``Time's brand of fact-based journalism will always be subject to government censorship,'' Time Inc president Eileen Naughton said in Hong Kong on Friday. Any attempts to tone down editorial content to secure greater circulation on the mainland would compromise the Time brandname, which she sees as crucial to its success.

``Time is consistently ranked among the top 100 brands in the world, and we are one of the only print brands to achieve this,'' she said.

The news weekly, whose worldwide circulation is about 5.4 million, sells only 2,000 copies a week on the mainland, mostly by subscription. Like all international publications in China, circulation is managed by China National Publication Import Export.

By treating magazines as imported items, government censors can remove pages or embargo sales if contents are deemed inappropriate.

In 2001, the government banned the magazine from newsstands because of a report about the outlawed Falun Gong organization.

Time's circulation on the mainland could increase substantially if its content was licensed to a third-party distributor. The content of Fortune, a Time Inc business publication, is licensed to Hong Kong-based publisher CCI Asia-Pacific, which distributes a Chinese-language version of Fortune on the mainland; its circulation exceeds 140,000.

Naughton said Time Inc and parent company Time Warner would adopt more aggressive China strategies by offering other lifestyle and business titles.

Naughton said at present Time magazine was far more likely to invest in India and Japan than China.

``In India, with its large English-speaking population, we only have a circulation of 30,000,'' she said, though ``returns must be quite substantial and the probability of success high before we get access to new investments for new projects.''

Time's success in other markets was compensating for its low profile in China. Naughton said the magazine's investments in new specialist titles on business, lifestyle and travel are examples of leveraging its brandname to add new earnings drivers.

``We are dividing up our advertising space and they are providing very attractive platforms for advertisers,'' she said. mark.lee@globalchina.com