The writer Nassim Nicholas Taleb has blasted Chinese printers with accusations of censorship, after the manuscript for a US edition of his 2012 book Antifragile was returned with the instruction to replace mentions of Taiwan with “China, Taiwan”.

The Lebanese-American author of bestseller The Black Swan, which predicted the 2008 global economic crash, posted on Twitter: “Printer of ‪#Antifragile in China asked me to replace ‘Taiwan’ w/‘China, Taiwan’. I (angrily) said ‘No censorship!’”

Taleb claimed he was not alone in being pressurised. “Most authors, I was told, complied. I assume hundreds kept their mouth shut. Not me,” he added.



Printer of #Antifragile in China asked me to replace "Taiwan" w/"China, Taiwan".

I (angrily) said "No censorship!" pic.twitter.com/CDqcBV4fnW — NassimNicholasTaleb (@nntaleb) December 12, 2016

Alongside his tweet was a pictureof the proof with “China,” inserted before the east Asian state’s name. China regards Taiwan as a breakaway province and contests its independence. For the past 40 years, the US government has not officially recognised the Taiwanese government and cut diplomatic ties at the highest level – a policy known as the One China policy.



Temperatures were raised between the US and China last week when it emerged that president-elect Donald Trump had taken a call from the Taiwanese leader Tsai Ing-wen in breach of the diplomatic policy. Trump caused further uproar by suggesting that the US may drop the One China policy.

Labelling the attempt at censorship an outrage, Taleb said he had been accused of stubbornness for rejecting the instruction: “I have always been intransigent … intransigence is something I value.” He said Random House agreed with him and they have since changed printers.

Antifragile was first published in the UK and US in 2012. The Chinese printer wanted to change a passage about economic developments in Taiwan in the 2016 reprint of the paperback edition.

Taleb, a former bank trader, writes about probability and chance, and is known for his work on how different systems handle disorder. Antifragile examines how volatility, turmoil and disorder can benefit individuals and society rather than undermining them.

Reaction to his Twitter outburst has been largely positive. Frederik Fâillman tweeted: “Absurd. But considering the amount of Western books printed in ‪#China there must be many more similar examples?” Another follower tweeted: “The behavior of the Communist Party of China is rather ugly.”

The author was unavailable for comment at the time of writing.