BEIJING (Reuters) – A reprint of a book attributing the end of the Ming dynasty 400 years ago to the ineptitude of a Chinese emperor was pulled off the shelves last week, in an apparent purge of a title that had drawn now censored online comparisons with President Xi Jinping.
The book “Chongzhen: The Diligent Emperor of a Fallen Dynasty” was recalled on Oct. 16, according to an online notice by its publisher Dook Media Group due to “printing problems”. Reuters could not immediately verify the notice.
Censors have also scrubbed all screenshots of comments circulating online that likened the emperor to Xi, who began a precedent-breaking third term as president this year.
Chongzhen, whose reign ended with his suicide in 1644, was noted by historians for his diligence as much as his paranoia, including the constant questioning of his subjects’ loyalty.
Several Chinese readers shared images of the book cover on their Weibo social media accounts, including words in bold critical of the emperor such as “Bad moves one after another, the more diligent (Chongzhen was), the more the kingdom died”.
The images shared also included the cover of the book, which showed Chongzhen’s name overlaid with a red noose. Two other blurbs on the cover read: “paranoid and mercurial” and “understanding how Emperor Chongzhen drove himself to a dead end”.
The book is currently unavailable online.
Searches for the title on Weibo yielded no results. The name of the author Chen Wutong, who died earlier this year, were also censored on Weibo.
The book, published on Sept. 1, was a reprint of a 2016 text that had a different cover and title.
The publisher did not immediately respond to a Reuters request to comment.
China heavily censors content for any material that may not be compliant with its policies or is deemed potentially divisive or critical of its policies or leaders.
In the recently released book on Elon Musk written by Walter Isaacson, phrases such as “this is fascism” that could be perceived as critical of China’s recent zero COVID policies championed by Xi were obscured in white.
In the past, pictures of Winnie the Pooh, an internet meme that played on Xi’s supposed likeness to the rotund cartoon bear, have also been scrubbed from the Chinese internet.
(Reporting by Ryan Woo and Beijing newsroom; additional reporting by Brenda Goh; editing by Miral Fahmy)
