Amazon stopped offering customer ratings and reviews of books sold in China at the request of the Chinese Communist Party, according to a Reuters investigation.
The Chinese government ordered Amazon to stop allowing customers to review books following less-than-perfect ratings of a collection of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s writings, Reuters reported, citing two people familiar with the matter.
Amazon partnered with a state-owned firm called China International Book Trading Corp and created a portal, which it called China Books, that promotes Chinese Communist Party material and forbids negative reviews.
According to internal documents and interviews conducted by Reuters, the decision to create the portal was part of a campaign to penetrate the Chinese e-commerce market and grow demand for its Kindle e-readers and cloud-computing business in the region.
“The key element to safeguard,” one internal document spelling out the company’s strategy for the region read, “is the Chinabooks project.”
Many of the books sold in Amazon’s Chinese marketplace include propaganda materials, such as “Incredible Xinjiang: Stories of Passion and Heritage,” which denies the mistreatment of Uyghur Muslims in the Xinjiang province.
TRENDING ARTICLES
Amazon also took down a “link to China’s new blockbuster film Amazing China because of especially harsh user reviews” in 2018 at the request of the Cyberspace Administration of China, China’s online regulator, according to Reuters.
“Ideological control and propaganda is the core of the toolkit for the communist party to achieve and maintain its success,” another internal Amazon document reads, according to Reuters. “We are not making judgement on whether it is right or wrong.”
Amazon’s then-head of global policy, Jay Carney, a former Obama administration official, visited China in April 2018 and met with China International Book Trading Corp executives to work on the partnership and develop China Books, Reuters reported.
Amazon told Reuters that it “complies with all applicable laws and regulations, wherever we operate, and China is no exception.” The e-commerce giant added that “as a bookseller, we believe that providing access to the written word and diverse perspectives is important. That includes books that some may find objectionable.”
Amazon did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities for this original content, email [email protected].
Have an opinion about this article? To sound off, please email [email protected] and we’ll consider publishing your edited remarks in our regular “We Hear You” feature. Remember to include the URL or headline of the article plus your name and town and/or state.
Read the first chapter of The Woketopus right now for FREE
Today, even with President Trump’s victory, leftist elites have their tentacles in every aspect of our government.
The Daily Signal’s own Tyler O’Neil exposes this leftist cabal in his new book, The Woketopus: The Dark Money Cabal Manipulating the Federal Government.
In this book, O’Neil reveals how the Left’s NGO apparatus pursues its woke agenda, maneuvering like an octopus by circumventing Congress and entrenching its interests in the federal government.
You can read the first chapter of this new book for FREE in this eBook, The Woketopus: Chapter One using the secure link below.
TRENDING ARTICLES
The Daily Signal depends on the support of readers like you.
RELATED ARTICLES
Don’t miss the
Don’t miss the signal
