Chinese Subversion

How China controls Hollywood scripts
By Amy Qin and Audrey Carlsen

When was the last time you watched a movie with a Chinese villain?
If you can’t remember, that may not be too surprising. 

Take the 2012 remake of the Cold War drama “Red Dawn.” 

It depicted Chinese enemies invading an American town.
At least it did until the script was leaked and angered the Chinese state media.
In the end, MGM spent $1 million digitally erasing evidence of the Chinese Army, frame by frame, and substituting in North Koreans instead.

The invaders were originally Chinese in the 2012 update of Red Dawn. They were changed to North Korean.

China wields enormous influence over how it is depicted in the movies Americans make and watch. It’s part of a broader push by the government to take control of its global narrative and present a friendlier, less menacing image of China to the world.
China’s booming box office and seemingly inexhaustible cash reserves have provided a much-needed boost to Hollywood as it faces slowing ticket sales in the United States and challenges from Amazon and Netflix.
But Hollywood’s embrace of China has not come without strings attached.
So when the creators of “Pixels” wanted to show aliens blasting a hole in the Great Wall of China, Sony executives worried that the scene might prevent the 2015 movie’s release in China, leaked studio emails show. 

They blew up the Taj Mahal instead.

In the 1960s, Marvel Comics introduced a mystical guru character known as the Ancient One into its universe. 

He was portrayed as an elderly Tibetan man.


Strange Tales, Issue 148, 1966 (comic); Doctor Strange, 2016

But in the 2016 movie “Doctor Strange,” the Ancient One is Celtic, played by the white actress Tilda Swinton. 

Moviemakers decided to change the character’s ethnicity early in the process, to avoid offending the Chinese government.
As recently as two decades ago, major Hollywood movies were sharply critical of China. 

“Seven Years in Tibet,” which depicts Chinese soldiers brutalizing Tibetans, was one of the top 100 grossing movies of 1997. 

Also that year, Disney released Martin Scorsese’s “Kundun” — a sympathetic portrayal of the Dalai Lama’s early life in Mao-era China and his subsequent exile in India — despite objections from the Chinese authorities.
“You’re not going to see something that’s like ‘Seven Years in Tibet’ anymore,” said Larry Shinagawa, a professor at Hawaii Tokai International College who specializes in Asian and Asian-American studies. 

Studios that make films critical of China, he said, risk being banned from releasing movies in the country.
At stake for China is more than just the validation of Hollywood’s powerbrokers and celebrities. 

In speeches and at forums, Xi Jinping has repeatedly emphasized the need to “tell China’s story well” — to make sure a coherent, compelling and, most important, Communist Party-sanctioned narrative of China’s rise to power reaches global audiences.
“There is a notion that its propaganda has not worked well enough,” said Orville Schell, the director of the Center on U.S.-China Relations at the Asia Society. 

“So this is where the film industry comes in. There’s a real sensitivity to the blockbuster power of Hollywood.”
China has raised its influence in Hollywood by bankrolling a growing number of top-tier films.
Of the top 100 highest-grossing films worldwide each year from 1997 to 2013, China helped finance only 12 Hollywood movies:

1997-2013

But in the five years that followed, China co-financed 41 top-grossing Hollywood films:

2014-2018

Hollywood studios are also eager to grab a slice of China’s fast-growing box office market, which surpassed the United States’ in total revenue for the first time ever in the first quarter of 2018.
Success in China can make up for a disappointing box office performance at home or even transform a hit into a global blockbuster. 

By the same token, getting shut out of the Chinese market can be devastating for a movie.
That’s a powerful incentive to avoid causing any offense to China.
One of China’s top movie regulators spelled it out in a speech at the U.S.-China Film Summit in Los Angeles in 2013.
“We have a huge market, and we want to share it with you,” said Zhang Xun, then the president of the state-owned China Film Co-Production Corporation, speaking to a room full of Hollywood executives.
Then came the condition. 

“We want films that are heavily invested in Chinese culture, not one or two shots,” she said. 

“We want to see "positive" Chinese images.”
China’s campaign to push a "positive" image abroad has extended beyond Hollywood.
The 2016 film “The Great Wall,” a $150 million China-Hollywood co-production starring Matt Damon, was China’s highest-profile attempt to make a crossover hit. 

It was, by most measures, an international flop.
Since then, China has stepped away from the big-budget co-production model, focusing instead on making features that cater to its large and still-expanding domestic market. 

To do that, it has enlisted Hollywood talent — producers, technical experts and even top celebrities.
But they have had to walk a fine line.
A number of actors, musicians and other celebrities have been barred from entering the country over behavior deemed inappropriate or critical of the Chinese Communist Party.
Here’s why some of them were barred from China:

Justin Bieber: “Bad behavior,” according to the Chinese authorities.

Björk: Shouting “Tibet, Tibet” at the end of a performance.

Jon Bon Jovi: Using an image of the Dalai Lama during a concert.

Miley Cyrus: Pulling “slant eyes” while posing for a photo.

Lady Gaga: Meeting with the Dalai Lama.

Elton John: Dedicating a performance to the Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei.

Katy Perry: Wearing a sunflower dress, an anti-China symbol, at a performance in Taiwan.

Brad Pitt: Starring in the 1997 film “Seven Years in Tibet.”

Perhaps most central to China’s soft power push is CGTN, the international arm of the state broadcaster CCTV. 

With employees from more than 70 countries and regions working on television channels broadcasting in English, Spanish, French, Arabic and Russian, CGTN’s mission is to report news for global audiences “from a Chinese perspective.”
The difference in the “Chinese perspective” was most evident in CGTN’s coverage this year of an unexpected proposal to abolish presidential term limits in China’s Constitution. 

While Western news media outlets raced to explain why the amendment, which would open the door to Xi’s indefinite rule, was unprecedented, CGTN’s anchors were calm — and eerily synchronized — in their message praising the change.
It is difficult to tell whether China’s push to soften its image through movies, media and cultural projects has been successful.
“Chinese soft power has not been that successful outside of the developing world,” said Stanley Rosen, a professor at the University of Southern California who studies Chinese society and cinema. “If China does have any soft power, it’s probably because of the success of their economy and the Chinese model that they’re pushing very hard now.”

Like rats abandoning a sinking ship

Why foreign companies are shutting shop in China
By Jane Li

A person walks past a Best Buy logo on February 22, 2011 in Shanghai, China. The U.S. consumer electronics retailer closed all of its stores in China in 2011.
U.S.-based Seagate, the world's biggest maker of hard disk drives, closed its factory in Suzhou near Shanghai last month with the loss of 2,000 jobs, in a move that justifies fears that China is becoming increasingly hostile towards foreign firms operating in the country.
A speech presented by Xi Jinping at the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos in early January had been hoped to address the issue, and "reassure" investors that China's remained open to foreign investment.
Xi defended globalization and "promised" improved market access for foreign companies.
Yet, Seagate joined a spate of foreign companies to shutter operations in China in recent years, for various reasons, but most have attributed the country's high tax regime, rising labor costs and fierce competition from domestic companies.
Panasonic, for instance, stopped all its manufacturing of televisions in the country in 2015 after 37 years of operating in China.
When it first opened in 1979, the Japanese home electronics corporation was the country's first foreign firm, tempted by generous benefits not offered to its Chinese competitors, including lower taxes and land prices and easier access to local governments.
But almost four decades down the road, this certainly isn't the case anymore.
In November last year, Japanese electronics conglomerate Sony sold all its shares in Sony Electronics Huanan, a Guangzhou factory that makes consumer electronics, and British high-street retailer Marks & Spencer announced it was closing all its China stores amid continuing China losses.
Add to that list Metro, Home Depot, Best Buy, Revlon, L'Oreal, Microsoft, and Sharp and we start to see more than a trend developing.
Once considered Beijing's most-welcomed guests, bringing with them the money, management skills, and technical knowledge that the country so badly needed, foreign companies now have fallen out of favor.
"China doesn't need foreign companies in terms of acquiring advanced technology and capital as in previous years," said Professor Chong Tai-Leung from the Chinese University of Hong Kong, "so of course, the government is gradually phasing out more of these preferential policies for foreign firms."
Echoing Chong's comments, Shen Danyang, a spokesperson for China's Ministry of Commerce accused foreign corporates last September of only wanting to make "quick money", had become too dependent on preferential government policies in China, and were starting to feel the pain of what he called a "deteriorating environment for business" in the country.
But for those who had "insight and courage", Shen insisted China is still a good place to invest.

Pedestrians walk past the Marks & Spencer flagship store on December 21, 2015 in Beijing, China. The retailer has since exited the Chinese market.

While it's still open to discussion whether those who have now retreated from China lacked "insight and courage", there are certainly some common factors emerging on why.
Keith Pogson, a senior partner at Ernst & Young who oversees financial services in Asia, said the major one is quite simply fierce competition from Chinese rivals.
"We are seeing more Chinese companies becoming champions in other countries, and of course that adds a lot of pressure on foreign corporates." he said, agreeing that the gradual phasing out of preferential policies for foreign firms was certainly in China's self-interest.
Chinese TV brands, for example, for the first time overtook their South Korean rivals last year, ranking first in global sales, with the market share of TCL – a household name in the domestic home electronics market – increasing more than 50 per cent in Northern American market in the past year.
With the rise of such home-grown firms, the Chinese authorities have been leaning towards their own "children", said Pogson, and this gradual phasing out of preferential policies for foreign companies is likely to continue.
Preferential treatment towards foreign firms goes back to 1994 when they were included under the country's general tax regulations.
Until 2007, firms that received foreign investment were subject to 15 per cent income tax while domestic companies paid 33 per cent tax.
But in recent years Beijing has stepped up its efforts to tighten such policies, with the new Enterprise Income Tax Law and Implementation Rules, effective since 2008 unifying the rate for domestic and foreign companies at 25 per cent.
Unclear laws and inconsistent interpretation of them have also been blamed for the flight of foreign firms.
A survey last year by consulting firm Bain & Company and the American Chamber of Commerce in China (AmCham-China) highlighted those were the two top factors hindering foreign firms' ability to invest and grow in China.
High labor costs and a lack of qualified employees were also among the top five challenges, the study showed.
An example of the type of regulation that is now hindering foreign progress is the new cyber security law, approved by parliament last November.
It sparked fears that foreign technology firms would be shut out and subjected to contentious requirements for security reviews, and for data to be stored on Chinese servers.
Despite more than 40 international business groups signing a petition to amend some sections of the law, the final draft approved by the parliament remained unchanged – a clear indication of Beijing's determination to toughen its stance against foreign firms.
A quarter of the AmCham-China's 532 member firms taking part in the survey said they had either moved or were planning to move operations out of China by the end of last year, with almost half moving to parts of "developing Asia".
"If more overseas companies want to develop in China at this stage," Chong said, "I would suggest they consider second- and third-tier cities."