Dharamshala October 8 – Earth, the new out-sized atlas from Millennium House, was printed in Hong Kong to avoid a possible embargo by China, Millennium House managing director Gordon Cheers told WBN.
Cheers said he could not risk the new title being embargoed by the Chinese government because of objections to the way the title treated certain regions. ‘We had published some books in China last year that were embargoed,’ said Cheers. ‘We know what the problems are but as a publisher we choose to treat Tibet and Taiwan in the way we do.’
Instead of publishing in China, Cheers had published Earth in Hong Kong, where he says the costs were 20% higher. But, given that he estimates the atlas as representing 90% of his company’s income for the year, Cheers said he had no other choice.
‘We had a book printed [in China] and there were fifteen maps spread in different sections. Each were marked up by the Chinese government to be changed, and that was a book on geology, so you can imagine the impact it would have on an atlas,’ he said.
Cheers said objections to certain print jobs in China was ‘only recent–the last 18 months’.
Putting Queensland on the Map, a biography by Felicity Jack, was turned down by a Chinese printer earlier in August for mentioning Tibet-China border.
Elizabeth Menzies, publisher at the UNSW Press, the publisher of the biography, said the printer had suggested the ‘China-Tibet border’ should be removed. The UNSW Press refused the words to be removed and was advised to print the title elsewhere.
