Chinese compromises

China is enormous and important — culturally, economically  it is a place that can't be ignored. But there are lots of questions we need to ask about exactly how to engage with it. That is, how to be respectful and open-minded about another culture while still preserving our idea of universal western values. And I don't think our sense of history or of the world beyond our borders has prepared to understand these challenges.

I was thinking about this when I read the story in today's Times about how readily Western publishers censor works for publication in China.

Such compromises, almost unheard of just five years ago, are becoming increasingly common as American authors and their publishers are drawn to the Chinese market. With a highly literate population hungry for the works of foreign writers, China is an increasing source of revenue for American publishing houses; last year e-book earnings for American publishers from China grew by 56 percent, according to the Association of American Publishers. Chinese publishing companies bought more than 16,000 titles from abroad in 2012, up from 1,664 in 1995. [my italics]

Some people, who are trying to make a buck, have done the math and figured that this is the way to go. I'm not sure that I am convinced. But that this isn't a big conversation is a serious concern.

This is, in part, what I was writing about in my column about Xu Bing's "Phoenix." Americans have lost the ability to navigate international situations that aren't black and white.