Amazon partnered with China propaganda arm
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James Carney is the Senior Vice-President for Worldwide Corporate Affairs, Amazon. He spoke to EU officials at Brussels, Belgium on February 1, 2018.
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AmazonTwo people who were familiar with the matter said that it was advertising a compilation of speeches and writings by President Xi Jinping on its Chinese website around two years ago. Beijing then issued an edict. American ecommerce giant should stop accepting reviews or ratings by customers from China.
According to one person, the demand was prompted by a negative review about Xi’s book. According to the second person, “I don’t think that the issue received anything less than five stars,” according to Amazon’s 5-point system.
Amazon’s ecommerce business relies heavily on reviews and ratings to engage customers. According to the two men, Amazon obliged. Amazon.cn does not currently have any customer ratings or reviews for the government-published book. Comment section disabled.
Amazon’s compliance in China with the Chinese government’s edict is part of a decade-long, more complex effort to get favors in Beijing, to preserve and grow its businesses in one of the most important markets in the world.
The 2018 Amazon Briefing Document, an internal document, describes Amazon’s China business. It outlines the many “Core Problems” facing the Seattle-based firm in China. They include: The “Ideological Control and Propaganda is the heart of the toolkit that the communist Party must use to attain and sustain its success,” it states. It is not our intention to judge whether the decision was right or wrong.
This briefing document and interviews with over two dozen individuals involved in Amazon’s China operations reveal how Amazon has survived and prospered in China. They have helped to advance the global political and economic agenda of the ruling Communist Party, sometimes pushing back against government requests.
The strategy’s core component, as revealed by the interviews and internal documents, was that Amazon collaborated with a propaganda arm of China to promote a product. portal on the company’s U.S. site, Amazon.com – a project that came to be known as China Books. The venture – which eventually offered more than 90,000 publications for sale – hasn’t generated significant revenue. However, the document indicates that Amazon considered it crucial in winning Chinese support for its Kindle electronic book device, cloud computing and e-commerce business.
Jay Carney (global head of Amazon’s lobbying operations), outlined the strategic stakes for the China Books Project in a 2018 briefing document. This was before his trip to Beijing. The document said that Amazon had been struggling to obtain a license in China for e-books.
The document said that the Chinabooks Project was “the key element to protect” from the license issue with China.
It also stated that the Amazon.com/China Books project had also been widely recognized by Chinese regulators.
Life in Xinjiang
Many apolitical titles are included in the books, including Chinese language cookbooks and bedtime stories for children. However, they include titles that reinforce the Communist Party’s official line.
A book praises the life in Xinjiang. United Nations experts claim that China held one million Uyghurs captive in a network camps. The book – “Incredible Xinjiang: Stories of Passion and Heritage” – discusses an online comedy show situated in the region. According to the book, an actor playing a Uyghur “country bumpkin,” says ethnicity in that country is not a problem. The same is true for Beijing which denied that it mistreats minority groups.
Some books depict China’s heroic battle against the COVID-19 epidemic, which started in Wuhan in China. “Stories of Courage and Determination – Wuhan in Coronavirus Lockdown” is one of them. The second begins with commentary by Xi: “Our success has once more demonstrated the strength of CPC leadership and Chinese socialism.”
China International Book Trading Corp., a state-owned business that is partnering with Amazon for China books, stated to Reuters that this venture was a “commercial relationship” between two businesses. The state propaganda arm of China, the National Press and Publication Administration (NPPA), did not respond to Reuters.
Amazon replied to questions by saying it follows all regulations and laws in China. The company stated, “As a bookeller, we believe it’s important to provide access to the written words and different perspectives.” Even books which some people may not like.
Amazon stated that it offers a large selection of Chinese-language books and that China Books Portal “is an additional channel” to reach Chinese consumers in the United States. CIBTC “just one” of many selling partners worldwide that sell products to our stores.
The new details about Amazon’s China strategy demonstrate the challenges Western companies face in accessing the world’s most populous market – and in coping with an authoritarian regime that has been tightening control over public discourse.
The firm’s compromises made with Beijing contrast sharply with the company’s efforts to skirt regulators within two of world’s largest democracies. Reuters documented this year in India how Amazon circumvented local regulations and, to promote its own brands, rigged search results on its Indian website. Reuters details how Amazon is being used in America. gutted or killed state privacy bills designed to protect consumers.
Amazon stated that it has always adhered to Indian law and does not favor private-label products on search results. Amazon stated it preferred U.S. privacy legislation. It protects consumer privacy and does not sell data.
Beijing demanded some responses from companies, and they have left the market. Yahoo has recently left China, and Microsoft’s LinkedIn said it was pulling out certain of its services. Both companies cited China’s regulatory and business challenges.
Amazon has, however, grown to be a strong economic force in China over the past years. It offers lucrative export opportunities for thousands of Chinese companies while also growing its cloud-services business. According to a recent report by iResearch China and AWS employees, Amazon Web Services (or AWS) is one of the top providers of Chinese businesses worldwide.
However, Amazon received an increasing number of requests by (Chinese watchdogs) to remove certain content. This was according to a briefing prepared for Carney that year. He served previously as the U.S. president’s communications director, Joe Biden vice president and President Barack Obama press secretary.
Amazon did not make Carney available to interview.
The briefing document states that the Cyberspace Administration of China (or CAC) asked Amazon to remove a link to China’s latest blockbuster movie Amazing China in 2018. This was due to particularly harsh user reviews. Online security and regulation are the responsibility of the CAC.
“Amazing China,” praises China for its achievements since Xi’s election in 2013. CAC asked for the removal of this link from IMDb. IMDb is an Amazon-owned portal that provides movie reviews, information and more.
CAC received a response from Amazon China’s office stating that it was difficult for Amazon China “to accommodate such requests”. The briefing document said they would relay this message to Amazon Headquarters “and seek their thoughts about possible solutions.”
IMDb.com’s U.S. site still lists the film. Some negative reviews vanished shortly after IMDb.com was requested. Archived screenshots from IMDb.com are available at archive.org. Some remain. “Amazing China” has a current overall rating of only 2.3, out of a maximum score of 10. It’s sometimes called “pathetic”, garbage, or government propaganda in reviews.
Amazon informed Reuters that “some reviews submitted under the title Amazing China’ were retracted because they did not comply with our content guidelines for user reviews, and the vast majority of them were off topic.” IMDb does not know of any external requests (including from the Chinese government), to review this title.
CAC did not respond to our request for comment.
“Wink and nod”
In 2004, Amazon made a deal worth $75 million to buy Joyo.com (an online seller of books and media). Amazon was eventually able to offer e-books as well as its popular Kindle reader devices to China.
It worked closely with GAPP (General Administration of Press and Publication), a regulatory body that engages state censorship as its overseer of Chinese publications. GAPP has a majority of its responsibilities now that NPPA is in charge. The Communist Party’s Publicity Department is responsible for overseeing NPPA. It was previously known under the Propaganda Department.
A former Amazon executive said that Amazon obtained some approvals from the Chinese government, but not all. According to the ex-executive, this situation allowed the government to exert influence over the retailer. According to the person, the China Books project was created by Amazon’s public-policy group as a way for “to get what you want on Kindle and other items.” It was both a wink, and a nod.
The briefing document states that Amazon quickly began working with GAPP in order to create China Books. The briefing said that the company intended to advertise the portal as the Amazon only shop named after a country to Chinese authorities. Amazon employed several people to assist with the project, including CIBTC. This is a government-run book-trading business that the document describes as “the executing authority from GAPP.”
A photo on the website of CIBTC shows Chinese officials celebrating the launch at a Beijing hotel in September 2011.
China Books received the title of “a key national cultural export project” in October 2012. This was given by GAPP and the entity that is now called the Publicity Department of China’s Communist Party of China. Amazon’s electronic-books venture in China was launched two months later and began to sell Kindles.
According to the 2018 briefing, China was Kindle’s biggest global market by 2017. It “accounted for 40%+ our worldwide device sales volume.” Amazon already had a Chinese-language ebook store on its American website.
Carney was the highest-ranking public-policy officer who reported to Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. He visited China in April 2018. A CIBTC press release stated that he spoke to an alternate member from the Communist Party central committee and said that Amazon would do “everything” to support China Books, making it stronger and more popular.
Carney was provided with a briefing document that stated, “Both China Books as well as Kindle Chinese eBook Store represent Amazon China’s primary commitment to help China in ‘Going Away’, an umbrella project that promotes Chinese culture around the globe.”
Amazon’s China Books website prominently features CIBTC’s names, but it doesn’t reveal that the project was created by Amazon in partnership with a Chinese government agency.
Amazon stated that details about the company were easily accessible online, and that CIBTC had prominently placed their logo and name on its website. It is perfectly appropriate that we have a relationship with CIBTC.
According to someone who was involved, China Books eventually failed financially. The portal has not sold many titles and Amazon shipped books back because it had no space in its warehouses.
However, China Books continues to be developed. The Chinese-language version of “Xi Jinping: The Governance of China Volume Three” – is listed first on China Books’ “BEST SELLER” page. Recent sales figures showed that it had reached 1,347.071. COVID-19 was also a “best seller” at 10,654,483. Reuters bought the Xinjiang title. It was ranked 13,441,455.
According to the source who was involved with the project, sales were not the objective. The photo is part of an “image-of-the-day” campaign, which aims to make the book visible.
CIBTC (the government-book-trading firm) stated that it does not “rank Amazon books.” It did not elaborate.
Threat to “retaliate”
Amazon announced the launch in Beijing, China of Amazon Web Services in 2013. This was to continue its Chinese expansion. According to the 2018 briefing, cloud services weren’t regulated under Chinese law at that time.
China started taking steps to restrict foreign cloud-computing companies, including AWS in 2016, making it difficult for them to do business here.
According to the briefing, government started requiring that cloud providers have a new license. Only Chinese-owned companies were allowed to obtain it. The 2018 document said that “Regulators had since become very hostile to AWS.”
Amazon made an unorthodox move. It gave its cloud technology over to Chinese companies in order to continue operating in China. The Chinese companies – not Amazon – were responsible for “monitoring and taking down illegal content, collecting and reporting basic information of customers … and working with PRC (the People’s Republic of China) authorities on all compliance-related inquiries that may arise,” the 2018 document stated.
Amazon informed Reuters that AWS as a foreign cloud provider must sell or license technology to China partners for the purpose of having a presence in China.
However, the structure did not protect AWS against Chinese pressure.
The briefing stated that AWS called China’s Ministry of Public Security in February 2018 to arrange a meeting. MPS threatened “retaliation” against Amazon if it did not remove content or block a site it had hosted in the United States to Guo Wengui (a Chinese dissident). According to the document, AWS rejected this request. Guo requested that AWS take action to reveal the Internet Protocol of the dissident, which is also known as his IP address. AWS did so and provided the information to the MPS, according to the document. A unique code that uniquely identifies the computer using the internet is called an IP address.
The document said that the ministry had “recognized our effort to find solutions, but not to their satisfaction level.”
In the briefing document for 2018, Carney was instructed to mention Guo’s government request at a meeting with top officials from China’s Ministry of Commerce. It also stressed that China shouldn’t ask about data held abroad.
Amazon denied that the Guo incident was a matter for which it could confirm it had been requested by the Chinese government, however it stated it did not “provide any customer or non-public information.”
Guo was not discussed during the Carney meeting, according to the commerce ministry. Amazon has not yet stated whether Guo had been brought up.
An MPS employee said that they don’t reply to any requests for comment. Guo’s lawyer said Guo did not have any comment.
AWS continues to expand its China business. People familiar with the matter say that AWS is now able to sell cloud services to China’s government, as well as some state-owned companies.
According to the AWS website’s 2018 briefing and an additional blog, there are also two Chinese companies: Tiktok-based developer ByteDance, and Hikvision video-surveillance company Hikvision. Philips refused to comment. The other companies did not reply to request for comment.
AWS had announced in June that it would expand in China “to meet the growing needs of our customer base”
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