(18 Nov 2024)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Ningbo, China – 9 October 2024
1. Various of Wang Yingxing packing books in his bookstore
2. Various of Wang’s bookstore
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Shanghai – 8 October 2024
3. Various of Zhou Youlieguo’s closed bookstore Text & Image
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Tanabe, Japan – 21 October 2024
4. SOUNDBITE (Mandarin) Jia Jia, visitor researcher at University of Tokyo
“This is one way for the Office Against Pornography and Illegal Publications to generate income. If it is getting stricter on the issue everywhere, I believe that they are doing this for the purpose of collecting fines.”
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Washington – 15 October 2024
5. Various of customers inside bookstore JF Books
6. SOUNDBITE (Mandarin) Joyce Chen, project manager in an investment company:
“I’m very happy to have a Chinese bookstore like this in D.C., because I can do good shopping and at the same time have some spiritual connections with some authors in China.”
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Washington – 3 October 2024
7. Various of pictures hanging inside bookstore JF Books
8. SOUNDBITE (Mandarin) Yu Miao, owner of JF Books
“Opening a bookstore here has opened a new chapter in my life. I am more focused on how to better manage the quality of this bookstore."
9. Close of Yu Miao
10. SOUNDBITE (Mandarin) Yu Miao, owner of JF Books
“I said I want to live without fear, because I realize that there are all kinds of uncertainties or pressures that exist. But even with this kind of pressure, I continue to convince myself that I am in a free country, and I have reasons to live freely without fear.”
11. Various of bookstore JF Books
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Ningbo, China – 9 October 2024
12. Various of Jiazazhi Bookstore in Ningbo in China
STORYLINE:
Yu Miao smiles as he stands among the 10,000 books crowded on rows of bamboo shelves in his newly reopened bookstore. It’s in Washington’s vibrant Dupont Circle neighborhood, 7,400 miles from its last location in Shanghai, where the Chinese government forced him out of business six years ago.
“There is no pressure from the authorities here,” said Yu, the owner of JF Books, Washington’s only Chinese bookseller. “I want to live without fear.”
Independent bookstores have become a new battleground in China, swept up in the ruling Communist Party’s crackdown on dissent and free expression. The Associated Press found that at least a dozen bookstores in the world’s second largest economy have been shuttered or targeted for closure in the last few months alone, squeezing the already tight space for press freedom. One bookstore owner was arrested over four months ago.
The crackdown has had a chilling effect in China’s publishing industry. Bookstores are common in China, but many are state-owned. Independent bookstores are governed by an intricate set of rules with strict controls now being more aggressively policed, according to bookstore owners. Printing shops and street vendors are also facing more rigorous government inspections by the Orwellian-sounding National Office Against Pornography and Illegal Publications.
The office did not respond to interview requests from The Associated Press. China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in a statement to AP, said it was not aware of a crackdown on bookstores.
Yu isn’t alone in taking his business out of the country. Chinese bookstores have popped up in Japan, France, Netherlands and elsewhere in the U.S. in recent years, as a result of both the stricter controlling environment in China and growing Chinese communities abroad.
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