By Tenzin Lekhden
DHARAMSHALA, Dec. 22: Amazon deleted unflattering reviews of Xi Jinping’s book after China delivered an edict; requiring the retail giant to disable the reviews section and delete anything less than a five-star rating of Xi’s book “The Governance of China.”
The retail and tech giant agreed to Beijing’s demand to remove foul reviews and ratings of the book from Amazon.cn (Amazon China) about two years ago, Reuters disclosed, citing two anonymous sources familiar with the issue. One of the sources said, “I think the issue was anything under five stars,” the highest rating in Amazon’s five-star ratings system.
Amazon’s compliance with the Chinese government’s censorship is part of the company’s decade-long effort to tap the world’s largest consumer market by heeding to Beijing’s demands.
In 2018, an internal Amazon briefing document, that has identified a number of challenges and issues faced by the company in China, highlighted the “Ideological control and propaganda [as] core of the toolkit for the communist party to achieve and maintain its success.” Amazon in the document, to appease the Chinese government with neutrality commented, “we are not making judgement on whether it is right or wrong.”
Reuters reported that from the said briefing document and interviews with more than two dozen people involved in Amazon’s China operation revealed how Amazon has “survived and thrived in China by helping to further the ruling Communist Party’s global economic and political agenda, while at times pushing back on some government demands.”
One of the important strategies used by Amazon to appeal to Xi’s regime was by partnering with China’s propaganda apparatus to create a specific selling portal on Amazon’s US site – a project known as China Books. The portal offered over 90,000 different titles for sale; the sheer size disappointed only by the performance of its sales. However, despite the insignificant revenue generated by this propagandist venture, Amazon, according to the briefing document, saw it as “crucial to winning support in China,” Reuters reported.
Edward Snowden, former CIA agent and famed whistle-blower, on Twitter wrote, “Reminder: Amazon Web Services runs like half the internet.” Essentially pointing out the totalitarian danger posed by the capitalistic greed of one of the largest companies in the world. Amazon Web Services, abbreviated as AWS, is used by a variety of large institutions and companies alike such that consumers, consciously or unconsciously, are making use of its services on a daily basis. More notable and familiar companies like Netflix, Adobe, Disney, Spotify, and Samsung among many others use AWS’s services.
Many users on Twitter showed their disapproval by tweeting in favour of a decentralized internet.
