I don’t think we would have confiscated 300 bibles from a Chinese national bringing them into the United States of America, even if they hadn’t been declared and were discovered by customs agents. Or books on the sayings of Confucius, for that matter.
The bibles were obviously not rare books on the world market, nor were they intended for commercial profit in China.
The obvious point is that the Communist government of the People’s Republic of China appears unwilling to allow the free distribution of bibles.
Even if those people /had/ made the “proper declarations”, would they have been allowed to take them in? I think not.
I agree with you that Bibles likely would not have been confiscated coming into the U.S. I think the U.S. would figure that some many are given away that they would not even have charged an import duty.
But I’m not sure they would have just looked the other way either. At least they would have said that many should have been declared.
I am not so sure as you about books on Confucius. Here I think they would have considered them a comodity subject to import duty.
The classifications for import of products are many. It is a quite complicated book. I’m not sure you have ever seen one or worked with one but I assure you there is a classification and assigned duty amount for books, even Bibles.
You are correct on Chinese authorities allowing the distribution of Bibles only if you mean the authorities do not allow it from customs scofflaws or those doing it outside the normal distribution channels.
I think not also on the part about them trying to bring them in. They do not have import export authority and did not run the books through an authorized import export company.