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When China first began experimenting with capitalism in the 1980s, the West was certain the experiment would fail. But two of its assumptions — that government controls stifle economic growth, and that the internet cannot be tamed — were quickly proven wrong. Nearly 40 years later, China rivals the United States as a global superpower. Its continued success is challenging not just the West’s assumptions about China, but the West’s assumptions about itself. Guest: Philip P. Pan, the Asia editor for The New York Times. For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily.
Duration
25m
Broadcast on
05 Dec 2018
Audio Format
other

When China first began experimenting with capitalism in the 1980s, the West was certain the experiment would fail. But two of its assumptions — that government controls stifle economic growth, and that the internet cannot be tamed — were quickly proven wrong.

Nearly 40 years later, China rivals the United States as a global superpower. Its continued success is challenging not just the West’s assumptions about China, but the West’s assumptions about itself. Guest: Philip P. Pan, the Asia editor for The New York Times. For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.

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So there's this movie, Red Dawn, Phil Pan, is the Asia editor for the Times. It was released in 2012. It tells the story of an invasion of the United States in Spokane, Washington. Enemy planes are flying overhead, soldiers are parachuting in. I think one of the planes crashes into a house and there's a big explosion. And there's like a sort of American resistance movement against this enemy. In the movie, the enemy is North Korea, but it wasn't always that way.
Originally, the enemy was China, but the script got leaked. This evil villain and his soldiers had Chinese nationality when the film was first shot. The Chinese government objected very publicly but a state-controlled newspaper ran articles with headlines like American movie plants hostile seeds against China. And Hollywood completely retreated, spent more than a million dollars editing the movie, refilming parts of it. There was visual effects work that we had to do to paint out propaganda posters and flags on uniforms and that type of thing to make it North Korea as the invader. And why did Hollywood relent on this and change the enemy from China to North Korea in this film? Well, China has developed extraordinary authority around the world over its own image, over how it's presented. Now, China's box office as well on the road to becoming the world's largest and it's been able to do that because of the size of its economy, essentially. Last year, China's box office hit a record of about one and a half billion dollars in receipts. Huge strides being made by China in the world of entertainment here. New numbers show China's box office are passing North Americas for the very first time this week. It is now the biggest box office market in the world, even bigger than the United States. China's box office could be double the total box office of North Americas by the year 2025. It is also a major source of financing for Hollywood films. It's it's sort of a funny story, sort of. The new Bridget Jones movie. I'm not another master of Panther 3. I'm a dragon warrior. I don't even know if I'm a panda. That movie with Amy Schumer, I feel pretty. Shut up forever. Wonder Woman, the new Mission Impossible. What? Actually, a few Tom Cruise movies. I am not a hero. I'm a drifter with nothing to lose. I mean to beat you to death and drink your blood from a boot. Basically eight or nine blockbuster movies every year. So basically, Hollywood's financial relationship with China comes with strings attached to it. That's right. They sort of get that their image around the world is not great and they've been trying to shape it. For example, there was this movie a few years ago called Pixels. Emails leaked from Sony show that originally the movie called for a hole to be blasted in the Great Wall. But executives were concerned about how China would react. So instead, they rewrote the scene and had the Taj Mahal being blown up instead. They were very concerned about A, getting access to the Chinese market and B, how the film would do in China. China has made it very plain. It just won't tolerate what it views as transgressive behavior by Hollywood. So essentially Hollywood studios are afraid of offending China. They're afraid of offending China because China will punish them. We are all gonna die. Just think, Michael, like what is the last movie that you've seen where China was the bad guy? I actually don't think I can recall one. I remember one,

Transcription truncated.

When China first began experimenting with capitalism in the 1980s, the West was certain the experiment would fail. But two of its assumptions — that government controls stifle economic growth, and that the internet cannot be tamed — were quickly proven wrong. Nearly 40 years later, China rivals the United States as a global superpower. Its continued success is challenging not just the West’s assumptions about China, but the West’s assumptions about itself. Guest: Philip P. Pan, the Asia editor for The New York Times. For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily.