Joint_Publishing

Joint Publishing

Joint Publishing

Book store chain and publisher in Hong Kong


Joint Publishing (Chinese: 三聯書店), also known as Sanlian Press or SDX Joint Publishing, is a book store chain and publisher founded at Queen's Road Central in Hong Kong on 18 October 1948. Joint Publishing (Hong Kong) is one of major book store chains in Hong Kong and currently a subsidiary company of Sino United Publishing (Holdings) Limited. The Mainland China branches of the book store chain, such as SDX Joint Publishing and Shanghai Joint Publishing were owned by separate holding company of the Chinese government.

Quick Facts Company type, Industry ...
Quick Facts Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese ...

Joint Publishing (Hong Kong)'s parent company Sino United Publishing, was owned by Chinese central government agency Hong Kong Liaison Office.

History

JP Books in apm, Kwun Tong

The book store was the result of a merger in 1948 between three leading Shanghai publishers and book stores, Life (Chinese: 生活書店; pinyin: Shēnghuó shūdiàn), Reading (Chinese: 讀書出版社; pinyin: Dúshū chūbǎnshè) and New Knowledge (Chinese: 新知書店; pinyin: Xīnzhī shūdiàn). The newly merged bookstore brought together all the names of its previous entities (Chinese: 生活書店、讀書出版社、新知書店三聯書店), but was often referred to in English as SDX Joint Publishing, taking the first initial of each of the previous names to form an acronym, or simply Sanlian Press or Joint Publishing (Chinese: 三聯書店; pinyin: Sānlián shūdiàn). Shortly after it was formed, it moved its headquarters to Beijing in March 1949 and established its Hong Kong-based subsidiary.

After the establishment of People's Republic of China on 1 October 1949, the bookstore located in Hong Kong was mainly responsible for publishing materials from mainland China, while the main branch in mainland China was nationalized. After the coming of Cultural Revolution in mainland China in 1966, the publishing business in mainland China was seriously damaged and the bookstore in Hong Kong survived by republishing old books.

With several re-locations, it finally settled in current premises in Queen Victoria Street in May 1971 and opened a retail store at the ground floor in July 1974.

The Cultural Revolution ended in 1976 and was soon replaced with economic reform. In 1978 the book store in Hong Kong decided to publish their own books independently and join with other international publishers. It initially targeted in Chinese culture, literature and art and later concentrated Hong Kong topics and social science. Its direction was proved successful and the book store aggressively opened branches in Hong Kong.

Outside Hong Kong, the book store expanded to various cities in mainland China by joint venture, and five stores in North America, specifically in Toronto, Vancouver, New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco.

In January 1988, the Hong Kong-based Joint Publishing was registered as a limited liability company called 'Joint Publishing (Hong Kong) Company Limited (Chinese: 三聯書店(香港)有限公司)'.

In March 2021, Joint Publishing was found liable for defamation, publishing information that the High Court found false, including claims that the United States had funded opposition groups in Hong Kong.[1]

Subsidiaries

Shanghai Hong Kong Joint Publishing Co., Ltd. (simplified Chinese: 上海香港三联书店有限公司; traditional Chinese: 上海香港三聯書店有限公司): Established in October 1999, it is a joint venture between Joint Publishing (Hong Kong), Shanghai Book (Chinese: 上海图书) and Shanghai Joint Publishing.[2]

Namesake

  • SDX Joint Publishing (Chinese: 生活·读书·新知三联书店): The mainland branch of Joint Publishing was merged with state-owned the People's Publishing House (Chinese: 人民出版社) in 1951. In January 1986, it became an independent company unrelated to the Joint Publishing (Hong Kong).[3]
  • Shanghai Joint Publishing (Chinese: 上海三联书店): It was founded in 1986 by People's Publishing House as a subsidiary of Jiefang Daily, unrelated to the Joint Publishing (Hong Kong).[citation needed]

References

  1. "Beijing-owned publisher loses defamation lawsuit, must pay pundits HK$250,000 in damages | Apple Daily". Apple Daily 蘋果日報 (in Chinese (Hong Kong)). Archived from the original on 2021-03-29. Retrieved 2021-03-30.
  2. 上海香港三联书店有限公司. sjfx.com (in Chinese). Retrieved 11 September 2017.
  3. 公司简介 [About us] (in Chinese). SDX Joint Publishing. Retrieved 11 September 2017.

Share this article:

This article uses material from the Wikipedia article Joint_Publishing, and is written by contributors. Text is available under a CC BY-SA 4.0 International License; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.