After criticism Cambridge University Press defies China

Related Link Outrage Over University Press Caving in to Chinese Censorship

One of the world’s leading academic publishers, Cambridge University Press, on Monday abruptly reversed its decision to bow to censorship of a leading journal on contemporary China, after its agreement to remove offending papers from its website in China ignited condemnation from academics.

The Cambridge University Press said last week that it had gone along with the demands from a Chinese publishing import agency and cut 315 papers from the online version of the journal, The China Quarterly, that can be read in China.

Academics criticized the decision as a worrisome intrusion of censorship into international academic research, where the Chinese government has become increasingly energetic in pushing its views, and in discouraging work that offends it.