The Value of Intellectual Freedom in Twenty-First-Century China: Changes, Challenges, and Progress

The American Library Association’s (ALA) “Core Values of Librarianship” (2004) serves as an important vehicle in introducing and creating cross-cultural dialogues on values such as intellectual freedom with countries where there are starkly different political views and cultural ideas. This paper positions the Core Value of Intellectual Freedom within the historical context of China. How has the ALA fostered a culture of intellectual freedom in this country? Since the advent of the Cultural Revolution in China during the 1960s, censorship has been severely imposed on all levels of society. Libraries were burned, shut down, or forced to adapt to changes in beliefs and policies that promoted the ideas and values of Chairman Mao Zedong, the leader of the Revolution. In contrast, decades after recovering from the Revolution in the twenty-first century, libraries in China are flourishing, with rich print and digital collections and special services in the face of varying degrees of governmental censorship. Using memoirs, travel papers, and essays written about China’s libraries, the paper traces and analyzes the historical development of China’s censorship policies in relation to Intellectual Freedom, and emphasizes how this Core Value still plays a vital role in the country today through international library cooperation and Sino-American partnership universities.