Amazon reportedly bends to China, deletes reviews on Xi's book, promotes Communist propaganda

When Chinese Dictator Xi Jinping's "The Governance of China" received negative reviews on Amazon.cn about two years ago, the Communist government ordered the American-based retail giant to end all customer ratings and comments in China.

Amazon followed commands, and all of Xi's books on the Chinese version of the website are now review-less. 

In a further effort to please the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), the company founded by Jeff Bezos also launched China Books in partnership with the Chinese government to sell propaganda to U.S. consumers.

A source familiar with the incident told Reuters, "I think the issue was anything under five stars" for Xi's book. Amazon operates on a five-star rating system.

The measure seems to have been taken with several other Chinese government-published books as well. Most books by Mao Zedong, the first leader of Communist China, lack reviews and comments. Of the few Mao books with ratings, most are five stars. The lowest-rated Mao book has 4.2 stars.

Reuters reports that Amazon's compliance is "part of a deeper, decade-long effort by the company to win favor in Beijing to protect and grow its business in one of the world's largest marketplaces."

An internal document from Amazon in 2018 described "Core Issues" the retail company has faced entering into the Chinese market. The document stated, "Ideological control and propaganda is the core of the toolkit for the communist party to achieve and maintain its success," emphasizing that Amazon is "not making judgement on whether it is right or wrong." 

The document also described China Books, which was created in 2012, as a core element of the strategy to enter the Chinese market. While the propaganda selling portal offers more than 90,000 publications to purchase, Reuters reports that it has not seen significant sales. The move was done to earn Chinese support for the company, specifically its Kindle e-book. 

While some offerings in China Books are apolitical, others push communist propaganda. For example, one book, "Incredible Xinjiang: Stories of Passion and Heritage," describes how great life is for Uyghurs in China. In reality, the Muslim ethnic minority is currently facing a genocide by the CCP.

Other books praise China's response to the COVID-19 pandemic, which began in Wuhan.

Amazon told Reuters it "complies with all applicable laws and regulations, wherever we operate, and China is no exception," adding that "as a bookseller, we believe that providing access to the written word and diverse perspectives is important. That includes books that some may find objectionable."

Despite a lack of revenue from China Books, a person involved in the project told Reuters, "It's a high-level photo-op," part of a "soft-power campaign to basically put the books out there and just have it be visible."

Since launching China books, Amazon's sales in the Communist nation have only grown. More than 40% of all Kindle device sales came from China by 2017, making it the largest global market for the product.

Amazon's appeasement of China marks another major American organization following the CCP's demands.

Last week, the NFL labeled Taiwan as part of China on a global marketing plan map. Coca-Cola, Visa and Airbnb were accused by U.S. lawmakers of putting profits over principles by remaining sponsors of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics. President Joe Biden earlier this month announced a diplomatic boycott of the Olympics over China's ongoing human rights abuses.