Mad About China

I want to preface this post with a few caveats. First, I've been keeping an eye on China's attempts to build their "soft power" by beefing up their entertainment industry, and Hollywood's attempts to court Chinese audiences and Chinese investments for roughly a decade now. I've also been familiar with Chinese censorship efforts for a long while before that. So what's been happening over the past few months doesn't surprise me in the least. I don't want to downplay how concerning these new developments are, but I've also been thinking of them as inevitable for years. I don't mean to sound flippant, but I'm far past the point of being surprised or outraged with anyone involved. Secondly, I'm definitely pro Hong-Kong, just as I've always been pro Taiwan, but geopolitics are complicated, and anything involving China is doubly so. Therefore, I'm going to avoid commenting directly on the politics of the current Hong Kong crisis. This will be a post focusing on the relationship between American entertainment and technology companies and the Communist Chinese government.

So, if you haven't heard, the Chinese government controlled by the Chinese Communist Party (the CCP) has been cracking down on media content due to a combination of factors. One is the current series of protests in Hong Kong over newly proposed extradition laws. Another is this year's celebration of the 70th anniversary of Communist rule. Still another is a new round of human rights abuses being uncovered, which are predictably heinous. Oh, and the creators of "South Park" decided to join the fray with a series of episodes directly calling out the Chinese government for its wrongdoing, and Hollywood for catering to them in order to access Chinese audiences. This earned them a total ban of "South Park" content in China. And suddenly the NBA is involved, because the general manager of the Houston Rockets tweeted his support for Hong Kong. Chinese broadcasts of NBA games have been put in jeopardy. LeBron James is now in hot water because of his tweet backing the CCP, and Hong Kong protest supporters are showing up to NBA games. And Apple pulling an app that the Hong Kong protesters were using has drawn criticism. And Blizzard Entertainment punished a pro gamer for voicing support, only to back down after fan outrage.

What does all this mean? Well, it means that a fight that's been going on mostly out of the public eye for years now is finally being dragged into the spotlight. China has been in empire-building mode for that past decade or so, but instead of conquering physical territories they've been using investments in business and technology to garner greater and greater influence. They figured out that companies are often as powerful as countries these days, and have thoroughly entrenched themselves in many different industries, including the entertainment world. And they may have embraced capitalism, but not democracy, and certainly not free speech. Now they're demonstrating that by actively leaning on major corporations to back them in their efforts to put down the Hong Kong protests and related criticism Some brave souls are resisting, but it's disheartening to see how many are giving in to the CCP's demands in order to protect their Chinese business interests. Fortunately, they're seeing a lot of push back for it this time.

Keep in mind that companies appeasing the Chinese and other problematic actors has been going on for a long time now. However, it hasn't been nearly this visible or this dramatic. The Hong Kong protests have worldwide attention and it's impossible to ignore how awful the behavior of the CCP-backed police has been, and often how outrageously out of proportion. And the crucial mistake that they'e made is that these strongarm tactics are spilling over into their online response to criticism as well, hitting much closer to home for some international observers. A disengaged American schlub might not care about kids in Hong Kong being beaten up and disappeared, but they might care about a Hearthstone gamer getting banned from competition for shouting a fairly innocuous protest slogan in an interview. Or that LeBron James is looking awfully hypocritical, promoting civil rights, but throwing his support behind the CCP.

I expect that we're going to see more flashpoints as the situation develops. The release of Disney's "Mulan" next year is sure to be one. However, I suspect that the little, petty power moves that the CCP has regularly made in the past, like refusing Chinese releases to Brad Pitt and Richard Gere movies, are going to be scrutinized more carefully. The map in "Abominable" highlighting Chinese claims to disputed territories got a lot more press than I think it would have if it weren't for everything else going on.

No one's cancelling China in a hurry, but the heat is on.

Stay tuned.

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