HOT! NEW! SIZZLING!

Browsers in the Peking wholesale book market are spoilt for choice. Here in Chinese translation is the Marquis de Sade, and next to it The Generation of Lecherous Women. For the ambitious cadre there is that perennial best-seller, Skills of being a government official in China, a practical guide written in the Qing dynasty (1644-1911). Other customers flick through martial arts novels, romances, business manuals and knitting-pattern journals. In racks stuffed with magazines, gaudy covers offer s uch features as "Sending a child to school by selling blood", "To whom will Guo Fucheng [a Taiwan pop star] give his first kiss?", "How a Shanghai prostitute spread VD on purpose", and "Hooligan Qigong Master" - the story of a fraudulent traditional doct or who"took advantage of female college students by touching their acupuncture points".

The Peking Magazine and Book Wholesale Trade Market opened in 1993 and is the visible symbol of a revolution that has taken place in Chinese publishing. Situated in the east of the city down a dead-end lane, the market comprises 120 wholesale outlets, each representing an official Chinese publishing house. Outside the small offices are blackboards touting 1995's liveliest titles to passing customers, mostly book-retailers. "Hot! New! Sizzling!", promises one imprint. Gone is the time when publishers churned out dreary reports from the 17th tractor collective, leavened by the latest guide to Mao Tse-tung Thought. These days, most books that are published are those that the public will want to buy.

In Chairman Mao's China, writing and publishing were financed and strictly controlled by the state, and no book could reach the public unvetted. In the era of economic reform, China's 500 publishing houses, like other state-owned industries, are now exp e cted to turn a profit. But having unleashed market forces, the government is alarmed by how quickly it has lost control of the process and the product. The latest in a series of crackdowns on "illegal" publications, launched last month, railed against th e dissemination of "too much sex, violence, superstition and political mistakes". The highest echelons of both the Communist Party and the government ordered stricter controls and a ban on new publishing houses for two years. "We must take firm actionag ainst offenders," the edict said.

To rally right-thinking people the crackdown has its own clarion call: "Sao huang da fei" meaning "Sweep away pornography, smash illegal publications". (Pornographic literature is referred to as "huang", or "yellow" - rather than "blue".) At its more ludicrous end, the censors moved in on six publishing houses that were producing a dozen calendars, including "Oriental Romance" in violation of new regulations on "bikini calendars", which are only allowed, it seems, when sports activities are being portrayed. More seriously, the crackdown is aimed at a growing quantity of soft- and hard-core pornography, and the huge number of pirated publications that flout international copyright laws. Conveniently for the Chinese government, the polic y can also be used against the few politically incorrect publications that slip through the net.

The problem for the authorities is that the publishing process may have evolved too far for them to reassert control. Under the Chinese system, official publishing houses are allocated a number of shu hao (book numbers) which every new title must carry. (In recent years the shu hao has also been the international ISBN number.) The publishers can then decide for themselves what books to issue, though sensitive topics must still be cleared with a higher state body.

Publishers these days are opting for increasingly commercial titles. But many are still strapped for cash in the new market economy and have found it more lucrative to sell on some of their shu hao to a new breed of entrepreneur, the shu shang, or book- t rader. One shu shang, a university-educated man in his mid-twenties, who did not want to be named, described the process, which is illegal: "A book trader will approach an official publishing house, with a view to buying a book number. Publishers only ca re about the price, they don't care what sort of book it is." The type of book does, however, determine the price of the book number; up to 2,000 yuan (£160) for a cookery book, 5,000 yuan (£400) for a novel, and at least 10,000-20,000 yuan (£800-£1,600)

for a "yellow" book. Armed with his shu hao and chosen manuscript, the book-trader can then approach a printing company and arrange the first print run. Distribution is also often organised through unofficial channels. The original publishing house, und er whose imprint the book appears, will have had no role in this process, which breaks all the regulations.

Book-traders have a significant impact on what is published in China. They can offer much more money to authors than the state publishers and pay more promptly.

A significant proportion of titles published using bought book numbers are deemed pornographic under China's definitions. However, it's not only sex that sells; shu shang also favour low-brow, obviously commercial books, such as romantic novels, martial

arts sagas, how-to books, and practical guides to cooking and clothes-making. The contents of such titles does not worry the authorities; it is the overall scale of the unofficial publishing industry that has shocked the central government. There are no

reliable statistics, but some people in the industry estimate that up to half the 100,000 titles officially published annually are printed using bought book numbers, or by an independent book-trader in loose collaboration with an official publisher.

At the extreme end of the business, hard-core pornography is usually published by fly-by-night operators with no shu hao at all, or with fake numbers. In the first half of 1994, the State Press and Publications Administration says, 6 million illegal books and videos were seized, most with no book numbers. According to officials, a few were politically sensitive, some 40 per cent were classified as pornographic, and the rest violated copyright. One book-trader offered me a pirated edition of a Jeffrey Archer novel, in Chinese.

The magazine industry has been similarly inventive. Each journal needs its shu hao from a local publishing house or cultural organisation. The trader buys this number, commissions articles, and employs other people to produce the magazine. He may also choose to take over a popular magazine for just one issue. Everyone knows what sells well in modern China. Even official publishers are cashing in with titles such as Major Crime Cases in China, Stories of Pop Stars from Hong Kong and Taiwan and True Collection of Celebrities' Marriage and Love Stories.

In the years since the June 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, there has been strict control of politically sensitive publications. But until recently, officials turned a blind eye to the more salacious products of a market-driven publishing industry. Addi n g to the confusion, there have been no uniform standards, with definitions of pornography varying greatly around the country.

For the past few months the government has been attempting to reassert its traditional role. Last month's Communist Party and government circular stated once again: "The selling and buying of book numbers, journal numbers or paper pages in any form should be banned." There are ominous signs that the state wants a return to a more restrictive system. China will "begin to practise a permit system in the various steps of production, distribution and selling of books, newspapers, magazines, films , and audio and visual products", the circular added.

To show they mean business this time, the official newspapers are full of high-profile reports exposing illegal publishing activities. In Xinjiang province, Ding Peng, head of the Xinjiang University Press, was found guilty of selling 88 book numbers to book-traders from faraway Guangdong and Sichuan provinces, raising 164,000 yuan (£12,600). In Peking in September, Gu Jieshu, a sleaze "king", was sentenced to death for publishing 440,000 copies of pornographic books.

The government denies that the anti-pornography campaign is a pretext for re-establishing wider control of the publishing industry, although Peking is concerned about social stability. Lan Jun, deputy director of the anti-pornography office at the State Press and Publications Administration, said: "The main reason is to purify the social surroundings, and prevent harm from pornography and obscene publications. Even in Western countries there are the same problems with malfunctions of the market system."What then of the non-pornographic books that are published with bought book numbers? Li Ming, deputy chief at the administration's Division of Investigation and Research (Books), said: "They must be included in the crackdown, but a re not in the foreground of the campaign."

The campaign is having some effect. "It's getting harder to buy book numbers," the book-trader I spoke to told me. Prices of shu hao are also higher, and illegally published books are no longer sold as openly. In future, he might agree a title's publica t ion with the publishing house, and then buy the whole print run. Even in China, he said, "People will always find a way to publish popular books."