Marion Bae, FISM News

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Amazon has had its eyes on the Chinese market for nearly two decades, and newly revealed information shows just how far they are willing to go to garner support from the communist regime. A recent report from Reuters reveals Amazon knowingly entered into a partnership with a propaganda arm of the Chinese government and made business practice concessions at the country’s request.

The information was garnered from an internal briefing document from 2018 as well as numerous interviews from individuals close to the operation. The document obtained was used to brief Jay Carney, Amazon’s Senior Vice President of Global Corporate Affairs, before he went to Beijing. 

Amazon has three main business interests in China: e-book sales, cloud-computing platform use, and e-commerce. The most shocking claim in the Reuters report involves the book-selling business, and how Amazon worked closely with a propaganda wing of the Chinese government to achieve their business goals.

Amazon’s presence in China began in 2004 when they acquired Joyo.com, an online platform that sold books alongside other media. Through the acquisition Amazon sought to market Kindle devices and e-books to the populous market in China. 

The General Administration of Press and Publication (GAPP), a state censorship regulator for Chinese publications, had to be consulted to achieve this. The National Press and Publication Administration (NPPA), which the Chinese Communist Party’s Publicity Department, formerly the Propaganda Department, directly oversees, has since reportedly taken over the majority of the GAPP’s duties, making the NPPA essentially a state-run propaganda arm. The NPAA was reportedly the organization predominantly working alongside Amazon in its business venture. 

One way that Amazon tried to gain favor with the Chinese government was by creating an online portal for marketing Chinese book in the United States. This was later referred to as the China Books project. 

China International Book Trading Corp (CIBTC), the Chinese government-owned selling partner, described the partnership with Amazon as a “commercial relationship between two enterprises.” Amazon referred to the China Books portal as “an additional channel for serving our Chinese readers in the United States and elsewhere, ” and described CIBTC as “just one of the millions of selling partners around the world offering products in our stores.”

Another quote from the obtained document said, “Both China Books and Kindle Chinese eBook Store are Amazon China’s main commitment to assist China in ‘Going Abroad,’ an umbrella project that aims to promote Chinese culture to the world.”

The China Books project is still active, despite the fact that a source says the project is a financial failure. It is even reported that Amazon had to send some of the books in stock back due to lack of space in company warehouses. 

The front page of the China Books portal highlights all three volumes of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s book, “The Governance of China.” Additionally, these books are listed at the front of the Best Seller category, despite the poor ratings on the U.S. platform.

It was also revealed that in 2018 a negative review was posted for President Xi’s book on Amazon’s Chinese website (Amazon.cn). Soon after, the government issued an edict that Amazon was to stop allowing reviews on its Chinese website. Despite the ratings system being an integral part of Amazon’s business, they conceded. There are currently no reviews or ratings for the book on the Chinese website, and comments are disabled. 

The obtained document shows the company knowingly entered into the relationship despite the challenges of working with the Chinese market, saying, “Ideological control and propaganda is the core of the toolkit for the communist party to achieve and maintain its success…We are not making judgment on whether it is right or wrong.”

It would appear that given their great success in China, Amazon is content with making the necessary concessions to keep their empire growing, regardless of the track record of the government they’re supporting.