Authentic Chinese internal documents matter greatly as historical records that illuminate our understanding of Chinese politics. Yet careful scrutiny shows that the Chinese book version of the Tiananmen Papers is part fiction and part documentary history based on open and semi-open sources and document collections. The alleged transcripts of top-level meetings are basically stitched together ex post facto (even by the admission of the editors) and then presented as secret documents. Furthermore, the English translation is a heavily retouched version of the Chinese with differences in claims of authenticity, translation, citation and style. There is little evidence that any real secret documents are in the hands of the Chinese author, and even if they were, the two books under consideration are really secondary sources steps removed from the originals. The editors strongly vouch for the authenticity of these two books, but their efforts are inadequate and unconvincing.