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A comment on Alibaba’s Jack Ma Tells U.S. Companies to Stop Whining About China. Parent comment

Re:Alibaba’s Jack Ma Tells U.S. Companies to Stop Whining Ab... by radarsat1 on Tuesday December 05, 2017 @06:28PM (#15857156)
> The China that tries to have trade both ways by forcing Hollywood to portray China positively just to get 50% of what they should at the Chinese box office?

What's this one about?

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Re:Alibaba’s Jack Ma Tells U.S. Companies to Stop Whining Ab... by guiltygatorade on Tuesday December 05, 2017 @06:41PM (#15857255)
Super layman's take:

- China has a "ministry of culture" which decides what foreign media can enter the domestic market, especially to play on the big screen

- Chinese domestic films enjoy what effectively is media protectionism

- Hollywood obviously wants a piece of that giant market

- What movies get approved/denied and for what reasons can get very arbitrary. So it comes down to a matter of trying to win favors of people deciding the approval process.

- Often this means shooting big scenes in locations in China, or portraying China in a positive light, or starring Chinese characters, etc. This effectively translates to "you can help us look good globally and we allow you to make money in our market".

I have no idea where the "get 50% what they should" came from, and I'm too lazy to look. But dealing with the Chinese government regulations is really just a quagmire of conflicts of interest.

*Edit: formatting

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Re:Alibaba’s Jack Ma Tells U.S. Companies to Stop Whining Ab... by forapurpose on Tuesday December 05, 2017 @06:56PM (#15857343)
The Chinese government controls access to their lucrative movie market. There is no freedom of speech; people who displease them are punished with loss of access.

Hollywood complies by making films that please the Chinese government censors. A quick search will find a NY Times article about the head of Disney going to China to apologize about a film about Tibet, and promising that such a thing would never happen again. IIRC, there are stories that Hollywood gives Chinese government censors prior review of films before they are finalized, and edits them as instructed/requested.

When was the last time you saw a film critical of China? Showing China doing something bad? Complementary of the Dalai Lama?

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Re:Alibaba’s Jack Ma Tells U.S. Companies to Stop Whining Ab... by poke111 on Tuesday December 05, 2017 @06:47PM (#15857288)
For example, the remake of Red Dawn a few years ago was supposed to feature China invading the US. They changed in to North Korea under pressure.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2237717/Red-Dawn-rem...

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Re:Alibaba’s Jack Ma Tells U.S. Companies to Stop Whining Ab... by abrak on Tuesday December 05, 2017 @06:41PM (#15857260)
Chinese soft power. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-11-23/china-quest-for-soft-p...
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Re:Alibaba’s Jack Ma Tells U.S. Companies to Stop Whining Ab... by ajkjk on Tuesday December 05, 2017 @06:41PM (#15857252)
This kind of thing:

https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2016/08/did-you-catch-t...

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Re:Alibaba’s Jack Ma Tells U.S. Companies to Stop Whining Ab... by stuffedBelly on Tuesday December 05, 2017 @06:34PM (#15857213)
that probably refers to the large amount of capital from China instilled into Hollywood over recent years.
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