Over the past few years, U.S. authors who sold translation rights to Chinese publishers noticed that their books were not being published in a timely manner. The number of books by U.S. authors released in China has drastically decreased in recent years. My field research, for which I interviewed over 80 insiders with the Chinese book publishing industry, showed that geopolitics affect what books become available in China, and that this happens in a subtle and indirect way.
Under the leadership of Xi Jinping, the Chinese government and the Chinese Communist Party have emphasized the importance of Chinese traditional culture and “cultural confidence.” The party-state also encourages and facilitates the spread of Chinese culture internationally. At the same time, countless foreign books are translated into Chinese and published in China every year.
Cultural globalization does not happen spontaneously; it is mediated by people. In China, editors, editors-in-chief, and heads of publishing houses and private publishing companies are the ones who decide which books’ translation rights to buy. Apart from the quality of the books and their market potential, a central consideration for Chinese publishers is political constraints. They estimate whether it is possible to publish the book, how long this might take, and what the consequences of the publication might be.
As editors weigh their options, they reckon with the institutional structures in which book production is embedded in China. Before it can appear in bookstores, the book’s title and its concrete translation need to be approved at various levels within private publishing companies and state-owned publishing houses, and the titles need to receive direct approval from the authorities.
Approval Process and Censorship
There are no clear written rules, regulations, or other documents that would tell book publishers what content is allowed or prohibited in China. Nor are there lists of banned authors or sensitive expressions that would be available to publishers. While some limits are intuitively clear to all – nobody would consider a book by the Dalai Lama – the red line that one should not cross is mostly blurry, and each editor and publisher has to essentially draw it themselves. The red line also moves as the political context changes. That is why making decisions is not easy or straightforward for editors and publishers.
State organizations do not check the content of manuscripts prior to publication. An exception are books on the so-called “important topics,” such as the history of the Chinese Communist Party. The content of such books needs to be vetted in advance, but for the vast majority of books there is no pre-publication censorship of content at the state or provincial level.
However, for each book, publishers are required to apply to the authorities for ISBN (the International Standard Book Number) and CIP (Cataloguing in Publication) data. When applying for these, the publisher provides the authorities with basic information about the book, including the title, a short description (not the complete text), an author bio, a review report, the number of Chinese characters, the number of illustrations, etc. ISBN and CIP data are necessary to publish a book legally in China. Normally they are issued within around two to three months in total, a relatively short time.
The Fate of U.S. Books
My fieldwork revealed that starting around 2019-2020, ISBN and CIP data for books written by U.S. authors were issued much more slowly. The wait time amounted to two to three years instead of two to three months, if they were issued at all.
The authorities never officially announced that books by U.S. authors were no longer welcome, but this is how Chinese publishers interpreted the delays. These delays started at a time when China-U.S. relations were particularly tense, as the trade war was raging during the first Trump presidency. The understanding in the industry is that the Chinese authorities aimed to limit the number of new U.S. books accessing the Chinese market.
For publishers, it was impossible to estimate the timeframe for ISBN and CIP data – and thus the timing of final publication. There is no dashboard one can consult, and if one asked the authorities for an update, they were met with silence. Moreover, there was no official acknowledgement that this was even happening.
Chinese publishers are keenly aware of the financial consequences of such delays. An unpredictable publication timeline complicates their business. Moreover, rights are usually acquired for a period of five years. Given the time needed for translation, even if ISBN and CIP data are eventually issued after two or three years, a significant portion of the five years will have elapsed. This then means that the Chinese publisher needs to prolong the rights, which is costly. Also, in the meantime, the publisher is not selling the book and not recuperating their investment. Such delays, which can be indefinite, can result in major financial losses for the publisher.
When publishers make decisions about which foreign books to buy rights for, they consider such potential consequences. Since there is no clear, transparent communication from the authorities, they try to obtain information in a variety of ways. They pay close attention to the ISBN and CIP approval times in the projects they are involved in, and interpret the delays. They view them as a signal from the authorities, as an indication of the direction in which the state wants to go.
For the same reason, they closely follow the messaging in official state media. Private publishing companies watch the decisions of state-owned publishing houses, with which they are required to cooperate, and which have more information about what the authorities are frowning upon or encouraging at a particular period. A small number of executives at major state-owned publishing houses might be told privately and informally not to bother with particular countries or topics at this time, but the majority of editors and publishers need to rely on their own observations and on industry gossip.
What do publishers do in response to this situation? Some publishers scaled down the number of translation rights they bought for books by U.S. authors. Other publishers spread the risk by diversifying their portfolio to pay more attention to books by European authors. The first, and often only, foreign language that editors speak is English. However, some editors felt that focusing on English only could endanger their business.
This doesn’t mean that Chinese publishers have completely given up on American books. U.S. books are perceived as too important, and many publishers kept buying rights, because the market for them in China is substantial. But because of the higher risk, publishers became more selective and raised their minimum requirements for expected sales.
The Impact of Geopolitics on Book Publishing
As with other forms of book censorship in China, what is sensitive changes over time. Censorship of content, such as politics and religion, has been only getting stricter in recent years. In contrast, when it comes to geopolitics, there is clearly a possibility of relaxation. After the deployment of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense missile system by the U.S. in South Korea in 2016, there was an unofficial ban on South Korean culture – including difficulties with publishing South Korean books. This has now seemingly been lifted.
As for books by U.S. authors, in the first half of 2024, industry insiders also began to talk about relaxation. Sources reported that many books that had been waiting for ISBN and CIP data for a long time were gradually finally receiving them. That said, the personal experiences were diverse, and there was no consensus about to what extent the situation had normalized.
Issuing or, sometimes indefinitely, delaying ISBN and CIP data is one of the few direct regulation mechanisms through which the authorities control books pre-publication in China. In the absence of clear rules or communication from the state, editors and publishers observe each other and interpret signals from the state. In order to avoid financial consequences, they adjust their practice by being more selective about or even avoiding U.S. books, and by focusing on authors from other countries.
Even when the state acts as a direct gatekeeper, publishers and editors are still the ones making decisions on whether to give a particular book a try. Censorship in the book publishing industry in China is then not exclusively top-down, but is carried out by many different actors. Even when the state uses direct institutions of control, as is the case with delaying approvals of U.S. books, publishers have choices.
Geopolitics sheds light on why sometimes translation rights for a book by a U.S. author are sold to a Chinese publisher but then the book is published with significant delay, or not at all. The situation was gradually normalizing in 2024, before the outcome of the latest U.S. presidential election was known. Given the drawn-out translation and publication process, it is too early to say how China-U.S. relations during the second Trump presidency will impact access to U.S. books in China.
In any case, it is important to be aware how, in response to the highly visible tensions between the two countries, the indirect subtle measures taken by the Chinese state can have significant consequences for limiting potential for cultural exchange and dialogue.