In the winter of 2011, the major Hollywood studio MGM emerged from a rancorous bankruptcy. Numerous projects that had been shelved suddenly found themselves being dusted off and brought back blinking into the daylight, and one of those mothballed projects was a remake of the Reagan era invasion movie Red Dawn. The 1984 version had depicted an alternate world where the United States was invaded by a Soviet/Cuban coalition, and the remake was set to update the plot to the 21st century and replace the now historically defunct Russian Soviets with the Chinese PLA. Difficulties with finding a distributor had caused the release date to be put back numerous times, until MGM went ahead and did something really rather remarkable. The studio went back and digitally altered all the footage in the movie to edit out all the Chinese soldiers then turn them into North Koreans.

Studios often go in for a bit of a post-production re-jig, but the scale of this was unprecedented. An entire cast of characters underwent an ethnic transplant: uniforms were changed, insignia tweaked, minor details reworked and the plot significantly altered in order to edit out the majority of references to Chinese aggressors. All of a sudden, a distributor magically appeared. The film is set for release on the 2nd November 2012.

Following the money

Before the rewrite, commentators had been enthusiastically debating how relevant this movie could be in the current economic climate. With significant attention recently drawn to just how much US treasury debt China owns, the implications of America being unable to pay its debts when China comes calling are not beyond the realms of reality. Opinion seemed to be that Red Dawn could have been very topical, capturing the current American zeitgeist quite successfully.

Now though, those same commentators are feverishly debating the new found power and influence in the movie industry that China has. There were only token complaints (and none from the government) about the film from China when plot details were first released, but the decision to change the baddies to North Koreans was made nonetheless. Upon closer inspection, it is obvious that this decision had a lot less to do with cultural sensitivity or international bullying than it did with being a good business sense. China is now the fifth biggest box office market outside the U.S and has a potential $2.1 billion in revenue there for the taking. Trying to sell a movie depicting the Chinese army as the bad guys in China would be like trying to sell a movie glorifying the exploits of Revolutionary-era Redcoats in the States. Hollywood does not want to step on a major foreign audience's toes. Four of the five highest grossing films in 2011 in China were foreign-made – Transformers 3 ($169m), Kung Fu Panda 2 ($95m), Pirates of the Caribbean 4 ($73m) and Harry Potter 8 ($65m) – and those figures alone go a long way to explaining Hollywood's increasing hunger for a slice of the Chinese market.

China's waxing influence

There is something greater afoot though. This pandering to the Chinese market also neatly coincides with a rapid expansion in China's own media. The CCP is pouring billions of dollars into its media outlets in order to stimulate foreign growth. Xinhua, the state mouthpiece, recently started broadcasting a 24-hour English-language news channel, CCTV (a channel already broadcasting in three foreign languages) started an Arabic channel, former BBC presenter Susan Osman now hosts a show on China Radio International and the China Daily newspaper now prints European and American editions. Moreover, in a recent New York Times opinion piece, David Shambaugh, the director of the China Policy Program at George Washington University stated that Chinese media is "fast becoming the principle source of news in Africa."

Every area is up for grabs. If Hollywood has been working hard to try to get access to the Chinese market, then China has been twice as industrious trying to bring about the reverse, with investment in foreign film industries rising dramatically in recent years. The Redrock Investment Group, founded by the Chinese media tycoon Bruno Wu, recently announced plans to raise $800 million to start a fund to invest in Hollywood. Wu says the fund is dedicated to emphasising their "confidence in the strength and potential of the Chinese media industry and the wealth of talent within it."

The goal of balancing out the playing field was specifically addressed  as well, with the group expressing interest in "globally outward looking projects with foreign partners…[as] the overwhelming majority of titles released by Hollywood work in China, but it doesn't work in reverse: big Chinese movie stars aren't seen as widely outside of China." Chinese films such as Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Hero have made a significant impact on international markets, but so far they are the cream of a fairly poor crop. Chinese stars are not well-known because – in simple blunt terms – Western audiences do not think highly of Chinese films. Perhaps now is when things begin to change…

The culture wars

There are two schools of thought as to exactly why China is suddenly beginning to branch out. One is positive, one negative ('soft' and 'hard' power), and both adhere to the rather obvious fact that China wants more of a global voice. The first theory is that the CCP is slowly coming round to the fact that it has something of an image problem in the world (according to a recent BBC/Globescan report, favourable views on China have plummeted in recent years) and wants to address it. Li Cheng, an expert on Sino-American relations at the Brookings Institute, says that the CCP feels its poor reputation is a misunderstanding due to a "lack of knowledge of China, and the Chinese as well." The positive view slots this media expansion as part of China's plan to promote a more positive image of itself through the media outlets it is in the process of cultivating. "Why should the West dictate what the world thinks about China?" is the reasoning. China should have its own say.

The negative spin is far more depressing. It was articulated by a recent speech from no less than President Hu Jintao, who basically came straight out and accused the West of trying to start a cultural war with China. He stated that "international hostile forces are intensifying the strategic plot of westernising and dividing China" and that "ideological and cultural fields are the focal areas of their long-term infiltration." Put in these terms, if the next war is going to be cultural, then China needs to start getting its troops in order. The West has a huge media machine in place already, and if a culture war is about to begin, then China needs to have just as well stocked an arsenal.

Time will tell which viewpoint is closest to reality, but as with most things in modern China, both are probably simultaneously true. That China is exercising 'soft' power in its media expansion is a substantial fact, but how much of this is with an eye to 'hard' power remains to be seen. Just don't be surprised if Chinese influence starts cropping up in unusual places from now on…
 

Related links
Reality Check: China Seeks To Curb "Mindless TV Entertainment"
The Chinese Movie Business: Vendetta Against Fiction?
Behind the Glamour: China's International Film Festivals

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Keywords: film industry China Hollywood in China Hu Jintao culture war Chinese media revolution Western culture in China new media revolution China