China's Foreign Ministry curtails access to declassified historic archives

When China's former ambassador to Belarus, Lu Guicheng, visited the archives of East China Normal University in Shanghai in June, he dedicated a couplet to his hosts: "If there are no records, a person's biography can be invented, if their are no archives, a country's history is but a legend."

Yet, his own archives seem to be disappearing from public view. Historians are bewildered because the ministry has now restricted access to most of its previously available historical documents in what some say could be a wider clampdown.

"Out of some 80,000 documents previously available, only 8,000 or so are available now, and those that are basically useless," one historian said, on condition of anonymity. The historian is concerned he could lose further access.

For the British historian, the crackdown is part of a wider trend across the country since "the heyday of openness" half a decade ago.

"Even relatively liberal archives, like the Shanghai Municipal Archive, has tightened access rules," he said. "The changed climate presumably has something to do with the change of leadership."