Being a Communistic state, does the Chinese educational system made it a requirement to read George Orwell's 1984?

In the U.S, or at least in California, it seems like most of the students have read 1984 by the time of high school. Does the same thing apply to the Chinese?

If not, then what is the equivalent of it? I hope that it's not something that is against America


Note, I know that the main goal of 1984 is not against Communism. Instead, its main point was to show the danger of the many things that would destroy humanity. But still, it still shows the true bad nature of Communism. This is why I am quite curious about this.

For what I know, until the 1990s at least, 1984 used to be one of those "hard to find" books in China. It was not really "banned", you could find it in some large libraries, but actually obtaining a copy and reading it was difficult (although I know a number of people who managed). I was told the chinese version you could find was significantly shortened, but this is hearsay.

Book censorship in the Mao and Deng years worked in a peculiar way. Even in the darkest years of the Cultural Revolution, there were no such things are 'banned books', which you could not find anywhere in China. But in libraries, and even some large bookstores, the books you could borrow, buy and read, sort of depended on who you were.

Back to 1984, I don't think it ever was studied in schools, and I don't think Orwell is as famous among chinese youth as he is in the West. It is probably easier to find and read nowadays (internet and P2P makes restrictions on who can read what, almost impossible to enforce) In my opinion, its criticism of official propaganda, usage of language, and manipulation of the masses was (is still?) considered a little "too close" by the authorities.

Francois

Correction: 1984 shows the true bad nature of totalitarianism. Communism is an ideal that is has never been realized by any of these self-proclaimed "communist" states. (USSR, PRC, Yugoslavia) What is called "communism" in these countries is in fact just another form of socialism with dicatorship rule.

Communism as an ideology is perfect, but in practice it can never happen...