Tell me if you’ve heard this before. Some organization in a non-China country presents art or images not to the liking of the Chinese Communist Party. Somebody from China—he may be called a diplomat—raises objections and makes demands. The non-CCP, non-China organization accepts the propriety of the objections and demands and, faster than a speeding bullet, tells disappointed creators—if it bothers to tell them anything—so sorry, but as flunkies of the Chinese Communist Party, we are forced to comply.
Not Thailand this time. Not Bangladesh or Latvia or France.
The latest report is about the Victoria and Albert Museum in Great Britain. The envoy making demands is a Chinese printer that the museum works with (The Guardian, April 14, 2026).
One of the UK’s leading museums has accepted demands by a Chinese firm that publishes its catalogues to remove images that fall foul of the country’s censorship laws.
The Victoria and Albert Museum has agreed to requests by the Chinese printing company to delete maps and images from at least two recent exhibition catalogues, according to documents released to the Guardian after freedom of information requests….
The disclosures from the V&A…show how Beijing’s red pen even extends to historical maps and photographs on seemingly unrelated subjects such as Fabergé eggs and British Black music.
They also show the apparent willingness of a publicly funded UK institution to agree to Chinese suppression despite the problems it can cause in the production process….
The V&A also agreed to pull another map it wanted to use for catalogue to a 2021 exhibition Fabergé: Romance to Revolution. It also removed a photograph of Lenin from the book because the Chinese printers said Lenin could be deemed “sensitive” by GAPP [China’s General Administration of Press and Publication]….
The British Museum refused to respond to questions about how it dealt with any China censorship requests on at least eight recent publications it has had printed in China.
A spokesperson said: “We work with a range of printers across Europe and Asia. Print orders are placed with suppliers based on a number of factors including quality, availability of materials, schedules and cost.” They added: “We won’t be commenting any further on the matter.”
The museum “won’t be commenting any further on the matter.” Was there a comment on the matter? How do words about how “we work with printers from here and there and everywhere” say anything about why the museum is complying with censorship demands that originate with the Chinese Communist Party?
The museum did also say in a formal statement: “We carefully consider, on a case-by-case basis, where we print all of our books. We sometimes print in China, but maintain close editorial oversight. We were comfortable making minor edits, as they did not affect the narrative and we would obviously pull production if we felt any requested change was problematic.” All requested changes are problematic because a printer is a printer, not an editor. The printer is not hired to interfere. That should be out of bounds. Why isn’t it?
If the Victoria and Albert Museum had refused and switched to a different printer—and, learning from history, stopped dealing with printers based in China—the museum would have incurred new costs. But life would have gone on, and self-respect would have been preserved or regained. No PLA armada would have been launched against the de-sceptered isle. The problem with letting the CCP call the shots on things in your country, including things that supposedly don’t matter very much, is that, one, the principle that the CCP has the right to tell you what to do is thereby conceded; and, two, all the little things add up.
