Chinese soft power: Hollywood take-over on the cards in quest for cultural influence

The term "soft power" has been thrown around the media and academic circles for the last couple of years, but its currency has heightened in regards to Australia's relationship with China.
By MATTHEW CARNEY

Xi Jinping's directions for China's soft power strategy are specific: "To give a good Chinese narrative and better communicate China's messages to the world. To be portrayed as a civilised place featuring a rich history, with good government and developed economy, cultural prosperity and diversity and beautiful mountains and rivers."

All countries practise some form of soft power — the ability to coax and persuade other countries that their culture and values are desirable — through organisations like the British Institutes, Alliance Française or the Goethe Institutes.
American soft power regularly tops the tables and largely because of its popular culture, like Hollywood films or corporate labels like Levis.
In North Asia, South Korea has been successful with K-pop songs like Gangnam Style.
It is a recognition that for nations to be powerful they need more than economic might and military threat. 

They need soft power.
Soft power is by its very nature not coercive and is determined by its ability to appeal and attract others.
China has realised this and come to the game much later than most other countries. 

In the late 2000s, it identified "the threat theory" that much of the Western world sees China as distinctly unfriendly.
Now China is devoting billions to try to refashion its image.
Xi Jinping has made it a priority and has said China has to become a "cultural superpower".
His directions for China's soft power strategy are specific: "To give a good Chinese narrative and better communicate China's messages to the world. To be portrayed as a civilised place featuring a rich history, with good government and developed economy, cultural prosperity and diversity and beautiful mountains and rivers."
A big part of the plan is to take over Hollywood. 

The Chinese want to take back some of the popular global narrative to drive their message home. 

It means no longer will China be presented as the bad guy, but as a noble civilised place as Xi wants.
The Chinese have the market power to make sure it happens.
In 2018, China will become the world's biggest box office, surpassing America, and it will keep growing, at least doubling before peaking.
Now in China, 22 new cinemas open everyday.
Hollywood producers are now considering the "China factor" in any future profitability. 

Stories and narratives are changing to become more appealing to the Chinese. 

Many of the world's future blockbusters will be made in China.
When the Oriental Movie Metropolis in the Chinese coastal city of Qingdao becomes operational next year it will dwarf any Hollywood studio.
Thirty big-budget films are slated in first couple of years. 

The first, The Great Wall, with a budget of $180 million, has Hollywood star Matt Damon playing the suspicious savage who is finally convinced by a noble Chinese warlord and beautiful maiden to take up the good Chinese fight.
The man in charge of making the reality a vision is Wang Jianlin — China's Rupert Murdoch — and he has the backing of the top leadership.
Wang is a party member and spent 16 years in the People's Liberation Army before he quit to build a real estate and media empire.
Wang has gone on a $10-billion buying spree and is buying up Hollywood one piece at a time. 

He has bought US production house Legendary Entertainment and Dick Clark Studios.
He has also purchased AMC entertainment — the second-biggest cinema chain in the US — as well as snapping up Europe's biggest cinema group Odeon and Hoyts in Australia.
A big part of Xi Jinping's plan for China to become a "cultural superpower" is to take over Hollywood. 

Australia 'fertile ground' for China's soft power
But film is just one part of China's soft power strategy. 

The Government has put $10 billion into promoting Chinese traditional culture and language. 

It has set up 500 Confucius institutes in 140 countries all controlled by the Central Propaganda Committee in Beijing.
Australia has been fertile ground for China's soft power. 

Fourteen Confucius Institutes have been established at Australian universities and 60 schools around Australia have introduced Confucius classrooms.
Many say it is smart and proper to establish a bigger understanding and deeper relationship with our biggest trading partner. 

But others say the Confucius institutes overstep the mark, and attempts at soft power backfire when the Chinese try to control what can be said about human rights or the independence of Taiwan or Tibet.
Chinese "values" clash with Australian ideals of freedom of speech and inquiry.
There are a growing number of Australian academics like former ambassador to China Stephen Fitzgerald, who say the Confucius institutes should be scrutinised much more as they compromise academic integrity.
At Peking University I had the good fortune to hear the man who invented the term 'soft power' and inspired the Chinese leadership to take up the cause, Harvard professor Joseph Nye.
But Professor Nye says China's soft power has fundamental flaws.
Its claims in the South China Sea undermine attempts to make it appear friendly or attractive. 

Also, its program is being driven by the top leadership and not the people.
Professor Nye says soft power is usually more successful if it comes from the grass roots and is not a dictated program.
"Civil society is really crucial to developing soft power and I think it's very difficult for the party to unleash the full talents of China's civil society," he says.
Professor Nye says it will be some time yet before China overtakes America as the dominant global power, so in the meantime, get ready for more Chinese "heroes" at the movies.

Australia's Chinese Fifth Column

Australian universities the latest battleground in Chinese soft power offensive
By Hagar Cohen

Beijing collaborator Bob Carr of the Australia China Relations Institute.

In an exclusive interview, Australia's first ambassador to China has raised the alarm about China's influence in the higher education sector.
Stephen Fitzgerald singled out Bob Carr's Australia China Relations Institute for particular criticism, saying universities need clear firewalls between donations and research.
ACRI, part of the University of Technology Sydney, was established with a large donation from the Chinese businessman Huang Xiangmo.
Mr Huang was the donor at the centre of the controversy surrounding Labor senator Sam Dastyari.
"I wouldn't have taken the funding," Mr Fitzgerald told Background Briefing.
"This is one of the really difficult issues about what is happening at the moment, because you don't want to say no to all Chinese money.
"That would be ridiculous, self defeating, but you have to put firewalls between the donation and the way it is spent, and you have to be certain about the origins of that money."

'No place' for Confucius institutes
As well as ACRI, hundreds of other language and culture centres have been established on campuses worldwide through confidential agreements between universities and the Chinese education ministry.
Mr Fitzgerald said he believed these centres, known as Confucius institutes, had no place in Australian higher education institutions.
"I just don't think they should be in universities," he said.
"Have them in Australia by all means; have them all over the country. I'd welcome them, but I don't think they should be in universities."
"There will be people who have been involved with these institutes who will say there has never been one instance of any attempt to influence what we teach and what we say.
"There will be others who might admit that there has been such an attempt."

Controversy over Sydney Uni plan
Background Briefing has revealed that at the University of Sydney, a confidential 2007 plan included a clause that would have seen the university's existing Chinese language program incorporated into a Confucius institute.
This draft agreement ended up in the hands of Professor Jocelyn Chey, the former Australian consul-general in Hong Kong and a visiting professor at the university's Department of Chinese Studies.
"I wasn't sure that the university authorities knew what they were letting themselves in for," she said.
"There's the question of academic freedom and the right of academics not just to teach but to research and publish in areas where they are not under the guidance or direction of anybody."
Professor Chey wrote a strongly worded letter to the vice chancellor outlining her concerns and saying the Confucius institute should be rejected, or the arrangement should be significantly modified to protect the integrity of the university.
"People who accept donations should be aware of the expectations and obligations that they're taking on with the finance," she said.
The university senate voted in favour of the Confucius Institute, but adopted some of the changes to the arrangement that were recommended by Professor Chey.
A University of Sydney spokesperson confirmed a proposal to establish a Confucius Institute at the University of Sydney was circulated to the senate in 2007.
Feedback from staff was considered, and it was confirmed that the university did not intend for existing university programs to be delivered by the Confucius Institute.
The spokesperson said these programs continue to be delivered by the Department of Chinese Studies in the School of Languages and Cultures.