Key Points

"Sometimes, the red lines shift -- and usually for the worse. In Xinjiang, for instance, between deadly riots in 2009 and a terrorist attack in 2014, it was still possible to publish pieces even in state media that mentioned prejudice against Uyghurs by China's majority Han population. But by 2017, once the Chinese crackdown on Uyghur life was fully underway, mentions of Xinjiang became much more scrutinized. However, most sensitive topics -- such as the Cultural Revolution, corruption, or social inequality -- occupy a gray area in which coverage is risky but still possible, so long as it steps carefully around CCP sensibilities," wrote James Palmer in Foreign Policy's China Brief titled 'A Guide to Censorship in China'.

Most authors or journalists living in mainland China engage in self-censorship and avoid those topics outright, he asserted.

"Even exercising caution, it's possible to brush up against red lines. While I lived in China, multiple sources told me about a 2009 incident in which staff at the Global Times were punished for a piece that described a paper factory as the largest in China and the second-largest in the world. This was controversial, because at the time, the largest paper factory in the world at was in Taiwan; the line had inadvertently suggested that Taiwan wasn't part of China," wrote Palmer, who spent many years working inside Chinese media, both state-owned and private.

Despite being a routine process, the senior journalist mentions, censorship is random, full of holes and has become "a continual march toward greater censorship" since Chinese President Xi Jinping assumed office.

"This is also when extratextual elements come into play, such as a sudden decision by an official that a particular foreign author is unacceptable because they have commented on Chinese politics, or a last-minute refusal to approve a film because it was shown overseas first or because of an upcoming party conference that makes everyone more paranoid. (Both were reported as reasons for the delayed release of Feng Xiaogang's film Youth in 2017)"

"Then there is post-publication censorship. This can happen when a book or a film explodes in popularity, unexpectedly reaching an audience that makes the authorities uncomfortable. The 2004 book 'An Investigation of Chinese Peasants' (published as Will the Boat Sink the Water? in English), an expose of rural corruption, was banned after it became a hit," it added.

- IANS