Translated from today’s Massage Milk: Rolling Stone to Roll On Out? Free verse-style linebreaks are in the original:
Just one issue after starting, Rolling Stone‘s been told to stop.
Word is that the decision came from the Shanghai News Publications Bureau.
Turns out that when the foreign company was cooperating with the Chinese partner,
They couldn’t figure out how best to produce a Chinese version of a foreign periodical.
Or what formalities and procedures they needed to take care of.
The Chinese partner, AV World, didn’t know either.
Anyway, there was a weak link somewhere or other in the chain,
And now Rolling Stone (Chinese Edition) is an illegal publication.
That is, they can’t call it “Rolling Stone (Chinese Edition).”
In other words, that is, “Rolling Stone” never got permission.
In other other words, if they didn’t put “Rolling Stone” on the cover, it’d be legal.
So if they get rid of it, it’ll be fine.
But then it will be AV World and not Rolling Stone.
Update: In a phone interview with Danwei, Rolling Stone editor Hao Fang said that the second issue will be coming out, and that there are “misunderstandings” going about.
Update 2: From The Independent:
The Shanghai bureau of the General Administration of Press and Publications (GAPP) … said Rolling Stone had not fulfilled all the procedures to publish…
…”It’s not simply a matter of procedure because, even if they handed in the right application, whether we would approve it remains a question,” said Liu Jianquan, a spokesman for GAPP. “So we have issued them a warning and told them to stop their illegal action.”