Publishers Condemn the Government for Harassment|台灣出版中國書籍須送審 出版界批擾民

Has politics affected the publishing industry? The Ministry of Culture recently sent a notice to publishers, demanding that they must apply for a permit in order to publish books from China. This immediately sparked criticism from the industry, which said the law cited by the ministry in the notice is out of date and should have been abolished long ago.


After discovering that many of the children's books being considered for an award had Chinese rights-holders, the Ministry of Culture sent a notice to the Library Association of the Republic of China ordering all publishers to pay a NT$400 publication review fee to the ministry and obtain a permit before publishing books. The ministry cited the "Regulations Governing Permits for People in Mainland China Entering Taiwan," which was promulgated in 2003, and said violators would face administrative penalties. The ministry was immediately barraged by criticism.

The Ministry of Culture has been inflexible about this, but the problem is the publishing law has already been abolished. No one knows what the procedures are. So, once books are published, they say we've broken the law and our books can't be sold and have to be removed from shelves. This is a huge hassle.

The association says Taiwan publishes tens of thousands of authorized books with Chinese rights-holders every year. It also complained about the ministry making the regulation retroactive and said Taiwan's self-proclaimed "free publishing market" is a joke. Association officials further said the law is hopelessly antiquated and should have been abolished long ago.

Taiwan is a country with freedom of speech. No other country has this kind of restriction. In and of itself, this law violates the freedom of speech granted to the people by the Constitution. This is why the government is having such a hard time executing the law.

The legal framework is actually rooted in cross-strait equality. PRC publications are in a special category under laws governing cross-strait relations.

In response, the ministry says it promotes the regulation every year and only took action this year because so many of the award submissions had been published without ministry permission. It also said the "recall" mentioned in the notice was simply "official language" and the ministry will benevolently practice tolerance and refrain from fining publishers. However, all publishers must still submit their books for review before publication.