China sets up a booth at the 21st edition of Tokyo International Book Fair in September. [Photo by Natsuki Sakai/AFLO]

The Minister of State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television, Nie Chenxi, said on Tuesday that 50 million copies of Series of Key Speeches of General Secretary Xi Jinping (2016) have been published, while the figure for Xi Jinping: The Governance of China is 6.2 million copies.

Key events

The minister also said that 2016 saw other books on important events and topics of historic significance being published.

Among them was Ninety Years of Communist Party of China, marking the Party's 95th birthday, also the 80th anniversary of the end of the Long March.

Wang Shuzeng's The Long March was reprinted and is still popular for its depiction of the feat.

"I hope to pass on the spirit of the Long March to younger readers: the spirit of never giving up," Wang says.

More books on the Belt and Road Initiative were also published in 2016.