Recently it has come to light that HarperCollins, a publishing company under Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation will publish a travel guide to China that will most likely make no mention of the famous Tiananmen Square massacres.

The BBC News quotes Phil Friedman, an editor for the book “Travel Around China,” as saying “I don’t think talk about the killings is appropriate for a travel guide … Tiananmen Square had thousands of years of history before that occurred. Tiananmen is a feudal site, hugely important historic site. I’m not sure people traveling there would go there because there were shootings.”

The fact that companies feel the need to gloss over or pick out details about the historical significance of a place is sad, but not surprising. It is a sensitive issue in China, and it is true that it may not be the kind of thing visitors want to think about on a family vacation.

What I find disturbing is that this book is not an original publication. “Travel Around China” has been published before by Blue Sky Publishing, a publishing company owned by the People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLA).

“Guidebooks have a point of view because they’re selling something,” Eric Mortensen, chair of the religious studies department and intrepid world traveler, said. “I don’t think people should be surprised, but I don’t think they should be pleased about it.”

“Most tourism is based on trying to make a place look happy, healthy, safe, pleasant, exciting, mysterious, quaint and mystical,” Mortensen said. “The last thing they’re going to do is tell Americans, ‘come visit our place where we shot people in the streets.'”

Now I have not seen the Harper Collins’ version of the book, so I can’t say for sure that it doesn’t say “originally published by the Chinese military” in big words somewhere on the cover. But I doubt it does, and I doubt many people will read through all the copyright information to find out the guide’s origin.

I can accept a travel guide that is not fully historically accurate. Travel guides do not make the same promise of integrity and full disclosure to the reader that history textbooks and journalists do. They mostly just promise to recommend hotels and sights. Travelers should look into other sources if they want to know about a location’s history, both good and bad.

I do not, however, accept being fed military propaganda in the guise of a travel guide. I don’t want to read a movie review written by the film’s producer, and I don’t want to rely on a travel guide published by the military of the country I am visiting.
I could be wrong; maybe it will be a fine guide that truly does leave out politics completely, as HarperCollins CEO, Jane Friedman says, according to The Book Seller magazine. But I find it hard to believe that a book published by the Chinese military, is going to be an objective guide for people who “don’t want to know about politics and propaganda.”

People should not expect to get all the information about a place’s history and significance from their travel guide. They should know to check other sources if they want to know why they are visiting a place.

But they should also know where the guide they are using comes from. Republishing a travel guide printed by the PLA, and claiming that it is free of propaganda and politics is ridiculous. A government rewriting history? Sure sounds like propaganda to me.