Chronicling Local Government Tactics Targeting "Politically Harmful" Hong Kong Publications and Their Distributors
The following are excerpts of notices and regulations published on the web pages of local Chinese governments. These texts indicate that, beginning in 2012, local Chinese governments were undertaking initiatives regarding "politically harmful publications" such as: Cleansing school campuses of illegal publications; Using commercial, tax, and other tools to suppress Hong Kong media outlets that engage in reactionary publishing and their operators who come to mainland China to conduct economic activities; Banning 14 Hong Kong and Taiwan publication distributors; Banning 21 types of Hong Kong periodicals; Blocking "specified persons" from returning to mainland China; Prosecuting those spreading politically harmful publications using mobile apps, "Great Firewall circumvention" software, social media, and micro-blogs; Preventing tourists bound for Hong Kong and Taiwan from purchasing politically harmful publications to bring back to China; Discipl