I don’t know, but it’s a bit irrelevant. Similar articles are translated and run in digests worldwide every day. I believe that Cankao Xiaoxi simply pays a fee to the NY Times for the right to translate and publish such an article in any form it sees fit. Hessler didn’t write the piece, so he would have no say in how it is translated and re-run.

As to the nature of the cuts above in “Country Driving” book review, I think it has been edited to give the impression that, as usual, Westerners are still mystified about what makes The Middle Kingdom tick. So what they write about “us” is both inflated and misguided — well-founded criticisms many would agree with, not just Chinese.

Cutting out any mention of Hessler’s book conveniently works to deepen that impression. Whether or not that is “pernicious,” others can decide. But by all accounts that I’ve read, Hessler is well versed about life on the ground in China, and writes very well about it on the “micro” level. I’ve been living in China for just over a quarter of a century, and I find that if there’s anything that irks many a local, it’s the idea that a foreigner actually has real insights into this society. We are welcome to study here, do business, even get married, but for the vast majority of Chinese citizens, we are just naive if well-intentioned visitors.

Hopefully, “Country Driving” will soon be translated and published in China. It will be interesting to see what—if anything—gets lost in translation.