Beijing has tightened controls on publishing and the media, with President Jiang Zemin giving specific orders on which 'poisonous weeds' to root out.
A party source in Beijing said yesterday the steps were being taken in the run-up to China's accession to the World Trade Organisation, after which, Beijing fears, a greater number of anti-socialist publications and Web sites could appear.
The source said scores of newspapers, including those run by party and government units as well as local administrations, would be closed down. The number of books to be published this year would be drastically curtailed.
At a recent internal meeting, Mr Jiang zeroed in on a wave of semi-autobiographical 'romantic novels' by women writers. The works, many of which have since been banned, glorify easy sex, adventurous relationships with Caucasian boyfriends, and general rebelliousness against tradition. Mr Jiang reportedly said the novels posed a threat to socialist values as well as to Chinese ethics.
Senior cadres, including the head of the party's Publicity Department, Ding Guan'gen, have devised tougher methods to rein in publications and Web sites deemed to have strayed from the party line.
'Beijing is setting up a mega-news Web site for each city, and basically all other Web sites in the area have to follow the style and orientation of the party Web site,' said one editor in Beijing.
Official and informal warnings have been given to several popular news portals not to reproduce articles from Hong Kong and Taiwan newspapers or to run stories from unofficial sources.