No Democracy In China

11/24/08 7:41pm

by Steve McLean (CHARTattack)

Chinese censors may be at it again.

The China National Publications Import And Export Group, a state-owned monopoly responsible for importing all music, apparently won't let Guns N' Roses' long-awaited Chinese Democracy album be sold in the country. A spokesman for the nation's culture ministry, however, said in an article published in Britain's Telegraph newspaper that the ban "might just be a rumour."

The Chinese Democracy website has apparently been blocked by government officials, while the country's Baidu search engine is said to be censoring searches for the album. The only way that Chinese fans have been able to hear the long-awaited record is via the MySpace page stream that was launched last week.

Chinese Democracy's title track includes the line "Blame it on the Falun Gong, they've seen the end and you can't hold on now." Falun Gong is a spiritual movement that has been outlawed in China as an illegal cult.

China's Global Times newspaper published a story on Monday headlined "American band releases album venomously attacking China" that accused Chinese Democracy of being a part of an American plot to "grasp and control the world using democracy as a pawn" while turning "its spear point on China."

If Axl Rose wants his music heard in the most populous nation on Earth, a grand gesture seems in order so he can show the world how passionate he is about Chinese Democracy. I suggest that he stand in the middle of Beijing's Tiananmen Square and see if any army tanks come rolling menacingly towards him.