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Thalia bookstore in Berlin
Photo: Jens Kalaene / picture alliance / dpa
It is not uncommon for bookstore chains to have their shelves stocked by external companies.
Publishers, for example, can book a few meters of shelf space to advertise their books - the term "rack jobbing" for the process is even in the Duden.
However, it was neither common nor known that government-related and state authorities rent the retail space.
As initially reported by ZDF and the editorial network Germany, books that contain Chinese state propaganda - including "China govern", a collection of speeches by the Chinese president - are advertised on special China shelves in branches of the Thalia bookstore chain Xi Jinping.
One looks in vain for content that is critical of China.
When asked, a Thalia spokeswoman explains that this range was created in collaboration with a company called China Book Trading.
It is a temporary test in three branches of the chain.
"Our Chinese partners suggest books that are checked and approved by the Thalia range management," said the spokeswoman.
It is a general range of children's books, travel literature, poetry and fiction as well as two political titles.
Official publications of the Chinese state
According to research by ZDF, China Book Trading GmbH, based in Rödermark, sells not only phrasebooks and cookbooks by Chinese authors, but also a number of official publications by the Chinese state, such as uncommented speeches by the head of state.
Official bodies of the People's Republic wrote about its publication that its aim was to "explain the government ideas and strategies of the CPC Central Committee (...) comprehensively and precisely, to help the international community gain a better understanding of development ideas, development path and domestic and foreign policy to help China meet the growing interest of the international community. "
Thalia initially did not point out the collaboration with the book import company.
China Book Trading GmbH claims to be a subsidiary of the China International Book Trading Corporation, the sales arm of the Chinese Foreign Language Office, which in turn belongs to the Chinese Communist Party.
As the Facebook post by the sinologist Monika Li shows, who was the first to point out this covert advertising, customers in the bookstores were much more likely to get the impression that the advertised titles had been selected by Thalia.
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On Friday one could read about the cooperation above the China shelf in the Berlin Thalia branch on Alexanderplatz
Photo:
THE MIRROR
Since the first reports about the collaboration appeared, Thalia has been pointing out the advertising measure in the Berlin bookstore on Alexanderplatz: On Friday, "Cooperation with China Book Trading" could be read above the bookshelf.
The bookstore chain recently used slogans such as "World, stay awake" and "Donald Trump doesn't like reading" to attract customers.
According to the Thalia-Specherin, a critical examination of the subject of China takes place "in our bookstores via curated theme tables and a large selection of books" and is not influenced by the test.
"The whole thing clearly has a taste," said the SPD member of the Bundestag Dagmar Schmidt, chairman of the German-Chinese parliamentary group of the RND. The human rights policy spokesman for the CDU / CSU parliamentary group, Michael Brand, said more sharply. "Bild.de" he said that it is "frightening how Thalia is making itself the German propaganda department of the Chinese Communist Party".
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