Avatar's challenge to Chinese gov't

Guidelines published by Beijing state that movie theatres must “strictly abide by the rule that screening time of domestic movies should be no less than two-thirds of the annual total.” The guidelines written in 2002 have been surpassed by a swirl of competition and audience demand for American blockbusters such as Avatar.

According to a report in the official China Daily newspaper, “last year, imported films accounted for forty-five percent of the total box office takings.” The top films were Ice Age, Dawn of the Dinosaurs, Transformers; Revenge of the Fallen, Harry Potter and the Half Blooded Prince, and 2012. But despite having a large domestic film industry, China as with many other countries such as France, has seen audience preferences leaning towards American movies.

Naturally Beijing will counter with its own home-produced features. Currently, Confucius, the story of the ancient Chinese philosophical sage, is being presented as the state-sanctioned “competition” to Avatar. This is genuinely ironic given that in the early 1970s the very same People's Republic of China was trying to purge the legacy and the lessons of Confucianism from Chinese life. These anti-Confucius campaigns, during the twilight of the Maoist era, tried to airbrush out a philosophical precept of Chinese history.

The Belgian diplomat Simon Leys described in his riveting account Chinese Shadows these barbaric practices during the ironically labeled “Cultural Revolution.”

Anti-Confucian campaigns extended from the political chaos of the Chinese mainland to the plush carpeted halls of the United Nations. Soon after the PRC delegation was admitted into the U.N. in 1972, Beijing's diplomats demanded that a framed Confucian Quotation on a wall of the Assembly building be removed. It was, and apparently still is boxed in storage in the depths of the U.N. basement. Yet over the last decade, the PRC delegation has often quoted Confucius in General Assembly speeches echoing moves by official China to embrace the historic and revered elements of the past, and to make the current Communist rulers more relevant. Prof. Willy Lam of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, cites the Beijing leadership's embrace of the sage as a move to ensure “paternalism” and sees it as an “adulterated form of Confucianism to assure stability.” In fact the “rehabilitation” of Confucius started in the 1980s in the early stages of China's economic reform era. At that time the sage was seen as a moral paragon. Today it appears the Beijing rulers are aiming to use Confucius as a form of socio-political legitimacy.

An article in the China Youth Daily candidly admits that “Confucius Name is Used to Make Money.”

So here we return to contemporary China, a land of stirring contradictions. On the one hand the “controlled openness” allows Avatar and other current Western blockbusters, so satisfying what many of the people want.

On the other, the ruling Communist party is still fixated on control, and is especially nervous about nascent freedoms in the arts and mass entertainment.

Thus, just to be safe, China has widely restricted cinema screenings of the popular Avatar in the countdown to the Lunar New Year celebrations. Some habits are after all very predictable.

John J. Metzler is a United Nations correspondent covering diplomatic and defense issues. jjmcolumn@att.net

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