Chinese Soft Power and Media Discussion and Updates

KYli said:

Just look at those movies that cost a few hundreds millions to make and why they failed. These are garbage movies that used for money laundering. A-list movie stars that paid with an outrageous amount of money but sound and visual effects that got little investment. Storyline that is weak and pathetic. Movie director that was busy banging the actress. You think this is the future of the Chinese culture and entertainment industry.

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So what? These bad films and TV works are "safe" for the government and investors. When you are short of choice, even the worst things sell.
So has our dear government taken the initiative to change all this? No, they have nothing except listing new banned lists for ridiculous reasons in each Internet "cleaning".
Don't overestimate the enthusiasm of bureaucrats. They don't have the ability to do a good job. It is their expectation to complete the task indicators in an easy and labor-saving way. They only care about those things that can bring rich taxes, and they are only responsible to their superiors.

KYli said:

Political correctness in the West is even more threatening. Those political correctness movies and dramas are even more scary. I do hope China to refine its restrictions but China should never go down the road of the West.

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Unfortunately, it seems that the government will also yield to political correctness on issues involving legal disputes. Sick Western feminism has successfully intervened in China's judicial trials many times（like that the poor freight driver）.
Another disaster is the unlimited emphasis on political correctness，they always waste a lot of energy on such boring problems as "Assassin", "Spy", "Thief" where the professional names in these games can "mislead minors".
Can you imagine that attacking barbarians in Civilization VI is regarded as a "colonialist act" by the government's censorship standards?
CPC just doesn't understand that this is no longer the time to have two cakes to eat is already very happy.

KYli said:

I have recently gone through some Chinese manga and games. I would say many of them are spending too much time to depict half naked girls. It is fine with some exposure but when all game and manga have this same tendency then the industries have a problem. Manga and games are more than just some sex and violent. Sex and violent do sell but shouldn't be the main theme.

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Maybe we should remind you that there was "hooligan crime" in the 1980s. If you follow the sentencing standard of "hooligan crime", you can at least sentence more than half of the people on the street to death.
For example, kissing is accused of "sexual harassment", and holding hands between men and women is regarded as "sexual promiscuity". These are usually sentenced to heavy punishment - usually the death penalty.
That can be said to be a great shame in the history of the legal system, because there is no standard for sentencing.
"Too much nudity" is not a standard that can be strictly defined. I think TV stations should cut out all TV scenes with swimwear, because "women who only wear a few pieces of cloth" will make my nephew addicted to pornography - don't be surprised, such extreme practices are constantly happening in China.

This is a real, nationally famous farce. An angry mother roared to burn down the bookstore because she thought that the "poisonous" entertainment novels sold by the bookstore hindered her son's study.

In China, asceticism is still the most important educational policy.

imnothere7 said:

She(the person) has been active on twitter.
But was banned ( no idea)

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Also another unwelcome news, I say - the person as I am unsure of her identity.
Her instagram is which I have been trying confirm her identity, however there are no reply both on instagram and little red book. Take it what you will.
It took me a while to connect to dots together both on this forum as well as twitter to figure out.

zhangjim said:

So what? These bad films and TV works are "safe" for the government and investors. When you are short of choice, even the worst things sell.
So has our dear government taken the initiative to change all this? No, they have nothing except listing new banned lists for ridiculous reasons in each Internet "cleaning".

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Really, Asura took over one hundred million budget to make but its box office is mere seven million. Airstrike took over 65 million to make but it was so bad and got involved into so many controversies that it was never shown. Shanghai fortress had ove 60 million budget and only 14 million box office.

It is better off with less movies than having a ton of garbage that claimed to be made with big budget. Hong Kong movie industry got hijacked by mafia and money laundering by making a ton of shitting movies. In the end, the whole industry got crippled and never recovered.

zhangjim said:

Don't overestimate the enthusiasm of bureaucrats. They don't have the ability to do a good job. It is their expectation to complete the task indicators in an easy and labor-saving way. They only care about those things that can bring rich taxes, and they are only responsible to their superiors.

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So what, they are not the reason why China had so many bad movies.

zhangjim said:

Unfortunately, it seems that the government will also yield to political correctness on issues involving legal disputes. Sick Western feminism has successfully intervened in China's judicial trials many times（like that the poor freight driver）.
Another disaster is the unlimited emphasis on political correctness，they always waste a lot of energy on such boring problems as "Assassin", "Spy", "Thief" where the professional names in these games can "mislead minors".
Can you imagine that attacking barbarians in Civilization VI is regarded as a "colonialist act" by the government's censorship standards?
CPC just doesn't understand that this is no longer the time to have two cakes to eat is already very happy.

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If Chinese males don't fight back, don't expect others to do the fighting for you.

As I said, I don't agree with their laziness in one side fit all of doing things. However, at the same time, why so many Chinese games just copying the West and Japan by over focusing upon Assassin, spy and thieves. It seems to me many games are just too lazy to be creative.

zhangjim said:

Maybe we should remind you that there was "hooligan crime" in the 1980s. If you follow the sentencing standard of "hooligan crime", you can at least sentence more than half of the people on the street to death.

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Oh please, hooligan crime in the 80s were due to the rise of robberies and other major crimes in China. Up until 90s, China was having hard time to fight armed robberies that involved guns and machine guns. The government took a very heavy handed approach to combat crimes. The end result is that they were able to lower crimes but many people got way too heavy sentences and some people should only be jailed in a lenient time but got executed.

zhangjim said:

For example, kissing is accused of "sexual harassment", and holding hands between men and women is regarded as "sexual promiscuity". These are usually sentenced to heavy punishment - usually the death penalty.

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Don't make up stuffs or using generalization. I have been in China in the 80s and perfectly knew that holding hands wouldn't get you death penalty. My older cousins with arranged blind date were holding hands and going to movies that I made fun of them.

zhangjim said:

That can be said to be a great shame in the history of the legal system, because there is no standard for sentencing.

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I don't think law and legal system in 80s or 90s is fair or balance but you are being ridiculous for making up stuffs.

zhangjim said:

"Too much nudity" is not a standard that can be strictly defined. I think TV stations should cut out all TV scenes with swimwear, because "women who only wear a few pieces of cloth" will make my nephew addicted to pornography - don't be surprised, such extreme practices are constantly happening in China.

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Of course it can. If every movies, dramas, manga, and games all have too much exposure of boobies then clearly we have a problem. After watching and playing and reading many movies, dramas and manga and games, I can see that for sometime now these industries have increased nudity as a selling point. I don't think it is healthy and sustainable. However, it doesn't mean I agree with over restrictions and one side fit all approach by the government.

zhangjim said:

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

This is a real, nationally famous farce. An angry mother roared to burn down the bookstore because she thought that the "poisonous" entertainment novels sold by the bookstore hindered her son's study.

In China, asceticism is still the most important educational policy.

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Not sure your point, I have seemed all of these overprotective parents in both Hong Kong and the US. You think this is bad wait til you see a conservative Christian mother in the US.

tonyget said:

I'm not here for CCP propaganda，that's for sure

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No, you're just here spurting western propaganda and trolling.

zhangjim said:

For example, kissing is accused of "sexual harassment", and holding hands between men and women is regarded as "sexual promiscuity". These are usually sentenced to heavy punishment - usually the death penalty.

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What the h*** are you taking about. Previously I gave you the benefit of the doubt that you may live in china but now I'm pretty sure I won't true anything you post anymore. This is pretty outrageous. I was in china in the 80s. What you described never happened.

vincent said:

People who think the Chinese government should get rid of censorship and the firewall, watch this

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People who don't live in the US... that's America. No need for foreign influence. Now they want Chinese to impose their values on the US. Whatever happened to how Americans love their country warts and all...?

MortyandRick said:

What the h*** are you taking about. Previously I gave you the benefit of the doubt that you may live in china but now I'm pretty sure I won't true anything you post anymore. This is pretty outrageous. I was in china in the 80s. What you described never happened.

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Lu Shuming, the actor of Guan Yu who died a few days ago, is the victim of the crime of hooliganism. He attended a dance and was sentenced as "mental pollution".
1983 was an important time point. The sentencing of "hooligan crime" was raised to death penalty. Since this is a very arbitrary crime, the severity of the sentence depends entirely on the judge and the police station.
In sentencing, the "bad social impact" is often considered. However, if the citizens demand that the criminals be punished severely and quickly, the trial results will be extremely unfavorable to the defendants.
Regardless, the charge, which was created in 1979, was finally dropped in 1997.

This book is very expensive. I will not spend expensive time and money to provide evidence for arguing with you.
There are many other similar books, but I am not a professional legal researcher, so I will not collect them. But another book has a very helpless description:

In many places, cases that are difficult to handle and define are regarded as "hooliganism".

KYli said:

Oh please, hooligan crime in the 80s were due to the rise of robberies and other major crimes in China. Up until 90s, China was having hard time to fight armed robberies that involved guns and machine guns. The government took a very heavy handed approach to combat crimes. The end result is that they were able to lower crimes but many people got way too heavy sentences and some people should only be jailed in a lenient time but got executed.

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You can't understand it this way. From a grand perspective, it seems to be "forced", but it is not a praiseworthy behavior. Later people called it "abnormal means" for a reason. In essence, this is an extreme behavior to deal with social problems accumulated from policy mistakes.

This is a very famous book at that time（1982）：

In the book, rock music is regarded as an incurable disease of capitalist society, detailed accompaniment and euphemism are regarded as promoting obscenity, and words describing women's beauty or expecting love in lyrics are regarded as frivolous and immoral.
A book severely criticizing how capitalist music is full of pornographic elements, of course, it soon became a historical joke.


Looking back on this period of history, I can only imagine a group of stereotyped guys who are at a loss in the face of a new environment they are completely unfamiliar with.
Sadly, nearly 50 years later, they still failed to understand the policy of cultural industry.

I will ask people here only a single question. Would 99+% of what Japanese and South Korean entertainment industries release be legal to release in China? The answer is yes. So the answer is not censorship.

1- China has not been developed for long enough. Entertainer is a job that is as urban middle class as its gets. And poor people don't spend money on entertainment.

2- China is still perceived as a poor country by many because of its pace of development. People are not attracted to poor people things. As a poor nation, you are "exotic" at best.

3- Elephant in the room. Anglo-Saxons have been the dominant culture for 250 years. And that the dominant culture dislikes China. Yellow peril is 200 years old


1st and 2nd will be solved on their own by the Chinese people. 3rd? Won't be solved. The US superpowerdom emerged in a world that was heavily Westernized and English was already a global language. The same is not true for China. In fact the exact opposite is true. In this environment, I see no reason to lift the firewall. Remember, the playing field is not fair. Unless you want Chinese user data to be stored in the USA, it would have no benefits at all. China is currently like Portuguese missionaries who were preaching Christianity in India in the 16th century.

zhangjim said:

So what? These bad films and TV works are "safe" for the government and investors. When you are short of choice, even the worst things sell.
So has our dear government taken the initiative to change all this? No, they have nothing except listing new banned lists for ridiculous reasons in each Internet "cleaning".
Don't overestimate the enthusiasm of bureaucrats. They don't have the ability to do a good job. It is their expectation to complete the task indicators in an easy and labor-saving way. They only care about those things that can bring rich taxes, and they are only responsible to their superiors.

Unfortunately, it seems that the government will also yield to political correctness on issues involving legal disputes. Sick Western feminism has successfully intervened in China's judicial trials many times（like that the poor freight driver）.
Another disaster is the unlimited emphasis on political correctness，they always waste a lot of energy on such boring problems as "Assassin", "Spy", "Thief" where the professional names in these games can "mislead minors".
Can you imagine that attacking barbarians in Civilization VI is regarded as a "colonialist act" by the government's censorship standards?
CPC just doesn't understand that this is no longer the time to have two cakes to eat is already very happy.


Maybe we should remind you that there was "hooligan crime" in the 1980s. If you follow the sentencing standard of "hooligan crime", you can at least sentence more than half of the people on the street to death.
For example, kissing is accused of "sexual harassment", and holding hands between men and women is regarded as "sexual promiscuity". These are usually sentenced to heavy punishment - usually the death penalty.
That can be said to be a great shame in the history of the legal system, because there is no standard for sentencing.
"Too much nudity" is not a standard that can be strictly defined. I think TV stations should cut out all TV scenes with swimwear, because "women who only wear a few pieces of cloth" will make my nephew addicted to pornography - don't be surprised, such extreme practices are constantly happening in China.

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

This is a real, nationally famous farce. An angry mother roared to burn down the bookstore because she thought that the "poisonous" entertainment novels sold by the bookstore hindered her son's study.

In China, asceticism is still the most important educational policy.

Click to expand...

What the fuck are you smoking.

Consensual kissing was never sexual harrasment lol nor is it hooliganism which is legally narrowly defined as types of armed robbery which were specifically widespread during the 1980s in mainland China as well as Hong Kong.

You can easily have sex outdoors and no one would care unless it is very disruptive to the passerbys and maybe someone will complain you are practicing public nudity. Which carries penalty of a fine.

If you think there was ever death penalty for this stuff, it sounds like you have had one too many weed brownies. Well, selling those actually gives a hefty jail time.

BoraTas said:

I will ask people here only a single question. Would 99+% of what Japanese and South Korean entertainment industries release be legal to release in China? The answer is yes. So the answer is not censorship.

1- China has not been developed for long enough. Entertainer is a job that is as urban middle class as its gets. And poor people don't spend money on entertainment.

2- China is still perceived as a poor country by many because of its pace of development. People are not attracted to poor people things. As a poor nation, you are "exotic" at best.

3- Elephant in the room. Anglo-Saxons have been the dominant culture for 250 years. And that the dominant culture dislikes China. Yellow peril is 200 years old
View attachment 103668

1st and 2nd will be solved on their own by the Chinese people. 3rd? Won't be solved. The US superpowerdom emerged in a world that was heavily Westernized and English was already a global language. The same is not true for China. In fact the exact opposite is true. In this environment, I see no reason to lift the firewall. Remember, the playing field is not fair. Unless you want Chinese user data to be stored in the USA, it would have no benefits at all. China is currently like Portuguese missionaries who were preaching Christianity in India in the 16th century.

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Throughout recent history, there was a persistent fear that because USA has more netizens then we have and also a wider access to paid commentators, they will just flood in and displace all the domestic voices. Therefore splitting the Internet into our side and their side made sense.

But now things have arguably changed and what China "needs" is more engagement with English speaking internet. I put need in quotation marks because this is not an urgent nor very necessary need. Yet it doesn't cost much to do so and China has to do it eventually.

The whole system of Internet sovereignty needs an overhaul. Every type of censorship that is broadly deemed unpopular according to the will of the people by their popular representatives, as befits a people's democracy, should be removed.

What sort of people should then replace them? China should instead mainly turn to the subpopulation of the communist youth league that are chronically online.

The CIA fake of a supposed 50 cent army, as ridiculous at it sounds, is actually not a bad idea. China should adopt American style paid commentator armies, which can further be enhanced by AI. Not the way Americans apply AI by making poorly generated twitter accounts which just end up looking creepy, but by using AI to identify the target topics where human paid commentators can have the maximum impact.

China has enough netizens that it can now shift its Internet defense strategy from passive defense to active defense.

In the new framework, there will be no more visible censorship, in fact the concept of censorship itself will be censored so that if anyone brings up censorship, he/she will have their opinion buried.

Instead, grassroots encouragement, public social influencers will make up the frontline, with government/military departments armed with AIs acting as the backline, supporting and directing the grassroots patriotic with targeted assistance.

Western bots will be rooted out by these government workers. But most of them will not be quietly banned like under the current system, instead, the evidence of their capture, their exposed methods, names and national belonging will be shown to the public.

Biscuits said:

China has enough netizens that it can now shift its Internet defense strategy from passive defense to active defense.

In the new framework, there will be no more visible censorship, in fact the concept of censorship itself will be censored so that if anyone brings up censorship, he/she will have their opinion buried.

Instead, grassroots encouragement, public social influencers will make up the frontline, with government/military departments armed with AIs acting as the backline, supporting and directing the grassroots patriotic with targeted assistance.

Western bots will be rooted out by these government workers. But most of them will not be quietly banned like under the current system, instead, the evidence of their capture, their exposed methods, names and national belonging will be shown to the public.

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Many people are calling for this, but it is obviously difficult to identify "who is loyal".
The people accused the propaganda department of being completely occupied by evil traitors.
A vicious speculation is that this is a strategy to incorporate the opposition and arrange them in seemingly "harmless" departments to reduce their threat.
But I think this idea is absurd.

Sadly, the Loyalists always seem to be the first to be attacked. In recent years, the handling of major public opinion emergencies has been very unsuccessful, which has disappointed many people.
The NBA event in 2019 is very representative. The enthusiasm of the people obviously cannot rival the attraction of American basketball players. Patriots are as weak as MAGA in real action. One year later, CCTV rebroadcast the NBA, which made many people feel betrayed.
The excitement I was aroused by the military parade quickly cooled down. Powerful and advanced weapons were worthless in front of a basketball, and the government seemed to lack the determination to confront the United States . In 2019, the leadership still seems to have fantasies about the United States.
This year's response to Pelosi was also quite a failure. I don't think that exercise was a deterrent to the United States. I think this time the humiliation is no less than 1996. Hu Xijin, regarded as a semi official, lost his reputation.

Perhaps the biggest problem is that the government does not need self righteous and self touching loyalists at all. The government is more afraid of populists' manipulation, so they still "guard against the Right, but mainly against the Left".

Someone mentioned such an interesting fact: the staff of China's network management department is far less than that of Russia. But they manage the largest group of network users in the world. Now you can understand why their management is so bad and inefficient, right?