One of these is that there has been a clear increase in the illegal publications that foreign hostile forces are directing at our country.

Sichuan
Outstanding Focus Points: Ruthlessly Grasp Implementation of Realizing the Safeguarding of Publication Market Order (Sichuan) Task Force Web Site (2004-12-29)

From January through October 2004, the entire province mobilized over 38,500 personnel, investigated 9,142 publication markets, banned and shut down 585 illegal markets (collection and distribution centers), sanctioned 59 printing enterprises and banned and shut down 52 printers, imposed administrative sanctions in 225 cases of illegal publications, criminally punished over 6 cases, investigated and confiscated over 3,000,000 illegal publications (over 1,700,000 books, over 1,100,000 audio-visual products, and over 120,000 electronic publications), of these: 8,500 were illegal political publications, and 7,200 were Falun Gong and other foreign reactionary propaganda materials.

Throughout the history of the process of building socialism with Chinese characteristics, international and domestic hostile forces have incessantly used publications to carry out political and cultural infiltration of our country, attempting to create ideological chaos, disrupting our country's political quietude and social stability, and thereby achieve their political scheme of westernization and division. Therefore, "Sweeping Away Pornography" and "Striking Down Illegal Publications" is first of all an anti-infiltration and anti-subversion political struggle, it is necessary to strengthen the political power of the Party, the government, and our country. Therefore, while working, the Sichuan Province "Sweep Away Pornography" Office always puts the heaviest emphasis on investigating and prosecuting illegal political publications, and persists in stopping, investigating, and confiscating illegal political publications that carry out ideological and cultural infiltration and various types of fabrications, and smear and defame the leaders of our Party and our country. This year the Sichuan "Sweep Away Pornography" Office investigated and prosecuted five relatively large cases of illegal political publications, which represented one-third of all major cases in the province.

Hubei
Step Up the Scope of "Sweeping Away Pornography" and "Striking Down Illegal Publications" Work, Achieve Important Successes - A Summary of Hubei "Sweeping Away Pornography" and "Striking Down Illegal Publications" Work in 2004 Task Force Web Site (2004-12-22)

In 2004, our province, in accordance with the requirements of the central and provincial government's "2004 Action Plan Regarding 'Sweeping Away Pornography' and 'Striking Down Illegal Publications'," under the guidance of the important ideology of Deng Xiaoping Theory and the "Three Represents," and looking toward safeguarding our country's political stability, social stability and cultural security, has achieved important results in further increasing the scope of "Sweeping Away Pornography" and "Striking Down Illegal Publications" work: according to incomplete statistics, in 2004 42,400 law enforcement personnel were deployed around the province, and made 28,087 investigations of publication operation units, banned and shut down 2,248 illegal shops, investigated and prosecuted 85 illegal printing enterprises, banned and shut down 164 illegal printing enterprises, investigated and confiscated 3,275,025 illegal publications, which included 1,508,022 volumes of illegal books, 1,224,200 boxes of illegal audio-visual materials, and 542,820 boxes of illegal electronic publications. [Authorities] investigated and confiscated 4,772 volumes of illegal political books and periodicals, 2,860 illegal political audio-visual products, and over 200,000 "Falun Gong" evil cult propaganda materials. [Authorities] investigated and confiscated 26,900 pornographic publications (including books and audio-visual materials), and 3,000,994 copyright violating publications.

Seven main administration projects were organized. The first administration project was directed at illegal political publications. Our province always put the heaviest emphasis on stopping, investigating, and confiscating illegal political publications in "Sweeping Away Pornography" and "Striking Down Illegal Publications" work.

The focus of the first stages of planning [for 2005] is:

  1. Strengthen market monitoring and supervision. Focus on screening, censoring, investigating, and prosecuting printing units' that undertake the printing of illegal publications, especially those that undertake the behavior of printing illegal political publications; as well as those conducting or participating in illegal publishing activities, and activities like selling banned and illegal publications.
  2. Strengthen the scope of investigating and confiscating. Focus on investigating and confiscating illegal political publications, especially those publications that disseminate political rumors, produce ideological chaos, harm social stability, and "Falun Gong" and other evil cults, and incite division amongst the people, obscene and pornographic publications, and pirated publications, especially those pirated instructional and teaching materials, pirated reference books, and best sellers, influential works, etc. Ceaselessly improve publication market order.
  3. Investigate and prosecute major cases. It is necessary to investigate and prosecute in accordance with the law criminals who produce and publish pornography, and to pursue administrative and criminal responsibilities. It is necessary to have breakthroughs in major cases, it is especially necessary to investigate and punish cases of illegal political publications and organized, large-scale illegal publication groups, and to destroy criminals' illegal publishing industries.

The use of law as a weapon to suppress perceived ideological and cultural threats from inside and outside of China is a common theme of Party and government officials when they seek to justify their system of prior restraint on free expression.