How to Censor The Economist in Shanghai? Just Tear the Pages Out

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Censorship can be complex and nuanced, or it can be simple and clean; those in charge of Shanghai’s Hongqiao Airport’s bookshop clearly subscribe to the purist school. 

On July 8, @Harvey-Hui-Wu reported on Sina Weibo, China’s Twitter,

“Nowadays speech is so harmonious! I bought an issue of the Economist at [Shanghai's] Hongqiao Airport and wanted to read the articles on China, but found that all articles in that section were torn out! I was so angry and ran back to the bookstore to complain. The clerk said this is how the airport treats the magazine when new stock comes in, and showed me the rest of the Economists at the bookstore. Surely enough, all of them had no China section. I was speechless!” {{1}}[[1]]现在的言论真和谐！在虹桥机场买了本Economist,想看看中国部分的文章，居然发现该部分的文章居然被撕了！我那个火啊！一路小跑去投诉书店。书店服务员告诉我这是书进入虹桥机场时，机场对该杂志的处理，并且打开剩下的economist,果然全无中国部分的文章。我无语了！[[1]]

For those wondering which articles were affected, @Harvey-Hui-Wu responded in his next tweet, “China’s security state and Hong Kong’s democrats! My guess is that customs people specialize in tearing out the China section.” {{2}}[[2]]China ‘s Security state 和 Hong Kong’s democrats ! 个人猜测海关专撕中国版[[2]] @Better-Ian thinks it is a special case, “I think it might be the airport’s doing. The issues I see in our provincial library and local library all have the China section.” {{3}}[[3]]  我觉得有可能是机场的个别行为而已，我一直在省中山图书馆和我们自己院图书馆看到的都是有中国版的[[3]]

Most commenters on Sina Weibo ridiculed the censorship; others shared their experiences. @智圣Wisaint tweets, “I subscribe to the Asia edition of Time. Articles on China are torn out and issues with covers about China are just not distributed. Sometimes you can see topics on China in the Briefing section. The censors don’t read the magazines that closely.” {{4}}[[4]]我订的亚洲版《TIME》，涉华文章是撕掉，涉华封面专题是停掉不发，偶尔能在“Briefing”豆腐块里见着嫂子，审查员也不精读杂志啊。[[4]] @无翼的雀仔X agrees, “That’s very normal. When you watch news broadcast from Hong Kong in Guangdong, you often get three or four blackouts during one segment.” {{5}}[[5]]好正常哦，在广东看香港TVB新闻还经常一节新闻卡掉三四次的呢。[[5]]

@谷大白话 added, “All words and phrases related to Tibet are blacked out with markers in the Merriam Webster dictionaries sold online.” {{6}}[[6]]网上卖的Merriam Webster辞典，Tibet等相关词条全部用马克笔涂黑。[[6]] @刘庆东 offers some advice to the censors, “These people still don’t do their jobs right. Should black out all the article titles from the table of content, so the readers won’t even know what you had torn out.” {{7}}[[7]]这些人还是不称职。应该把目录中有关文章的目录都用墨涂掉，这读者根本不知道你撕的是什么。[[7]]

Perhaps editors of the Economist can take (cold) comfort in the fact that Michelangelo’s timeless work suffers a similar fate. @Gucci小古 reports that CCTV news censored a certain body part of the statue David-Apollo in its news broadcast. 

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