BBC Chinese published an article which reported that Springer Nature, a scientific publishing company, {whose publications include Nature and Scientific American}, confirmed that it was asked to block part of the contents on its website inside China. This is a second incident following the same fate that the Cambridge University Press, “The China Quarterly” suffered. According to Financial Times, over 1,000 papers that Springer Nature published in two of its political research journals are “politically sensitive papers.” They are no longer accessible in China. Springer Nature called the decision deeply regretful while stressing that it was trying to meet the requirements of the Chinese authorities and follow the local legal requirements. It stated that the blocked contents only account for less than one percent of the total contents and their customers in China can still access 99 percent of the contents. It emphasized that if they did not take any action, they would face the risk of being completely blocked in China. A Hong Kong scholar told the BBC that this is part of China’s propaganda policy. Chinese authorities did an investigation ahead of time and compiled a list of contents that “incorrectly portray China” or were “unfriendly to China.” According to the Hong Kong scholar, “China has the market. It is so attractive that these publishers want to penetrate the market to win a share of the market.”
Source: BBC Chinese, November 2, 2017
http://www.bbc.com/zhongwen/simp/chinese-news-41841836