Online retail giant Amazon has removed all customer reviews for a book by Chinese premier Xi Jinping on its Chinese website, as asked by the Chinese govt. According to a special report by Reuters, the Chinese authorities had objected to any rating less than five, the highest customer rating on the website, for the book, after which Amazon removed all ratings and reviews, and has disabled any further customer rating.
The book in question is titled The Governance of China in English, which is a three-volume collection of speeches and writings by Xi Jinping, which talks about Xi’s doctrine of ‘Socialism with Chinese Characteristics’.
The book was made available on Amazon around two years ago. But after some negative reviews and less than five ratings for the book appeared on Amazon.cn, the Amazon site for China, the CCP authorities asked Amazon to remove them.
“I think the issue was anything under five stars,” one person told Reuters.
The American e-tail giant complied with this demand by the Chinese govt, and quietly removed all reviews and ratings for the book on its Chinese website. Reportedly, the company has also disabled ratings and reviews of the book on the site.
When one searches for 习近平谈治国理政, the Mandarin title of the book, on Amazon.cn, several listings of the book in its original Chinese version and translated versions in different versions appear, but none of them carries any ratings or customer review.
Amazon complying with the Chinese govt order to hide negative reviews of Xi Jinping’s book is part of an ongoing effort of the company to gain the favour of Beijing to protect its business in the country.
The Reuters report cites an internal 2018 Amazon briefing document that had talked about working with the propaganda of the Chinese govt to win favour in the country. The document said, “Ideological control and propaganda is the core of the toolkit for the communist party to achieve and maintain its success.” It had further said, “We are not making judgement on whether it is right or wrong.”
The document and the news agency’s interview with several people working with Amazon China reveal that the company has survived and thrived in China by helping to spread the Chinese Communist Party’s global economic and political agenda.
As part of this propaganda project, Amazon even created a separate portal on its main US website, Amazon.com, known as China Books. The sub-portal has over 90,000 China-related publications for sale, which is seen as a crucial effort to win support for Amazon’s businesses in China.
The document states that Amazon was having difficulties in obtaining a licence to sell e-books in China through its Kindle platform, and the China Books projects acted as a key element of safeguard against the problem.
The project is a joint venture between Amazon and state-owned China International Book Trading Corp. Amazon also has a partnership with the Chinese state propaganda arm National Press and Publication Administration.
