Mammoth Dylan-in-China Motherlode, #1

Early this week, before I was distracted on other business (check your upcoming June issue of the Atlantic; check your bookstores next year) I was looking into the surprisingly complicated question of why Bob Dylan is no longer going on a concert tour of China -- if he was ever going to do such a tour in the first place. Most recent item here, with links back to preceding items in the Dylan series.

A ton of interesting testimony and analysis has come in since then. Here is a sample installment to get going. Probably two more installments to come. The emerging theme is that whatever "really" went on with this now-scrubbed concert tour, it probably wasn't the version trumpeted around the world a week ago, and that I initially believed: namely, that the Chinese authorities had turned down the tour for fear of a Bjork-like embarrassing comment by Dylan. As I mentioned, this is a spillover cost of any kind of censorship policy: when people know you've shut down some kinds of expression, they're willing to believe you've shut down others even when you haven't.

But let's get to the evidence. First, from someone close to the music scene in China right now:

Dylan's people probably had little/ no idea about the real reasons they were being denied access to China.  The only thing they are guilty of is accepting a ridiculous offer from BBH [the Taiwan-based tour promoters who were handling the tour]  and allowing them to try and sell on/ guarantee the shows in mainland China.  This is actually quite common practice (US/ UK agents are happy to take the money and run), but if the wrong partners are chosen, it opens the door for "flipping", which the balance of evidence suggests happened here.

Reead more at The Atlantic - James Fallows