{"id":47961,"date":"2022-08-30T01:54:06","date_gmt":"2022-08-29T16:54:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2022\/aug\/29\/chinas-censorship-reaches-far-beyond-its-own-borders"},"modified":"2022-08-30T01:54:06","modified_gmt":"2022-08-29T16:54:06","slug":"chinas-censorship-reaches-far-beyond-its-own-borders-letter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=47961","title":{"rendered":"China\u2019s censorship reaches far beyond its own borders | Letter"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>We should never take free speech for granted, especially if it concerns art, writes <strong>John Finlay<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I read with interest your editorial (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/commentisfree\/2022\/aug\/24\/the-guardian-view-on-chinas-censors-the-sense-of-an-acceptable-ending\" title=\"\">The Guardian view on China\u2019s censors: the sense of an (acceptable) ending, 24 August<\/a>). In 2016, I was about to publish a book on pop art, which had a short section on artists responding to political and social turmoil in the 1960s, and which included an illustration of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tate.org.uk\/art\/artworks\/dine-drag-johnson-and-mao-p77436\" title=\"\">Jim Dine\u2019s Drag \u2013 Johnson and Mao (1967)<\/a>. The etching depicts Mao Zedong of the People\u2019s Republic of China and the US president Lyndon B Johnson, who sent troops to counter Chinese communist support in the Vietnam war.<\/p>\n<p>Dine\u2019s coloured etching applies cosmetic touches to the lips, cheeks and eyelids of these two supposed (and opposed) \u201cfreedom\u201d fighters (and a black heart painted on the chin of Mao), essentially to caricature political propaganda and masculine conviction. The capitalist and communist leaders appear as drag actors whose posturing affects a global audience. The printers of my book \u2013 a Chinese company \u2013 forced the London publisher to remove the offending illustration and text. In our cosy western world, we should never take free speech for granted, especially if it concerns art.<br incopy-break-type=\"webbreak\"><strong>John Finlay<\/strong><br incopy-break-type=\"webbreak\"><em>Edinburgh<\/em><\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2022\/aug\/29\/chinas-censorship-reaches-far-beyond-its-own-borders\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We should never take free speech for granted, especially if it concerns art, writes John FinlayI read with interest your editorial (The Guardian view on China\u2019s censors: the sense of an (acceptable) ending, 24 August). In 2016, I was about to publish a&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":269,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[546,91,41,458,50,71,695,2327,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-47961","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-art","category-art-and-design","category-asia-pacific","category-censorship","category-china","category-culture","category-mao-zedong","category-vietnam-war","category-world-news"],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47961","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/269"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=47961"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47961\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47962,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47961\/revisions\/47962"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=47961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=47961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=47961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}