The American other and China's big screens

Abstract

During the 1990s and 2000s, Chinese restrictions on imports from the world’s leading film industry, Hollywood, were driven by a fear of “Americanisation” (Mu, 1999; Wang and Ren, 1999) and a pragmatic economic need to develop China’s domestic film industry (Su, 2014). Today, however, the continued quotas on revenue-sharing foreign films accessing the Chinese market must be understood within the evolving dynamics through which Hollywood, as the main importer of foreign films to China, produces cinema. While the original factors regarding cultural and industry protectionism continue to play a role in China’s restrictions on imported foreign films, much has changed – both politically and cinematically – within China, America, and Hollywood since the import restrictions were first put in place. These changes have coalesced to create opportunities rather than anxieties among China’s censors, significantly reconfiguring the relationship between the Hollywood and the Chinese leadership.