Alert: Online Secondhand Bookstore in China Removes Titles about Ethnic Groups

January 16, 2026       Comments Off on Alert: Online Secondhand Bookstore in China Removes Titles about Ethnic Groups
Alert: Online Secondhand Bookstore in China Removes Titles about Ethnic Groups

(Network of Chinese Human Rights Defenders—January 16, 2026) A popular online secondhand bookstore called Confucius Old Books has reportedly removed some old Chinese-language books about Tibet, Southern Mongolia and the Uyghur region according to the Rights Defense Network (RDN).

RDN reported on January 13 that imported translations of books about Tibet by foreign authors and older titles by Chinese, Mongolian and Uyghur authors had been removed recently. CHRD is unable to confirm when or why these books were removed, or whether additional titles have been removed.

A search of the Confucius Old Book website by CHRD confirms the following titles listed by RDN are unavailable:

  • Chinese scholar Ji Xiuquan’s A Record of the Suppression of the Tibetan Rebellion  (《西藏平叛纪实》), published in 1993 by the Tibet People’s Publishing House;
  • American scholar Melvyn C. Goldstein’s A History of Modern Tibet, 1913-1951: The Demise of the Lamaist State (《喇嘛王国的覆灭》), published in 1989 by the University of California Press;
  • Japanese monk Tada Tōkan’s Journey into Tibet (《入藏纪行》), published in 1987 by Zhongzhou Ancient Books Publishing House in Henan;
  • Mongolian scholar Jagchid Sechen, The Prince Demchugdongrob That I Knew and Contemporary Inner Mongolia (《我所知道的德王和当时的内蒙古》), published in 2005 by the China Literature and History Press; and
  • Uyghur politician and first chairman of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region Seypidin Azizi’s memoir, Memoir of Seypidin (《赛福鼎回忆录》), translated by Guo Lijuan and others and published in 1993 by Huaxia Publishing  House.

All of the titles or authors have entries in Douban, the Chinese social media platform for reviewing books, which suggests that they had previously been publicly available in China. However, the Douban pages for the books by Goldstein and Seypidin Azizi have been deleted.

The Confucius Old Books website has over 10 million registered users and is one of the biggest secondhand platforms for selling old and used books. It is likely one of only a few sources for some of these rare older books.

CHRD is continuing to monitor this situation.

For more information, please contact:

Sophie Richardson, Co-Executive Director, Chinese Human Rights Defenders, sophierichardson[at]nchrd.org, +1 917 721 7473

Angeli Datt, Research and Advocacy Coordinator, Chinese Human Rights Defenders, angelidatt[at]nchrd.org, +1 934 444 6155

Shane Yi, Researcher, Chinese Human Rights Defenders, shaneyi[at]nchrd.org

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