Is this River Elegy all over again?
Beijing has banned a book critical of China's traditional culture and values and told its author to scrap plans to publish it in Hong Kong ahead of the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic.
Xiao Jiansheng , a newspaper reporter in Hunan province who spent more than 20 years writing Chinese History Revisited, said the authorities had intervened this week - two years after imposing a similar last-minute ban on its publication by an arm of the prestigious Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
The book takes a similar line to The Ugly Chinese and River Elegy - two works that caused huge controversy and sparked intense intellectual debate. Xiao admits his book was inspired by River Elegy, a pamphlet published in the mid-1980s that questioned traditional beliefs and called for the mainland to embrace Western democratic ideals.
While the government often bans books covering sensitive political topics or containing information it considers confidential, Chinese History Revisited is an academic work.
'None of my editors have any idea about my book. They had to summon me last week to find out what it is about,' Xiao said.
His book reflects on how traditional Chinese teaching, with its emphasis on obedience to authority, and the centralisation of power had caused the decline of Chinese civilisation - and its need of diversity, openness and an outward-looking environment. It was well received by academics and impressed the China Social Science Press (CSSP) - the publish arming arm of the academy, which planned to publish it in 2007.