Conditions of Academic Journal Censorship Complicity and Resistance in China: An Interview Study

Abstract:  Since 2017, Western scholarly publishers have faced growing pressure from Chinese state regulators to restrict access to politically sensitive content or risk losing market access. This study examines the conditions compelling publishers to acquiesce to censorship demands through qualitative interviews with twenty-four participants: twelve Asia Studies academics and twelve publishing professionals. Thematic analysis revealed ten themes across six categories: conditions, definitions, responsibility, knowledge, resistance, and values. Censorship complicity stems from China's economic power and publishers' revenue dependence on subscriptions, article processing charges, and citation metrics. The study identifies pervasive tendencies to deny or redistribute responsibility, contributing to normalization despite value alignment opposing censorship.

Self-censorship occurs in a climate of strategic uncertainty, where publishers withhold information to protect commercial interests and avoid anti-competition violations, preventing coordinated resistance. While author boycotts initially constrained compliance—reversing Cambridge University Press's 2017 decision to acquiesce to censorship demands—fragmentation has weakened collective action, particularly among early-career scholars dependent on access to China. Participants demonstrated shared conceptualizations of censorship and liberal-democratic values favouring resistance but diverged on whether China-based scholars' interests should inform responses. Collaborative resistance requires expanding stakeholder coalitions to include research funders and librarians through industry-wide frameworks analogous to the Global Network Initiative.