LAWYER Zhu Yuantao, appearing for the first time in court as a plaintiff, has finally managed to force the customs office at Beijing Airport to return to him a book it had confiscated more than a year ago.

According to the Xinmin Weekly, Zhu was stopped by a woman customs officer at the airport on August 5 last year after his bag was scanned. The officer found a book entitled, "How the Red Sun Rose - The Entire Process of the Yan'an Rectification Movement" published by the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

The campaign from May 1941 to April 1945 was of great significance in the history of the Chinese Communist Party. As the first rectification in the Party's history, the campaign led to unprecedented solidarity within the Party.

Without any inquiry or browsing through the book, the officer announced she was confiscating it as an overseas publication.

According to a customs regulation, publications and audio-visual products violating the Chinese Constitution or defaming Chinese leaders must be seized.

Also, publications with a pornographic, violent or superstitious content or those considered bad for China's political, economic, cultural and ethical life will be confiscated.

"This is a serious academic work," said Zhu, who had only been able to read one third of the HK$175 book before it was seized.

At Zhu's request, the customs officer gave him a printed form marked "Needs Checking".

Controversial smuggling

On October 9 last year, Zhu drove to Beijing Airport after receiving a call from the airport's customs office for a face-to-face talk. He had already asked several times for the book to be returned to him.

"In addition to the time, I had to pay for the toll on the way to the airport, plus the gasoline," he complained. Yet, what still drove him to strive to get his book back was "a stifling feeling in my chest".

According to the Xinmin Weekly, a customs officer at the airport informed Zhu that there was little possibility of the book being returned and the officer asked him to accept the administrative decision to confiscate it.

Disagreeing with the request, Zhu proposed to settle the dispute by following procedures under customs regulations and he demanded an administrative writ.

Then, he was given an information sheet by the airport customs office which alleged that Zhu had brought a forbidden book into Chinese mainland and that his action amounted to smuggling.

Zhu was also told that the airport customs office had made this decision after talking with the main Beijing Customs Office.

Immediately, Zhu presented a written statement and said that before any final decision could be made, the customs office had to read the book first.

His statement said the book was an academic publication by Gao Hua, a professor in the History Department of Nanjing University in East China's Jiangsu Province. Also, that Gao had been promoted to professorial rank because of the book.

Zhu insisted that the publisher, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, was not among the publishers who may have or may have had a bias against China.

Furthermore, all the content in the book was from publicly available publications in China and did not refer to any overseas information or to confidential files. The book focused on the rectification movement in Yan'an and while the details were not widely known it was worthy of study.

As a Party member, Zhu said it was right and proper to learn and know the Party's history. He proposed that in resolving the dispute, authoritative advice from scholars would be important.

On the next day, Zhu presented more material in justification by post.

He told customs officials that smuggling was an intentional malfeasance, defined as the action of a person who, when passing through customs inspection, carries articles forbidden by the country or who hides, disguises, or does not report or makes a false report so as to avoid inspection.

Zhu said as he had not hidden, disguised or made a false report, how could his action in bringing in the book be categorized as smuggling.

He also put forward a series of questions about how passengers identified the character of a publication and the criteria used when customs officers inspected a publication.

Zhu again demanded the return of the book. However, airport customs did not reply.

On December 17, the customs office again called Zhu and informed his that their final decision was still to confiscate the book. They said that before the final decision had been made, the book had been sent to the Customs General Administration Office on October 21 which had then endorsed the seizure on November 19.

Court debates

On January 1 this year, Zhu began an action in Beijing's No.2 Intermediate People's Court against the airport customs office.

In court, the customs office insisted that the book was listed as a banned book in China and that Zhu had not applied to customs to bring it in, in violation of the relevant customs regulations.

Zhu insisted that the book was not a forbidden book. The customs office had not provided clear information about which overseas publications needed to be reported and there were no special facilities set aside at the airport where passengers could report any such publications.

On June 19, the court ruled in favour of the customs office and its handling of the book. Six days later, Zhu appealed to the Beijing Higher People's Court.

Sources inside the airport customs office told the Xinmin Weekly that they had handled the issue very cautiously. A "special officer" had been asked to read the book which had taken him 11 days and then they had made their judgment and their report to the Customs General Administration.

However, Zhu said such a closed procedure was not scientific and had violated rules on a citizen's rights under the Constitution.

Xu Jilin, a scholar, said the book was a serious academic work which had won high praise from well-known scholars after it was published in March 2000. The book could also be found in the libraries of Beijing University and Nanjing University where students could borrow and read it freely.

The Chinese University of Hong Kong had published a second printing of the book in June 2000.

Xu said the author, Gao Hua, had devoted some 20 years of his life to writing the book, and it was not reasonable to draw a conclusion that the book denied Mao Zedong Thought on the opinion of a single customs officer who took 11 days to read it. Also, such a conclusion was against all academic evaluation of the book.

The customs office told the court that a detailed list of forbidden publications did exist but it was only available to some customs officers and the general public could not obtain or read a copy of the list.

On September 8, the Beijing Higher People's Court ruled that the customs office's decision to confiscate the book had been based on insufficient evidence and should be withdrawn.

After winning his case, Zhu said that one motivation in seeking the book's return was that he had not finished it. However, more importantly, he took his action because China was a country with the rule of law and administrative departments must abide by the law and associated regulations.

"People's right to know the truth should not be an insignificant matter," he said. "However, people still do not know whether this book is forbidden or not."