On this episode of China Uncensored,
got something critical to say
about the Chinese Communist Party?
Good luck with that.
Hi, welcome back.
I’m Chris Chappell.
We take you once again to the land Down Under,
which is rapidly become a land under pressure
from the Chinese Communist Party.
That’s the topic of the book Silent Invasion
by Australian professor Clive Hamilton.
It’s set to be published next April.
It’s about how the CCP is influencing
the highest levels of Australia’s politics
and news organizations.
But now,
we can add one more sphere
to the CCP’s influence:
Book publishers.
Because the upcoming book
has been censored by the Chinese government.
Not in China,
but in Australia!
More specifically,
his publisher Allen & Unwin
has decided to indefinitely delay the publication.
Indefinitely delay…
Kind of like how
every time I asked out Connie in middle school,
she always said,
“I’m busy tonight,
maybe some other time.”
The publisher told Mr. Hamilton
they were concerned about getting sued
by people his book alleges have connections to
the Chinese Communist Party.
“What we’re seeing now, in this case,
is the first instance, I believe,
where a major Western publisher has decided to
censor material critical of the Chinese Communist Party
in its home country.”
So Hamilton’s book is about how Australia
is influenced by the Chinese Communist Party.
And the publishers are delaying it
because they’re worried that they might get in trouble
with Australians who were influenced
by the Chinese Communist Party.
That is...
the opposite of irony.
Either that,
or the publishers really knew
how to get publicity.
I mean,
look at the international headlines!
But no, Allen & Unwin
is probably not just pining for publicity,
and secretly planning to publish the book after all.
Like many large corporations
with millions of dollars and armies of lawyers,
they’re scared of the big bad CCP.
Clive Hamilton says a lawyer had reviewed his book
and he had carefully revised it
to avoid potential defamation.
But the CCP or someone it influences
could still in theory punish the publisher
by dragging them through long-term,
expensive litigation.
There are already ongoing lawsuits
against two major Australian media companies
for covering similar topics.
Those lawsuits aren’t from the CCP itself,
but rather from a Chinese Australian
with alleged connections with the CCP.
Hamilton has now taken his manuscript back
and is looking for another publisher.
And for anyone that thinks that the CCP
getting someone to sue Hamilton or his publisher
would be a little too on the nose, well...
more information is coming out about
how petty the Party can really be.
For example,
please don’t think that every Chinese Australian
is an agent for the CCP.
Some of them are standing up to the CCP,
like John Hughes,
a former city councillor for Parramatta,
a suburb of Sydney.
John Hughes spoke up for
the Australian Falun Gong community—
a meditation practice severely persecuted
in Mainland China.
That’s earned him some unwelcomed attention
from the Chinese consulate.
In 2014,
he and several other officials were due
to make a six day trip to China and Taiwan.
When the consulate found out,
they invited him over for a little chat.
You know,
if he wanted to get that visa.
“They went straight onto my close association
or friendly ­association with a local Chinese community group,
namely Falun Gong.”
He refused the their demands
to stop speaking out about Falun Gong,
but that wasn’t the end of it.
Instead, consulate officials went to the lord-mayor
and demanded Hughes be removed from the trip.
When the mayor refused,
the consulate tried to make Hughes sign a statement
promising he would no longer support Falun Gong,
and specifically that he wouldn’t talk about
how the Chinese regime harvests organs
from Falun Gong practitioners
and other prisoners of conscience.
To his credit,
Hughes stood his ground,
and got a visa for the trip anyway.
Now, the Chinese consulate
tried to bully Hughes back in 2014.
But we’re only learning about it now
because of the recent reporting on how
the Chinese regime is influencing Australia.
Now if only someone would write a book about that.
But the Chinese regime puts out
an absurd amount of pressure globally
to silence any criticism of...
a regime that needs to put out
an absurd amount of global pressure
to silence criticism.
These kinds of stories
are more common than you think.
Earlier this month,
the world’s largest academic book publisher
Springer Nature—
they put out Scientific American—
also self-censored after getting pressured by the CCP.
The Financial Times discovered they
“removed more than 1,000 articles,”
from their Chinese website,
because they had politically sensitive keywords
like “Taiwan”, “Tibet” and “Cultural Revolution”.
In August, Cambridge University Press
did the same thing—
removing sensitive journal articles
at the CCP’s request.
The Chinese regime is increasingly successful
at bullying the world into silence.
Fortunately,
the Western world still has enough independent media
to expose the CCP’s influence.
And in the case of Cambridge University Press,
they actually reversed their stance
and re-posted those sensitive articles.
They did it to, you know,
“uphold the principle of academic freedom”.
Totally not because of the outspoken complaints
from hundreds of academics.
And all the bad publicity.
While the Communist Party rules China,
these kinds of things are probably not going to stop.
A company, or an organization,
or a city councillor from an Australian suburb,
does something that the CCP doesn’t like.
The CCP pressures them,
and they then have to decide whether to
give in to the CCP
or to stand up.
And sometimes it’s helpful to have a huge crowd
of outraged people to encourage them to stand up.
“We as Australians living in a free society
should not allow ourselves to be bullied into silence
by an autocratic foreign power.”
And speaking of huge crowds of outraged people,
you—our viewers.
Here at China Uncensored,
we also do our best to speak out on behalf of people
persecuted by the Chinese Communist Party,
and to shed light on all the things the CCP is doing
that they’d rather people didn’t know about...
like how they try to infiltrate other countries.
Not a lot of companies want to advertise with us
for this reason,
which is why we rely mostly on direct support
from viewers like you.
If you want to help China Uncensored
continue to stand up to the CCP,
visit Patreon.com/chinauncensored,
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You’ll get some cool rewards in return.
And I just want to thank our patrons
for keeping our show going.
Our whole team here really appreciates what you do.
Ok, back to the sarcasm.
What do you think of the way the Chinese regime
is able to threaten the world into silence?
Leave your comments below.
Thanks for watching this episode of China Uncensored.
Once again I’m your host Chris Chappell,
see you next time.
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