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PA
The world’s oldest publishing house, the Cambridge University Press, has reversed a decision to censor its content in China.
The publishers had agreed to suppress access to hundreds of its own articles that dealt with subjects sensitive to the Chinese authorities, such as those about the Tiananmen Square massacre.
The Chinese had said that if it did not censor content, it would not be able to publish other material in China.
It changed its mind after protests.
In a petition published on Monday, academics from around the world spoke out against what they called China’s attempts to “export its censorship on topics that do not fit its preferred narrative”.
The Chinese had told the CUP to block access to more than 300 articles from its own China Quarterly journal as a price for being allowed to publish other material.
It said at the time of the initial announcement on Friday: “We can confirm that we received an instruction from a Chinese import agency to block individual articles from The China Quarterly within China.
“We complied with this initial request to remove individual articles, to ensure that other academic and educational materials we publish remain available to researchers and educators in this market.”