“I can’t see this being rolled back anytime soon, although we will lobby for that to happen. That changed dramatically after Xi became the Communist party’s general secretary, almost five years ago, in November 2012, and instigated a dramatic clampdown on opposition voices. “Cambridge University Press’s current concession is akin to the New York Times or The Economist letting the Chinese Communist Party [CCP] determine what articles go into their publications — something they have never done. Rather, the instruction was likely to have been given by lower-level officials who were responding to the chilly political climate that has gripped China since Xi took power. Academic institutions and publishers around the world had been “far too reticent about pushing back” against such demands, he added.

Source: The Guardian August 20, 2017 04:22 UTC