 The Japanese Army and Navy strongly approved of the book and several thousand copies of it were bought by the War Ministry and Naval Ministry who by the beginning of 1934 were distributing the books for free to foreign journalists and officials . By contrast , the Nationalist Government of China responded by banning Townsend 's book throughout China from 1935 . Even so , the journalist George <unk> reported that in 1946 Chinese communists distributed contraband copies of the book to American China Marines in the hopes of disillusioning them about conditions in China . 
