The left-wing PEN America has repeatedly attacked President Donald Trump as a menace to free speech. Now the elite cultural organization finds itself in the awkward position of agreeing with the Trump administration on the issue of Hollywood’s cozy relationship with China’s Communist regime, which is suppressing the freedom of expression around the world.
PEN America published a scathing report Wednesday in which it said that Beijing is “creating a climate of self-censorship” in Hollywood, with studios routinely making compromises on free expression by changing the content of their movies that are intended for both American and foreign audiences.
“These concessions to the power of the Chinese market have happened mostly quietly, with little attention and, often, little debate. Steadily, a new set of mores has taken hold in Hollywood, one in which appeasing Chinese government investors and gatekeepers has simply become a way of doing business,” the study says. “We have developed this report on Beijing’s influence over Hollywood because we believe this influence cannot be ethically decoupled from the Chinese government’s practices of suppressing freedom of expression at home.”
The Trump administration has recently hammered Hollywood for its regular deference to China’s censors. Both Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Attorney General Barr have spoken publicly about how the major Hollywood studios are sacrificing freedom of artistic expression in order to gain access to the Chinese market.
“Every year at the Academy Awards, Americans are lectured about how this country falls short of Hollywood’s ideals of social justice. But Hollywood now regularly censors its own movies to appease the Chinese Communist Party, the world’s most powerful violator of human rights,” Barr said during a speech last month at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum in Michigan.
Watch below:
U.S. Department of State / YouTube Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) has proposed a law that would strip any Hollywood movie of federal assistance if it engages in censorship to please China.
Watch below:
VIDEO
As Breitbart News has reported, Hollywood movies have repeatedly sought to placate China by idealizing the country or by removing story elements that Beijing could find offensive:
The big, disaster epic 2012 portrayed the Chinese government as humanity’s literal saviors.
Alfonso Cuaron laid some love on the Chinese in Gravity by inventing a space station they do not have.
While the book World War Z depicted the zombie plague as having begun at the hands of an incompetent and corrupt Chinese government, the movie moved the origin story to North Korea.
Transformers 2 set much of its actions in the gleaming, modern, and pristine city of Shanghai — no squalor there!
The upcoming Top Gun: Maverick is so concerned with offending its Chinese masters, Tom Cruise’s iconic flight jacket was stripped of its Japanese and Taiwanese flags.
And on and on and on …
PEN America also pointed out Hollywood’s hypocrisy in frequently criticizing Washington but failing to do the same for Beijing.
Actors from left, Chen Zhen, Joe Russo, Tom Holland, Mark Ruffalo, Robert Downey Jr., Tom Hiddleston, and Anthony Russo, pose for the media during a promotional event for the latest Avengers: Infinity War movie outside the Walt Disney Grand Theater at the Shanghai Disney Resort on Thursday, April 19, 2018. (AP Photo)
Disney CEO Bob Iger briefs journalists on the eve of the opening of the Disney Resort in Shanghai Wednesday, June 15, 2016. Disney will open its first resort in mainland China on Thursday. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)
“Today, Hollywood enjoys a reputation as a place uncowed by Washington, and one that is often gleefully willing to speak truth to American political power. This reputation contrasts strangely but silently with Hollywood’s increasing acceptance of the need to conform to Beijing’s film dictates,” the report says.
Hollywood’s addiction to China’s box office dollars comes as studios increasingly focus on tentpole releases — essentially, blockbuster superhero movies and other big-budget action titles. The price tags for these movies are so high that studios often can’t turn a profit unless the movie is released in China, the world’s second largest movie market.
The report adds that this increasing need for access to Chinese moviegoers coincides with Hollywood filmmakers’ increasingly “normalized” self-censorship:
As the Chinese box office market continues to outpace America’s, and as the relationship between Hollywood and Beijing becomes even more lopsided, the pressures on Hollywood studios to accede to CCP censorship will only increase. The phenomenon of self-censorship will presumably only worsen. That is why it is so important to have this conversation now, before acquiescence to Beijing’s censorship becomes even further normalized for Hollywood filmmakers.
But in order to get a Chinese release, a movie must pass muster with Chinese censors, who limit the number of foreign titles that play in local cinemas each year.
Disney/Marvel Studios
PEN America noted that the last time Hollywood made movies that were critical of China was in 1997, which saw Martin Scorsese’s Kundun , released by Disney’s Touchstone Pictures, as well as the movies Seven Years in Tibet and Red Corner .
Warner Bros.
The Walt Disney Co. faced pressure from China over Kundun’ s depiction of the Dalai Lama and China’s invasion of Tibet. The pressure worked, prompting Disney to apologize.
“The bad news is that the film was made; the good news is that nobody watched it,” then-Disney CEO Michael Eisner told Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji. “Here I want to apologize, and in the future we should prevent this sort of thing, which insults our friends, from happening.”
China’s power over Hollywood is so great that the studio executives and producers who spoke to PEN American for the study did so under the cover of anonymity.
PEN America wants Hollywood studios to pledge that the censored, Chinese-versions of their movies not become the default version of the films offered to global audiences. If that’s not possible, studios must “commit to publicly sharing information on all censorship requests received by government regulators for their films.”
Follow David Ng on Twitter @HeyItsDavidNg . Have a tip? Contact me at dng@breitbart.com
Ted Cruz Wants
to Cut All Federal Assistance to Hollywood Studios that Censor Movies to
Appease China
Universal
Pictures
21 May 2020 4,498
3:25
Sen. Ted Cruz is laying out a
zero-tolerance policy for Hollywood studios that willingly censor their movies
to please Chinese Communist officials, proposing new legislation that will
block all federal assistance to the studios behind those film productions.
The senator
called China “the single most dangerous geopolitical threat” in the world in a
speech on the floor of the U.S. Senate on Thursday.
Chinese
officials want “to shape what Americans see, hear, and ultimately think,” Cruz
said. Because Hollywood studios voluntarily change characters and plot points
in order to gain access to the Chinese market, Chinese officials “control not
just what audiences see in China but also what Americans see.”
In a bill he
introduced Thursday, Sen. Cruz (R-Texas) is calling for Congress to cut
off Hollywood studios from the federal assistance they receive if those studios
censor their films for screening in China.
The senator
had previously called for the
elimination of Pentagon assistance to studios that cooperate with Chinese censors.
But the version of the SCRIPT Act that he unveiled Thursday goes even further
by suspending all federal assistance. Movie productions often request access to
federal property and military equipment for filming purposes.
The SCRIPT
Act — Stopping Censorship, Restoring Integrity, Protecting Talkies Act — will
almost certainly face opposition from the major Hollywood studios, whose
blockbuster movies often depend on the Chinese
market to make money .
Red Dawn (FilmDistrict,
Contrafilm, FilmNation Entertainment, 2012)
Sen. Cruz
noted a few recent examples of Hollywood’s voluntary self-censorship, including
Paramount’s upcoming Top
Gun: Maverick
“What message
does it send that Maverick, an American icon, is apparently afraid of the
Chinese communists? That’s ridiculous,” Cruz said.
The
Disney-owned 20th Century removed all references to Freddie Mercury’s sexuality
in Bohemian Rhapsody Doctor Strange
Sandra Bullock in Gravity (Warner
Bros. Picture, 2013)
Sen. Cruz
said that he wants the SCRIPT Act to serve as a “wake up call for Hollywood.”
“Studios would
be forced to choose between the assistance from the federal government or the
money that they want from China,” he said.
Sen. Cruz
introduced two other bills on Thursday that are intended to curb Chinese
influence in the U.S.
The Blocking
Evasive Attempts to Manipulate Signals Act — or BEAMS Act — would prevent China
from exploiting FCC loopholes to broadcast Communist party propaganda to
Americans from radio stations in Mexico or Canada.
The law would
also apply to partially state-owned stations, such as Phoenix Television.
The Ending
Chinese Medical Censorship and Cover Ups Act would sanction Chinese officials
involved in the ongoing suppression of medical experts, journalists, and
political dissidents.
Follow
David Ng on Twitter @HeyItsDavidNg . Have a tip? Contact me
at dng@breitbart.com
Biden Sold Out America to
China While Working for Hollywood Biden: "There is no
question that you've got the right guy with the right influence."
May 8, 2020
Daniel Greenfield
Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the
Freedom Center, is an investigative journalist and writer focusing on the
radical Left and Islamic terrorism.
Outside the JW Marriot in Los Angeles, Rev. Eddie Perez Romero was
being handcuffed by the LAPD.
Rev. Romero was holding up a “Free China” sign outside a Chinese
Ministry of Commerce conference. Inside was the LAPD's boss Mayor Antonio
Villaraigosa, along with Governor Jerry Brown, and Vice President Joe Biden,
who were palling around with China’s future dictator, Xi Jinping.
“My hope is that Vice President Joseph Biden, Governor Jerry Brown
and Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa will rise above any pandering spirit, but as
true statesmen, intentionally blur the artificial line between the economy and
human rights,” Rev. Romero said.
Biden though had a very different agenda on his mind.
It was 2012 and Joe was thinking about his future. A year earlier
his best friend, Senator Chris Dodd, had left the Senate to run the MPAA. The
MPAA was Hollywood's trade association and the movie industry, reading its own
writing on the wall, wanted into China, and was willing to sell its soul to
make a deal.
Biden wanted Hollywood cash for a future presidential campaign.
Dodd had been one of the sleaziest figures in the Senate, even by
the low standards of the era, eager to do favors for any well-heeled industry
from finance to entertainment. His friendship with Biden gave him a direct
pipeline into the Obama administration. And Dodd gave Biden a pipeline into
Hollywood.
“Joe was our champion inside the White House,” Dodd later said .
Two years later, in 2014, Biden began an address to the MPAA by
joking, "there have been the rumors all those years when Chris and I
served in the Senate that although I was chairman, he controlled me."
"We've just given new life to those rumors," he
continued, describing how he had left a meeting with Obama and Chancellor
Merkel, telling Obama that he had to address the MPAA.
"There is no question that you've got the right guy with the
right influence," Biden concluded.
And that’s exactly what Biden had been proving in Los Angeles as
he surrounded Xi with Hollywood tycoons, especially Jeffrey Katzenberg, a major
donor to his 2020 campaign, and cut a deal with the Chinese thug to increase
the quota of Hollywood movies allowed in by the Chinese Communist regime.
"Some of you were there. Literally when by end of that lunch
we had a handshake," Biden boasted to the MPAA. “The next year the number
of blockbuster foreign films showing in China has increased by over half and
our share of the box office revenue has doubled -- or your share of the box
office revenue has doubled.”
“Keep me in mind for Chris' assistant later,” he joked.
Biden understandably lost track of the difference between “your
share” and “our share” because Hollywood has been a reliable fundraising
machine for Biden. What was good for Hollywood was also good for Biden.
Katzenberg got Oriental Dream Works, a $330-million joint venture with the PRC,
and eventually hosted Biden's first Southern California fundraiser which
brought in $700K.
2012 was a big year for the adulterous nuptials of Hollywood and
the Chinese Communist Party.
A few months after the meeting between Biden and Xi, China’s Wanda
Group bought AMC Theaters for $2.6 billion. The Wanda Group, run by a
billionaire Communist oligarch with close ties to regime officials, is working
on a Communist theme park, and its investors allegedly include Xi’s sister. Beyond
just owning the theaters, Wanda owns the Legendary Group which has a hand in a
long list of movies from Spike Lee's BlacKKKlansman, to Pokemon, along with the
King Kong and Jurassic Park sequels.
The only reason Hollywood movies can play in China is because the
Communist leadership directly profits from them and controls what goes into
them, either directly through ownership, or by forcing the industry to submit
scripts for the approval of its Communist censors. HUAC would be superfluous
today. The big studios who make up the MPAA are all working for the Communists.
And they’re proud of it.
That’s why a Tibetan character vanished from Doctor Strange
(Disney has been the worst offender when it comes to appeasing the Communist
leadership), why Taiwanese and Japanese flag patches vanished from Tom Cruise’s
jacket in the Top Gun sequel (the movie was backed by Tencent, the PRC social
media monopoly whose social media controls allow
the regime to censor dissent and which has its paws on Wonder Woman, Venom and
many other blockbusters), and why World War Z erased references to China
covering up the origin of the zombie outbreak. That act of censorship now
appears prophetic.
Biden’s brokering of the relationship between Hollywood and the
Communist elite was more than financial, it was also cultural. Hollywood traded
access for control, not just over what Chinese people saw, but what Americans
were likely to see. Biden’s donors got richer and American movies were reduced
to a bunch of CG cartoons with limited dialogue that had to win Communist
approval.
And it wasn’t just Hollywood.
In 2013, a year after the Xi event at the Marriot, Joe and Hunter
Biden flew on Air Force Two to China. BHR Partners was founded that year and
included Hunter Biden as a board member.
Underneath all the rhetoric about the ennobling virtues of globalism was some
very parochial and familial profiteering.
The big Chinese partner in the BHR arrangement was Harvest Fund Management which,
coincidentally enough, in 2012 was targeting Hollywood with an
$800 million investment fund. That same year, you could find Bruno Wu, who had
been working with Harvest, and Chris Dodd, along with Harvey Weinstein, playing
roles at the Asian Film Summit in Toronto. And the money didn’t just go one
way.
The Delaware Board of Trade was incorporated in 2013. Despite its
name, the DBOT was not a government agency, but a penny stock startup which
received a $3 million loan from New Castle County.
New Castle County had approved the issue of $15 million in revenue bonds to
fund the DBOT "stock exchange" by touting the "globally
recognized leaders in the financial services industry" running it. DBOT’s
founders included people with experience in stock exchanges and financial
services, and Dennis Toner, who was described as a "top aide to Vice
President Joe Biden."
Toner, Biden's deputy chief of staff, is in the news for denying
that Tara Reade ever told him anything.
Reade’s decision to tell Toner and Ted Kaufman was a pretty poor
one. Both are longtime Biden men and considered as close to the boss as family.
And they’ve reaped the benefits of that closeness.
Emperor Caligula appointed his horse to the Roman Senate. After
Obama won, Ted Kaufman was temporarily appointed to the Senate. If there was
anything odd about appointing a Biden advisor to sit in the Senate, it became
odder when Senator Kaufman delivered the opening statement in favor of Toner’s appointment as Post Office Governor, by
vouching for his “loyalty” working for Joe Biden.
Reade might as well have taken her complaint to Biden, as to Toner
and Kaufman.
The current New Castle County exec has since called DBOT’s
founders criminals and threatened to sue after the company was disposed of as a
"distressed asset" in exchange for shares of Ideanomics. Ideanomics
is a Chinese crypto company trading as a penny stock and the software that
served as collateral for the loan has been described as worthless. The chairman
of Ideanomics is Wu.
The manager of DBOT-I LLC was listed as John Hynansky . The car
dealer is a Biden pal with extensive Ukrainian ties who had lent Biden’s shady
brother half a million dollars and
had received $20 million in
government loans to start a Porsche luxury car dealership in
the Ukraine.
Biden’s vaunted foreign policy expertise has consisted of
brokering deals between family members, donors, and foreign interests. These
deals haven’t been good for America, but they’ve worked out very well for
members of his crooked family, as well as assorted donors, camp followers, and
local boys.
But his biggest deal was helping broker the Chinese takeover of
the American entertainment industry.
Xi’s visit to Los Angeles hit on all the right cultural notes. He
schmoozed Hollywood bigwigs and their errand boys, like Dodd and Biden,
he watched a Lakers game , and cheered
Obama’s 100,000 Strong China initiative
to have a hundred thousand American students study in the Communist
dictatorship.
"I can say with confidence my visit has been a full
success," Xi declared.
In China, culture serves the agenda of the Communist government.
Unlike the Russians, who struggled vainly to stem the impact of American culture,
their Chinese counterparts decided to control it at the source. Biden was a key
figure in negotiating the terms on which the PRC would control Hollywood.
In 1962, the Manchurian Candidate depicted an effort by Communists
in China, Russia, and elsewhere to kidnap and brainwash American soldiers. The
modern remake replaced the Communists with a corporation and the Chinese doctor
with a South African geneticist. China could not be offended.
While Biden, Katzenberg, and Xi were partying at the Marriot, human
rights protesters were calling for freedom, and being arrested by the henchmen
of a one-party Democrat city and state for their trouble.
Even while Biden was falsely claiming that the Hollywood sellout
would improve human rights in China, the rise of China was already violating
human rights in America. Now, as Chinese drones fly over American cities,
police stalk empty streets, social media monopolies monitor every single phone,
and Democrat officials dismiss the Bill of Rights while locking up millions of
people, our rights are gone.
And Joe Biden is the Manchurian Candidate who long ago sold out
the country he now seeks to rule.
JUST FOLLOW THE DIRTY RED
CHINA MONEY RIGHT INTO THEIR GREEDY TRAITORS’ POCKETS.
"The Chinese Communist Party's vision for
the future is global domination," Cruz said. "Unfortunately, Joe
Biden isn't even aware that a battle is waging. After decades in Washington, he
has dismissed China over and over again and has allowed his family to make
money off their tyranny and deception. The United States can prevail in this
contest of nations so long as we have a president — like President Trump
— who is willing to stand up to China and hold them accountable."
After Feinstein was
elected to the Senate in 1992, Blum continued profiting off their ties to
China. A the same time, the freshman lawmaker was pitching herself as a “China
hand” to colleagues, even once claiming “that in my last
life maybe I was Chinese.” HARIS ALIC
Ted Cruz Describes Joe
Biden's 'Sophisticated Corruption'
Cortney O'Brien
"Remember simpler
times when corruption was just $10,000 in a paper bag handed secretly under a
table in a smoky bar in Washington?" Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) reminisced on
Sunday.
"Corruption sadly
has gotten much more sophisticated in Washington," Cruz continued in his
conversation with Trump campaign communications director Tim Murtaugh. "With
Joe Biden there is just a lot of questions about his family enriching
themselves in order to get policy decisions from Joe Biden."
A lot of this year's
impeachment trial focused on Hunter Biden and his conduct in Ukraine, where he
sat on the board of a corrupt gas company. They paid him $1 million a year.
"I don't know about
you but I've never had a Ukrainian gas company call me up and say, 'Hey come
serve on our board of directors,'" Cruz said. "That's kind of out
there."
Which is strange, Cruz
noted, because Hunter didn't speak Ukrainian and the only thing he probably
knows about gas is that he routinely filled up the gas tank in his car. They
only cared who his daddy was.
Cruz then repeated
President Trump's claim that Hunter got greedy and asked for $1.5 billion from
China when he accompanied his dad on a trip to Beijing in 2013. According to
Trump and others, Hunter negotiated a deal to create a joint-investment fund
between his company, Rosemont Seneca, and a Chinese state-run bank. Wanting
influence with the vice president, they reportedly gave him the money.
President Trump:
"China should start an investigation into the Bidens because what happened
in China is just about as bad as what happened with Ukraine. So, I would say
that President Zelensky, if it were me, I would recommend that they start an
investigation into the Bidens."
"They've gotten
sophisticated in this shakedown," Cruz said of the Bidens.
The senator alleged that
Biden's weak position on China has tainted his foreign policy agenda. Murtaugh
asked Cruz to expand on Biden's history of siding with China and dismissing the
CCP as a threat on the 2020 campaign trail, all of which has earned him the
nickname, "Beijing Biden."
"The Chinese
Communist Party's vision for the future is global domination," Cruz said.
"Unfortunately, Joe Biden isn't even aware that a battle is waging. After
decades in Washington, he has dismissed China over and over again and has
allowed his family to make money off their tyranny and deception. The United
States can prevail in this contest of nations so long as we have a president —
like President Trump — who is willing to stand up to China and hold them
accountable."
Biden also accused
President Trump of being "racist" and "xenophobic" when he
banned travel to and from China in January when we first learned of the
coronavirus. The former VP would backtrack on those remarks and eventually come
to find that Trump was right. It was one of Biden's signature flip flops.
"In what universe is
Joe Biden going to be able to do stand up with strength, with fortitude, and
combat China?" Cruz wondered.
Hong Kong Police Fire Tear Gas, Water Cannon at
Protesters
24 May 2020108
HONG
KONG (AP) — Hong Kong police fired tear gas and a water cannon at protesters in
a popular shopping district Sunday, as thousands took to the streets to march
against China’s move to impose national security legislation on the city.
Pro-democracy
supporters have sharply criticized a proposal, set to be approved by China’s
rubber-stamp parliament this week, that would ban secessionist and subversive
activity, as well as foreign interference, in the semi-autonomous Chinese
territory.
The
pro-democracy camp says the proposal goes against the “one country, two
systems” framework that promises Hong Kong freedoms not found in mainland
China.
Crowds
of demonstrators dressed in black gathered in the Causeway Bay district on
Sunday, chanting slogans such as “Stand with Hong Kong,” “Liberate Hong Kong”
and “Revolution of our times.”
The
protest was a continuation of a monthslong pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong
that began last year and has at times descended into violence between police
and protesters.
Police
raised blue flags, warning protesters to disperse, before firing multiple
rounds of tear gas. They later fired a water cannon at the demonstrators.
At
least 180 people were arrested, mostly on charges of unlawful assembly, police
said.
They
also said that some of the protesters threw bricks and splashed unidentified
liquid at officers, injuring at least four members of the police media liaison
team. They warned that such behavior is against the law and that police would
pursue the matter.
Earlier
in the afternoon, prominent activist Tam Tak-chi was arrested during the
protest for what police said was unauthorized assembly. Tam said he was giving
a “health talk” and was exempt from social-distancing measures that prohibit
gatherings of more than eight people.
The
bill that triggered Sunday’s rally was submitted at the opening of China’s
national legislative session on Friday. It would bypass Hong Kong’s legislature
and could allow mainland agencies to be set up in the city, sparking concern
that Chinese agents could arbitrarily arrest people for activities deemed to be
pro-democracy.
Speaking
at an annual news conference during the legislative session, Chinese Foreign
Minister Wang Yi said Sunday that Hong Kong affairs were an internal matter for
China, and that “no external interference will be tolerated.”
“Excessive
unlawful foreign meddling in Hong Kong affairs has placed China’s national
security in serious jeopardy,” Wang said, adding that the proposed legislation
“does not affect the high degree of autonomy in Hong Kong.”
“It
does not affect the rights and freedoms enjoyed by Hong Kong residents. And it
does not affect the legitimate rights and interests of foreign investors in
Hong Kong,” he said.
U.S.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has called the proposal “a death knell for the high
degree of autonomy” that Beijing promised the former British colony when it was
returned to China in 1997.
Chris
Patten, the last British governor of Hong Kong prior to its handover to China,
lamented what he called “a new Chinese dictatorship.”
“I
think the Hong Kong people have been betrayed by China, which has proved once
again that you can’t trust it further than you can throw it,” Patten said in an
interview with The Times of London.
Patten
is leading a coalition of at least 204 international lawmakers and policymakers
who are decrying the proposed legislation. In a statement, the coalition called
it a “flagrant breach” of the Sino-British Joint Declaration, a 1984 treaty
that promised Hong Kong a high degree of autonomy even after the handover of Hong
Kong to China in 1997.
President
Donald Trump’s national security adviser, Robert O’Brien, said it appeared that
China was violating the 1984 treaty.
“And
I can’t see how Hong Kong remains the Asian financial center if the Chinese
Communist Party goes through and implements this national security law and
takes over Hong Kong,” O’Brien said Sunday on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”
“That
would be a tragedy for the people of Hong Kong, but it will also be very bad
for China,” he said.
Bernard
Chan, a top-level Hong Kong politician and delegate to the National People’s
Congress in Beijing, defended the national security legislation pushed by
China, saying it was written into Hong Kong’s Basic Law — the city’s
mini-constitution — but never enacted.
Chan
expressed concern that Hong Kong would inevitably face economic hardship given
trade frictions between the U.S. and China.
“I
think we are definitely the collateral damage being dragged into this thing.
But then, I don’t think there’s any alternatives,” he said.
“But
with or without this law, honestly, the U.S. and China are always going to be
continuing this loggerhead for quite some time to come,” Chan said. “China will
remain as a threat to the U.S. in terms of the … world economic dominance.”
___
Associated Press
journalist Dake Kang in Beijing contributed to this report.
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