Massive Chinese Fifth Column

The Gulag Aperture: Hollywood Becomes Handmaiden To China's Communist Party

By Capital Flows

Wang Jianlin arrives before the company’s IPO at the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on December 23, 2014.

On New Year’s Day, China Central Television (CCTV) unveiled its newest “soft power” entertainment media venture, whose purpose is to extend China’s global media influence. 

Xi Jinping said that the overriding directive of this new collection of television stations and news agencies will be to “follow the party line and promote ‘positive propaganda as the main theme.’”
The CCTV announcement compounds the growing risk that increased Chinese investment will entice Hollywood into volunteering itself as a propaganda division of the Communist Party of China (CPC). 

And if these trends continue, the Western world’s outlet for Chinese dissenters will be closed.
China’s film industry has in recent years grown approximately 34% annually and generated $6.8 billion in 2015. 

While many applaud the very modest political reforms that sometimes complement China’s market liberalization, one should be wary of the country’s iron grip on its entertainment industry.

China’s industry players are inextricably bound to the CPC, as evidenced by the ascent of Wang Jianlin, China’s richest man. 

Jianlin’s successes are a product of quid pro quo arrangements between himself and the CPC’s top officials. 

Further, Jianlin is a delegate to the CPC congress and was a high-level advisor in China’s faux legislature from 2008 to 2013. 

Today, CPC delegate Jianlin can count several American awards shows, including the Golden Globes, the Billboard and American Music Awards, and even AMC Theaters as part of his recently accrued collection.
One may argue that the influence of China’s propaganda machine is overstated. 

After all, Russia has been doing the same thing for years through its RT media network. Economically though, Russia is little more than “Upper Volta with missiles.” 

The Russian Bear simply can’t wield a cudgel or dangle a financial carrot the way the Red Dragon can. 

If Putin threatened to remove Russian funding from Western media, it would be like threatening to remove a bucket of water from the ocean.
Jianlin, on the other hand, has made clear exactly what would happen if President Trump followed up on the U.S.-China Economic Security Review Commission’s recommendation to ban China’s state-owned companies from buying American ones: “Tell Mr. Trump that I have $10 billion of investments in the United States and more than 20,000 employees there who wouldn’t have anything to eat should things be handled poorly.”
Jianlin demands American compliance with Chinese propaganda prerogatives, all while U.S. film investments are barred from the Chinese market. 

It’s no wonder the Justice Department and Congress have begun to look askance at this exclusively CPC-friendly arrangement.
The U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission issued a report in October 2015 detailing the consequences of China’s far-reaching propaganda efforts. 

The Commission noted that the chilling influence of Chinese media propagandists is already felt, that it is a “truism” that Hollywood won’t make a film “that the Chinese would reject for social or political reasons.”
The Commission elaborated by explaining that “Hollywood confronts broad consequences when it does not appease Chinese regulators: Captain Phillips found itself $9 million short of its anticipated revenue after finding itself unable to distribute in China [due to censorship].”
Seeds have now been sewn for an American entertainment industry financially beholden to Chinese investors whose purpose and direction begins and ends with the CPC.
The entwining of Hollywood’s and the CPC’s dual fates, and so Hollywood’s complicity in pitching communist propaganda, will persist so long as China continues its aggressive courtship. 

An announced production and distribution partnership between China Film Co. and Paramount Pictures, as well as the $100 million establishment of a U.S.-China cooperative film fund by China Film Co., proves as much.
Is it even possible for the mission of Chinese film and television projects to diverge from the mission of the CPC? 

The evidence isn’t heartening.
China Film Co. is state-owned, meaning that the creative direction of Chinese filmmakers following, say, a $610 million share flotation, will be influenced by the CPC, as will the aforementioned partnership with Paramount. 

Who would believe that this influence doesn’t spill over into Hollywood, when it’s been said that La Peikang, the head of China Film, is the “man to whom Hollywood now goes [to], cap in hand”? Regarding television, the head of CCTV is also the television industry’s chief regulator.
Private companies should be wary of playing devil’s handmaiden to China’s communist propagandists. 

American social media has already proved itself willing to help China’s state apparatus surveil Chinese citizens. 

If the American film and television industry joined in this promiscuous courting of CPC largesse, the net effect might be too great to overcome. 

The CPC’s agitprop would echo across continents.