Hours after Donald Trump imposed record 125% tariffs on Chinese products entering the US, China has announced it will further curb the number of US films allowed to screen in the country.
The move mirrors the potential countermeasure suggested by two influential Chinese bloggers earlier in the week, warning that “China has plenty of tools for retaliation”.
Both Liu Hong, a senior editor at Xinhuanet, the website of the state-run Xinhua news agency, as well as Ren Yi, the grandson of former Guangdong party chief Ren Zhongyi, posted an identical proposal involving a heavy reduction on the import of US movies and further investigation of the intellectual property benefits of American companies operating in China.
China is the world’s second largest film market after the US, although in recent years domestic offerings have outshone Hollywood imports. However, Thursday’s measure comes as a significant blow to western studios, with Bloomberg reporting shares of Walt Disney Co, Paramount Global, and Warner Bros Discovery Inc all suffering an immediate decline.
Last week, the newly released A Minecraft Movie from Warner Bros topped the Chinese box office with ticket sales of $14.5m – around 10% of the global total. In 2024, the highest-grossing US film released in China was Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, which took $132m in that territory, towards a global total of $572m.
The first US film was approved for Chinese release 31 years ago, with the number peaking at more than 60 in 2018. Since then it has declined, according to data from the Chinese ticketing service Maoyan Entertainment, thanks to escalating tensions and the increased popularity of homegrown movies.
Animated fantasy film Ne Zha 2, about a child battling monsters from Chinese mythology, was released in late January and has now taken $1.8bn in China, and $20m in the US.
Man, USA just shooting itself in the foot over and over.
Part of the reason we (USA) have retained so much soft power while being big dick swinging bullies is the reach of our fucking media ecosystem.
American movies, television, and music have been popular worldwide for decades now. We dominated culturally because the whole world was familiar with our culture via our entertainment. Like, literally dominating with media is one of the cornerstones of a Cultural Victory in the video game Civilization.
While Trump and the Republicans won’t give a shit because they hate Hollywood and have a bone to pick with it, they fail to realize that Hollywood helped create US cultural significance, and it exported that cultural significance to the rest of the world, leading the whole world to have intimate knowledge of US ideology and customs.
This is throwing all of that in the trash bin because they literally do not understand how soft power works.
You’re assuming republicans have any desire in retaining world power or influence… they are explicitly more interested in isolationist christofascism ambitions. America wanted this.
Yeah these MAGA scumbags were screaming about how Turmp is pro peace and will end all foreing wars in 100 days.
What a surprise instead he’s going to continue them and start new wars… The peasants in the feudal system don’t realize they’re back under a king again. Most of them don’t belive it either. Bloody idiots.
The review of copyright policy is the big one.
I’d like to see the rest of the world return to sane copyright limits.
Just gonna leave this here:
https://rufuspollock.com/papers/optimal_copyright_term.pdf
Using existing data on recordings and books we obtain a point estimate of around 15 years for optimal copyright term with a 99% confidence interval extending up to 38 years. This is substantially shorter than any current copyright term and implies that existing terms are too long.
I have good news though, you don’t actually have to move to China to avoid watching Mission Impossible: Final Reckoning. You can in fact avoid it from any country.
The best part is that this doesn’t affect Chinese citizens at all because all the American media that they want to watch is freely available in the many pirate vod services
It exclusively hurts Hollywood billionaires
This… might actually be an improvement. Okay, hear me out. The film industry has been overloaded lately with over-bloated budgets for CG light shows with little substance, narrative, or character appeal. A BIG part of the reason for that is because for the last decade or two Hollywood has been making as much or more money from the Chinese box office as they do the US. As such, they have prioritized the lowest common denominator between what will sell between both countries. That stuff that sells is visual effects, action, basic stories, simple characters, and non-politically or culturally challenging content that will be censored.
This has SEVERELY limited film making and resulted in a lot of samey uninteresting stuff coming out in theatre’s for years now. It has killed witty comedies that do not transcend culture or language well. It has killed divisive narratives that wouldn’t get the Chinese government’s approval. It has dumbed down stories and killed nuance so that that audiences don’t need cultural context to understand them.
If studios no longer think they can make money hand over foot off the Chinese box office with another cgi robot movie or some such shlock, they may make more unique, smaller budget films with more complex characters, better humor, counter-cultural aspects, challenging narratives, and minimal CGI. They can stop exclusively farming all the existing globally recognizable IP to rehash the same stories over and over with updated visuals. They can revitalize an industry that sorely needs it.
why does anyone even want to be chinese or american anymore? (or russian or whatever) what a waste of time and energy and life… surely its about time we decided theres a better way to do this? arent they only able to do these things because we keep blindy subscribing to their cultures?
if we could all just reject our cultural programming for a few days to check out what else is happening… that would be great thanks
Just out of interest, where are you from?
I feel a shot at “woke hollywood propaganda” isn’t going to bother trumpworld all that much.
No, but that’s because they don’t understand how exportation of US media has been so important for US cultural dominance and soft power.
Oh absolutely. I mean, witness the defunding of radio free Europe etc. Also, even if they hate Hollywood, it’s still the American economy.
Good.
Stop importing all US films products.
Fuck us for our stupidity.
🤦♀️ 🖕
Just block the importing of “The Apprentice”.
China should sanction any US leader, CEO, actor, or actress who does or did drugs that are illegal in china.
Give the reason that they are a bad influence on kids.
Start by sanctioning Felon Musk and his businesses…
I don’t mind that. If they stop importing our movies, we can also block their companies from overtaking domestic film companies. And we can stop importing their cultural values and limitations.
Free Tibet. Free the Uygher Muslim community, free Hong Kong, free Taiwan ROC.
This is a pretty narrow-minded view of Chinese culture. They have positive attributes, too, you know.
They could easily be saying the same for us and “Free Palestine! End Israeli Apartheid! Dismantle the US Armaments Industry that arms and harms the world! Stop exploitation capitalism!” We export good and bad values, too.
What you’re suggesting is what Trump wants anyway, for us to become fully isolationist and to never experience any other nations culture. He wants North Korea levels of control and you’d be happy to hand it to him, it sounds like.
The people absolutely do. It’s the government that’s the biggest problem. Same with Russia and the USA. Frankly, most people on Earth probably just want their work, their bread, and their circuses, and to be left alone outside of that. But there’s a problem - their government stands between us, and sets down rules that oppose those things - like the issues I brought up, among others. I care that they’re oppressive and censorious. I also feel that way about the US federal government, and European governments too.
I don’t hate the people - I try not to really hate anybody. I just don’t want their government’s enforced morals having an impact on the media I enjoy.
A fair take, and agreed. Thank you kindly for clarifying.
Relevant Marjane Satrapi quote:
I enjoyed parts of Persepolis when I read it the first time. Mind you, that was at the same time for me that In The Shadow of No Towers was still too painful, and I had tried to engage with Maus. I need to go back to it.
She is basically right about people, in my experience.
LOL
