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LIS 350, Diana Dai
The History of China儒
The Earlist Book Ban in China...
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Book censorship has been a method used by China since the start of the Qin dynasty (221 to 206 BC).
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Both domestic and foreign books which do not meet the central government's requirement will be censored and forbidden to be printed or distributed.
No matter how severe and torturing the punishment was, the Qin Dynasty only lasted 14 years.
However, he issued a decree to burn all classic works of the Hundred Schools of Thought, including Confucianism and Taoism, as well as poetry, prose, and music. Only books on medicine, astrology, divination, and agriculture were spared.
The emperor established his kingdom out of fear that his legitimacy would be questioned and to prevent people from undermining his rule, he unified and strengthened the Chinese empire.
Furthermore, he carried out a massacre of intellectuals in order to control and restrict their thoughts and actions to align with his own desires.
The Chinese emperor Qin Shi Huang of the Qin dynasty
- The purported burning of texts in 213 BCE
- The live burial of 460 Confucian scholars in 212 BCE
to reinforce the Legalism ideology of the Qin government by destroying philosophical works from the Hundred Schools of Thought
Books to be most "dangerous" politically:
advocated political ideas often incompatible with the totalitarian regime
concering the ancient virtuous rulers
people would invoke the past and become dissatisfied with the presnt
Damage to Chinese intellectual heritage is hard to assess due to lack of historical records...
Technological books were spared from destruction (Li Si's memorial)
State history books suffered great losses, with very few surviving from before Qin
"Objectionable" books such as poetry and philosophy were preserved in imperial archives and kept by official scholars
All history books not in the Qin interpretation to be burned (unclear whether they were all destroyed or some were kept in imperial archives)
Any surviving histories in the archives may have been destroyed in 206 B.C. when enemies captured and burnt the Qin imperial palaces.
Tradition had it that after being deceived by two alchemists while seeking prolonged life, Qin Shi Huang ordered more than 460 scholars in the capital to be buried alive in the second year of the proscription.
“If the books contain language that is anti-dynastic, then the woodblacks and printed sheets must both be put to the flames. Heterodox opinions must be quashed that later generations may not be influences. ” (Baltiman, p. 126, 1935)
The Qing dynasty's legitimacy depended on being seen as rightful rulers of China, and their Inner Asian (Manchus) origins created a need to control discourse about the past to justify their rule.
In Chinese political theory, civilization was defined as literate expression, and controlling the recording of knowledge was crucial for state legitimacy.
The Qing dynasty implemented censorship to dominate discourse about the past, with books dealing with historical matters being the main target.
The Qing government imposed a book ban to suppress books that challenged the official historical narrative or criticized Qing rule.
The book ban was part of a larger effort to control the dissemination of knowledge and maintain the Qing dynasty's legitimacy as rulers of China.
During the 20th century, Mao Zedong and the Chinese Communist Party implemented various censorship laws in China. CCP's censorship aimed to maintain political control, enforce community standards, and protect Maoist ideology.
This censorship began in the 1940s and intensified in the 1950s and during the Cultural Revolution, where books deemed anti-Communist or Maoist were censored and prohibited.
The Cultural Revolution in China from 1966 to 1976 resulted in the banning of many books, including Western classics and works by Chinese authors that did not conform to mainstream political ideologies
Many of China's most important writers today were heavily persecuted as counter-revolutionaries during the revolutionary years, and their works were banned.
The censorship system was institutionalized with unparalleled sophistication and thoroughness, expanding to domains varying from news media and TV programs to literature, films, and the arts, while obtaining not only prescriptive control but also restrictive control.
During this time, public book burnings also became a tool to destroy all material not deemed appropriate by the CCP.
Like Mao Zedong, Xi Jinping has continued many of the practices put in place to censor media and literature by the Cultural Revolution.
Xi Jinping (November 15, 2012 - present), current CCP General Secretary, has continued to ban books in mainland China and Hong Kong that are considered “politically incorrect”.
Like Mao, Xi has specifically targeted libraries to censor pro-democracy books and textbooks used in schools, all to promote “patriotism and ideological purity in the education system”.