Hai Fei, former president of Children's News Press, has acknowledged that the domestic industry, despite years of hard work, lacks international "brands" to compete with local classics in key markets.

In contrast, the Chinese version of the Harry Potter series topped the children's best-seller lists for 27 months and Andersen's Fairy Tales (long out of fashion in the West, one would have thought) has been popular ever since its introduction to China.

Geoffrey Murray

Since the mid-1990s, the trade in children's titles appears to have shifted from other Chinese-speaking and Asian markets such as Hong Kong, Taiwan, Korean and Japan, to buying in from the West, and the numbers are expected to double in the present decade through Chinese parents' growing willingness to buy imported books.

The leading international trade forum, the Frankfurt Book Fair, now sees much Chinese activity each year, with about one-fifth of the foreign publishing licenses bought by Chinese companies being for children's books.

So what lessons can we draw from this?

One important element is that avid book readers in childhood later are more likely to encourage that same passion in their children. Years ago, when I took my young daughter to school by train each morning, we'd read stories together; and this was also a nightly bedtime ritual.

Government initiatives can help. In the UK, the government, working with various charity organizations such as the Literacy Trust, has tried to raise the profile of children's reading across the board with initiatives ranging from Books for Babies (part of the Sure Start scheme) to national campaigns such as Reading for Life, Children's Book Week and the Summer Reading Challenge.

About 10 years ago, the novelist Orson Scott Card wrote: "One can make a good case for the idea that children are often the guardians of the truly great literature of the world, for in their love of story and unconcern for stylistic fads and literary tricks, children unerringly gravitate toward truth and power."

For many generations, the West has produced writers who unerringly know what children want to read and can satisfy that demand.

For China, what is worrying is that when the present young generation grows up, their lack of childhood reading experience will likely produce fewer competent writers who can understand and cater to the youth market.

Centuries ago, imaginative Chinese writers created such colourful fictional characters as the mischievous Monkey King in Journey to the West (today highly popular in book, comic or TV serial form around the world). Contrast this with the moralising tone of the ancient San Zi Jing, referred to above:

人之初 People at birth,

性本善 Are naturally good (kind-hearted).

性相近 Their natures are similar,

習相遠 (But) their habits make them different (from each other).

In 2002, the China Daily commented that Chinese children's writers were "no longer telling stories but indulging in social sermons." As a result, "their story telling vigor has suffered."

The fact that Chinese children prefer a translated version of a Harry Potter story speaks volumes and the government, publishing industry, authors, teachers and parents should all heed the message.

Good children's storytellers with imagination and flair urgently needed!

English-born Geoffrey Murray is a former Vietnam War correspondent and long-time writer on Asian affairs who now teaches writing at a top university in Beijing.

Opinion articles reflect the views of their authors, not necessarily those of China.org.cn.