Source: Washington Post (12/9/19)
China’s library officials are burning books that diverge from Communist Party ideology
By Gerry Shih

A portrait of Chinese President Xi Jinping passes by a screen showing video of him speaking during a parade commemorating the 70th anniversary of the founding of Communist China in Beijing on Oct. 1. (Mark Schiefelbein/AP)
BEIJING — Library officials in northwest China recently hoped to demonstrate their ideological fervor and loyalty to the Communist Party by purging politically incorrect books and religious materials in emphatic fashion: They burned them.
The book-burning incident, with all its dark historical precedents from this country and Nazi-era Germany, has heightened alarm at a time when Chinese intellectuals see their society tipping further into authoritarianism.
The incident attracted widespread attention Sunday after Chinese social media users noticed a report on the Library Society of China’s website from a library in Zhenyuan county. The library declared it had removed “illegal publications, religious publications and deviant papers and books, picture books and photographs” in an effort to “fully exert the library’s role in broadcasting mainstream ideology.” Continue reading