From baltimoresun.com:
……censorship has already had this dulling effect on Chinese literature; The ban only exposed the raw power of a system that usually operates with more subtlety.
Chinese propaganda authorities, interested in maintaining a veneer of openness, might quietly ban works of fiction with a telephone call to a publisher, so that most people are not even aware that something has been banned. For the most part, though, because there are far too many published works for the propaganda bureaucracy to keep track of, much less read in advance, authorities must count on self-censorship – and the fear of mistakenly letting something unacceptable slip by – to do their job for them.
The government still owns the publishing houses, and most literary writers and journalists still count on a government paycheck to survive. That means that when writers are wondering how far to go, or their editors are nervous about sensitive passages in the manuscripts they’re reading, they will err on the side of caution.
Thanks to Yong Liu for providing this link through del.icio.us
