World Notes CHINA

Publishers from Hearst to Hefner have used the maxim "Sex sells" to highly profitable advantage. Businessmen in southern China were following that capitalist road until last week, when Communist Party officials in Guangxi province shut down 39 popular magazines and journals. It was the biggest press crackdown since the campaign against "bourgeois liberalism" was launched four months ago.

Most of the widely read magazines focused on sex, adventure or kung fu. Some claimed to be serious literary or art journals, including a scholarly legal review that carried articles like "Why the Breast of a Woman Was Tattooed." While some Chinese writers agree that the more vulgar periodicals should be weeded out, they are concerned that the crackdown may herald tougher censorship.