One man's tale of thwarted ambition stirs up a controversy
When Mark Kitto received a draft contract late last year from Wiley, the US-listed publishing house, he had every reason to feel confident that his book about doing business in China would soon be released for sale.
With China's rise gripping global business, the British entrepreneur had a topical tale to tell about his battle with the country's print media regulator for control of a successful listings magazine empire.
"Nick Wallwork [the publisher] and myself are gagging to do this book," said C.J. Hwu, an editor at the company's Singapore division, John Wiley & Sons (Asia), in an e-mail in September to Mr Kitto.
A former Welsh guardsman, Mr Kitto had battled local propaganda chiefs in Guangzhou, Beijing and Shanghai to publish the magazines, alienating important officials and some business partners with his determined manner. Mr Kitto's manuscript, however, has landed
him in the middle of a different kind of battle increasingly familiar for western media companies trying
to do business in China.
Wiley initially embraced Mr Kitto's story about how the General Administration of Press and Publishing had taken control of the listings magazines he had managed
in China's three richest cities. The publisher had the book edited, held detailed negotiations over contract clauses with Mr Kitto, with the publisher agreeing to changes, and even commissioned covers.
Ms Hwu wrote another e-mail in November to a Hong Kong newspaper editor promoting Mr Kitto, saying
the book was "quite a page-turner
and we are planning to publish it".
By December, however, the deal was dead, tipping Mr Kitto into another dispute, this time with Wiley itself. Mr Kitto charges that Wiley backed off because the publisher was concerned about the book's impact on its business in China and specifically on the safety of its staff based there. Wiley disputes this account.
Google, Yahoo and Microsoft have all tailored their China services to meet the demand of Beijing's censors over the past year, bringing them withering criticism at home in the
US. Mr Kitto's claims suggest that
the fear of losing business as a result of offending China is also palpable among "old media" companies - even if the costs of doing so are not clear.
"The perception and probably the reality of western media companies
is that their businesses will suffer if they get on the wrong side of the authorities, but even so, their craven instinct in the face of Chinese pressure has been accentuated beyond its real potency," said a Beijing-based western media executive, who insisted on anonymity.
Mr Kitto says he warned Wiley it was running a risk by publishing - even in English outside of China - a book critical of the agency partially responsible for regulating the company inside the country. "I frequently raised my concern about repercussions from the Chinese authorities when the book was published," Mr Kitto says.
Wiley denies it dropped the book for political reasons, saying a vetting of the manuscript had found a "number of potentially libellous and defamatory passages . . . [and] limited commercial potential due to the author's lack
of credentials and his history of contentious business relationships".
"At no time was there any formal agreement with the author. The book got as far as it did in the process because the editor - who is relatively new to Wiley - was a very enthusiastic advocate," said Susan Spilka, a spokeswoman for Wiley in New York. In a separate e-mail, Ms Spilka said: "We did not experience or respond to any external pressure."
Mr Kitto's account of Wiley's decision is different. He says he was never officially informed about the details of legal problems now cited
by the publisher, and in any case
had earlier agreed to co-operate if
any issues arose.
The businessman says Ms Hwu told him in a phone conversation in December that she knew the company had been "lily-livered" but that it was concerned about the book's impact for its staff in China. According to Mr Kitto's contemporaneous hand-written notes of the conversation, Ms Hwu, quoting a senior manager, said: "Do we risk [a staff member] being in jail for even one day?"
Wiley's initial enthusiasm is not hard to explain. Mr Kitto's manuscript follows several recent books about western entrepreneurs grappling with China's raucous and often corrupt commercial environment. One of the most successful, Tim Clissold's Mr China, has sold about 100,000 copies in 10 languages and has been published in Chinese in China itself without being censored.
Mr Clissold, who read Mr Kitto's manuscript and enjoyed it, said Wiley's publishers would have been "absolute patsies" to drop the project on political grounds. "The fact that [my book] was published in China
is important, because it tells you the Chinese are rather more self-confident about accepting criticism than the average foreign publisher might think," he said. "The whole thing comes down to the tone - it's how you write, not what you write."
Mr Clissold himself continued
to live in China immediately after
the book's publication without any repercussions. He now pursues business opportunities in China
from England.
Foreign publishers have dropped books in the past for fear of offending Beijing. In 1998, Rupert Murdoch's HarperCollins ditched an account by Chris Patten, the former Hong Kong governor, of his clash with the Beijing government over the territory's 1997 handover.
If Mr Murdoch was motivated
to curry favour with Beijing, it
has paid meagre dividends. The Australian-born mogul has struggled to win approval to expand his businesses in China and last year
said Chinese leaders were "paranoid" about the foreign media.
Mr Kitto, who is still locked in
a legal dispute in Chinese courts
with the GAPP over the trademark
of the magazines, said he is "bitterly disappointed" by Wiley's decision. "I think they are foolish," he said. "They have missed a great opportunity."
如履薄冰的在华外国书商
去年晚些时候，马克?基托(Mark Kitto)收到美国上市的威利(Wiley)出版公司发来的合同草案，当时他有十足的把握相信，自己那本关于在华经商的书不日将与读者见面。
随着中国的崛起吸引着全球企业界的关注，这位英国企业家要向读者讲述一个故事，这个故事的题材当前非常热门，其内容就是他为了一个成功的消费指南杂志帝国的控制权，与中国印刷媒体监管机构进行斗争。
然而，去年9月，威利旗下新加坡子公司约翰?威利父子公司(亚洲) (John Wiley & Sons (Asia))的编辑C.J.胡(C.J.Hwu)给基托发来电子邮件表示：“尼克?沃尔沃克(Nick Wallwork，该公司发行人)和我本人为了这本书可谓倍受折磨。”
曾在威尔士当过卫兵的基托，为了出版他的一系列杂志，已经与广州、北京和上海的地方宣传部门主管进行过不少斗争。由于他的强硬方式，还开罪了不少重要官员和一些业务合伙人。然而，书稿还是使他陷入了另外一种斗争之中。对那些试图在中国经营的西方传媒公司而言，这种斗争越来越常见。
起初，威利高兴地采纳了基托的故事，其内容讲的是中国国家新闻出版总署(GAPP)如何控制了他在中国3个最富有城市经营的消费指南杂志。约翰?威利父子公司(亚洲)的发行人沃尔沃克请人对基托的书进行了编校，就合同条款与基托进行了详谈，并同意了相关改动，甚至还委托他人帮助制作封面。
去年11月，胡女士通过电子邮件向香港一家报纸的编辑推荐基托，称他的书“相当引人入胜，我们计划将其出版。”然而，在12月份，计划搁浅，从而将基托推向了另一个争端――这次，是与威利出版社本身。基托指责威利因为担心这本书会影响其在华业务，尤其是担心其驻华员工的人身安全，因而临阵退缩。威利出版社驳斥了这种说法。
去年，Google、雅虎(Yahoo)和微软(Microsoft)都对其在华服务进行了调整，以符合中国政府的审查要求，这使它们在美国本土遭到了铺天盖地的批评。基托的抱怨显示，担心因冒犯中国政府而损失业务的心理在“传统传媒”公司中也比较明显，即便人们并不清楚冒犯中国政府究竟会付出多大代价。
一位驻北京工作的、坚持不肯透露姓名的西方传媒高管表示：“西方传媒公司的感觉或者它们可能面临的现实是，如果它们与中国当局作对，它们的业务将会受损。但即便如此，在面对中国压力时，它们的怯懦本能表现得相当夸张。”
基托表示，他警告过威利，在中国境内出版一本书，批评对该公司拥有一定监管权的机构，是要冒一定风险的，即便在中国境外出版英文版本也是如此。基托说：“我常常提出我的担心，即这本书出版后中国当局会有什么反应。”
威利否认是由于政治原因而放弃出版该书，并表示在对手稿进行审查时，发现存在“一些潜在的中伤和诽谤章节……（而且）由于作者未能提供相应证明，加上他颇具争议的商业关系历史，这本书的商业潜力有限。”
威利纽约发言人苏珊?斯皮尔卡(Susan Spilka)表示：“我们绝对没有与作者签订过任何正式协议。在程序范围内，我们对这本书已经竭尽所能，因为负责这本书的编辑是一个新人，也是这本书的热情拥护者。”在另外一封电邮中，斯皮尔卡表示：“我们没有受到任何外部压力，此举也不是迫于外部压力。”
基托对威利决定的描述则大不相同。他表示，该出版商现在提到的法律问题细节，他从未得到过正式通知，而且双方先前已经同意，在任何情况下，如有任何问题，都将会予以合作。
基托表示，在12月份的一次电话通话中，胡女士告诉他，她知道该公司一直比较“胆小”，但这次是担心这本书会影响到该公司的在华员工。根据基托当时对这次通话的手写纪录，胡女士曾援引一位高级经理的话称：“我们会冒着（一名员工）坐牢的风险吗？即使只有一天也不行！”
威利最初的热情并不难解释。在基托之前，近来已有许多类似著作出现，主题都是中国商业环境混乱不堪，腐败横生，令西方企业家们苦恼等。其中最为成功的一本著作是祈立天(Tim Clissold)的《中国通》(Mr China)。这本著作以10种语言出版，销量约为10万本。此外，该书的中文版已在中国发行，并未遭到有关机构的审查。
祈立天读了基托的手稿后，对其赞不绝口。他表示，威利的发行人以政治为由而放弃该书的出版发行工作，是些“彻头彻脑的懦夫”。“（我的书）已在中国出版发行这个事实非常重要，因为它表明，在接受批评意见方面，中国人较外国出版商想像中的更加自信，”他表示。“归根结底在于书中的论调――重要的是你如何写，而不是写什么。”
在他的书在中国顺利出版发行之后，祈立天一直住在中国，正寻求一些来自英国的商机。
过去，出于可能冒犯中国政府的顾虑，外国出版商屡屡放弃图书的出版发行。1998年，鲁珀特?默多克(Rupert Murdoch) 旗下的哈珀?柯林斯出版社(HarperCollins)曾放弃出版前香港总督彭定康(Chris Patten)的一本书，原因是彭定康与中国政府在1997年香港回归问题上产生过嫌隙。
如果默多克此举意在向中国政府示好，那他并没有从中尝到什么甜头。这位出生在澳大利亚的传媒大亨至今仍在争取获准扩大在华业务。去年他曾表示，中国领导人对外国传媒的态度“有些偏执”。
目前仍在中国法庭上就杂志商标问题与中国新闻出版总署争执不下的基托表示，他对威利的决定感到“极其失望”。“我觉得他们很傻，”他说道，“他们错失了一次上好的机会。”
