Amazon was pressured by China and agreed to remove criticism of Chinese ruler Xi Jinping’s book from its online store in the country, according to a report by Reuters.
The book “The Governance of China”, a collection of speeches and texts by Xi, went on sale about two years ago. After a negative review from a buyer, Beijing ordered the US e-commerce giant to no longer allow customers to leave reviews on the book’s page on amazon.cn, two sources told the news agency.
“I think the problem was any rating with less than five stars [a pontuação máxima que clientes podem dar aos produtos vendidos pelo site]”, said one of the sources.
Currently, on Chinese Amazon, the sales pages for the different versions of Xi’s book, which is translated into multiple languages, do not have the buyer review system and the comments section is disabled.
Amazon’s decision to accept the Chinese regime’s decree is part of the company’s efforts to remain in the country, one of the largest markets in the world.
Reuters cites an internal document from 2018 that describes the company’s business in China and lists several problems Amazon has faced in the country. Among them: “Ideological control and propaganda are the core of the tool kit used by the communist party to achieve and maintain its success”, the document says. “We don’t judge whether this is right or wrong.”
The document also reports that, in 2018, Amazon received “an increasing number of requests from inspectors [chineses] to remove content, most of them politically sensitive.”
According to the report, this document and interviews with more than 20 people involved in the Amazon operation in China reveal that the company remains in the Asian country helping the Communist Party to promote its political and economic agenda, occasionally refusing the regime’s demands.
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