{"id":4146,"date":"2023-10-22T04:26:14","date_gmt":"2023-10-22T04:26:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/infundpros.com\/business\/tale-of-emperor-whose-ineptitude-ended-his-dynasty-unnerves-chinese-censors\/"},"modified":"2023-10-22T04:26:14","modified_gmt":"2023-10-22T04:26:14","slug":"tale-of-emperor-whose-ineptitude-ended-his-dynasty-unnerves-chinese-censors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/infundpros.com\/?p=4146","title":{"rendered":"Tale of emperor whose ineptitude ended his dynasty unnerves Chinese censors"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>Stay informed with free updates<\/p>\n<p class=\"article__content-sign-up-topic-description\"><span>Simply sign up to the <!-- -->Chinese politics &amp; policy<!-- --> myFT Digest &#8212; delivered directly to your inbox.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><iframe class=\"article__content-sign-up-iframe close\" scrolling=\"no\" id=\"signUpIframe\" data-prev-url=\"\/register\/in-article-sign-up?ft-content-uuid=1f8d51c9-6de6-49cc-ae0a-c7947fe21de2&amp;concept-id=02249f44-ac1f-48d6-bba5-820471c18ca5\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<div id=\"article-body\">\n<p>A Chinese reprint of a book about an emperor who ran his realm into the ground before committing suicide nearly 400 years ago has abruptly disappeared from book shelves in China and searches for it have been censored online.<\/p>\n<p>The Book <em>Chongzhen: the Diligent Emperor of a Failed Dynasty<\/em>, republished last month, recounts how the last emperor of the 1368-1644 Ming dynasty purged senior officials and mismanaged his kingdom before finally hanging himself on a tree outside the Forbidden City as rebels closed in on Beijing.<\/p>\n<p>The blurb on the book\u2019s cover declares that the harder Chongzhen worked, the faster he brought about the collapse of the empire. \u201cA series of foolish measures [and] every step a mistake, the more diligent [he was] the faster the downfall,\u201d it says.<\/p>\n<p>China has long censored anything that could be used to draw parallels with current leaders. <\/p>\n<p>Control of information has also increased under Xi Jinping, who has abolished presidential term limits and in March began an unprecedented third five-year stint in office.<\/p>\n<p>But the disappearance of a reprint of a previously published book, which would have been vetted by state propagandists before publication, is not common, publishers say.<\/p>\n<p>This year, Beijing has become particularly sensitive about negative reports on its stewardship of the economy, which is still struggling to recover from Xi\u2019s severe Covid-zero policy during the pandemic that critics argue hit consumers and small businesses particularly hard.<\/p>\n<p>The book on the former emperor is a reprint of a 2016 publication, which carried the less provocative title:<em> The Past of Chongzhen: The Final Scene of the Ming Empire <\/em>and was authored by the late historian Chen Wutong.<\/p>\n<p>Searches for the reprint were censored on China\u2019s popular Weibo app. <\/p>\n<p>Some users reviewing the original edition on a reading app, WeRead, complained about the move. \u201cWhat exactly is there to fear? What\u2019s wrong with taking history as a lesson?\u201d said one commentator in a post.<\/p>\n<p>The cover art features a noose around the first character in Chongzhen\u2019s two-character\u00a0name \u2014 a reference to his suicide.<\/p>\n<p>China has a long history of trying to draw lessons from the stories of its emperors and Xi takes the study of the past very seriously himself, peppering his speeches with references to it, analysts say. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think he believes history has a pattern and it\u2019s meaningful and people have to get the right idea from it,\u201d said Kerry Brown, professor of Chinese studies and director of the Lau China Institute at King\u2019s College, London.<\/p>\n<p>He said some people also drew certain parallels between Xi and the emperors of the past. \u201cThis fact that he\u2019s an imperial kind of figure and one of the ways of attacking him is through historic parallels,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>But he said the censorship of a relatively obscure history book, whose main problem was the blurb on the cover, probably was more of an indication of nervousness in the Communist party system at this moment as cadres tried to prove their loyalty. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe functionaries quite low down, their default is go for the most cautious kind of response,\u201d he said. \u201cYou need a lot of knowledge to work out what was the sensitivity of this.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>China\u2019s censors quickly remove anything that could be perceived as a slight to Xi, in 2017 even blocking searches for Winnie the Pooh, the portly bear created by the English author AA Milne that some joked bore a resemblance to the Chinese leader.<\/p>\n<p>The Financial Times visited chain bookstores in Beijing, including state-owned Xinhua bookstore, and several independent bookshops and was informed the book was unavailable in every branch. It is also unavailable on all online booksellers.<\/p>\n<p>Employees at the headquarters of Sanlian Taofeng Bookhouse, one of the most renowned bookstores in China, told the FT no copies had been available since October 17.<\/p>\n<p>The recalling of a recently released book is rare in China because of the stringent process publishers have to go through to get a title published, including repeated checking by censors.<\/p>\n<p>The book\u2019s privately owned publisher, Dookbook, and its state-owned publisher, Wen Hui Publishing, did not respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n<p>The ministry of foreign affairs did not immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Read the full article <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ft.com\/content\/1f8d51c9-6de6-49cc-ae0a-c7947fe21de2\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">here<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Stay informed with free updates Simply sign up to the Chinese politics &amp; policy myFT Digest &#8212; delivered directly to your inbox&#8230;.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-4146","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-business"},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Tale of emperor whose ineptitude ended his dynasty unnerves Chinese censors | inFundPros<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Stay informed with free updatesSimply sign up to the Chinese politics &amp; 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