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John Metzler Archive
Friday, January 29, 2010

'Rehabilitation' of Confucius in communist China is all about control

UNITED NATIONS — The special effects movie extravaganza Avatar has broken box office records, making the American sci-fi tale the most popular film in cinemas across China. In fact American movies nearly dominate box office hits across the Chinese Mainland, despite attempts by the Beijing government to restrict the number of foreign films being shown. The control has as much to do with politics as it does with the bare- knuckled competition between Hollywood and the PRC’s state-subsidized film industry.

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Guidelines published by Beijing state that cinemas “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 from American blockbusters such as Avatar.

According to a report in the official China Daily, “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.

Beijing has countered with its own home produced mega features. Currently, Confucius, the story of the ancient Chinese philosophical sage, has been the state-sanctioned “competition” to Avatar. This is genuinely ironic given that in the early 1970’s 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 in his riveting account Chinese Shadows described these barbaric practices during the ironically labeled “Cultural Revolution.”

Anti-Confucian propaganda 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 UN 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 UN basement.

During these dark years, the Republic of China on Taiwan kept the philosophical and political flame of Confucianism alive. Yet in recent years, Beijing communists have “rehabilitated” the ancient sage for political and indeed commercial reasons.

Over the last decade, the PRC delegation have often quoted the sage Confucius in General Assembly speeches echoing moves by official China to embrace the historic and revered elements of the past, and to bring a relevance to the current communist rulers. Prof. Willy Lam of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, [Who writes the weekly 'Inside China' column for East-Asia-Intel.com] cites the Beijing leadership’s embrace of the sage as a move to ensure “paternalism” and sees it as a “adulterated form of Confucianism to assure stability.”

In fact the “rehabilitation” of Confucius started in the 1980’s in the early stages of China’s economic reform era. At that time the sage was seen as a moral paragon. Today it appears Beijing’s Marxist rulers are looking towards morphing Confucianism into 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. This satisfies what the people want. On the other, the ruling Communist party is still all about 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.

The Mandarin Chinese word for movies is dian ying, or moving shadows, may in fact prove an allegory for Beijing’s attempts at controlling cinema in today’s China.


John J. Metzler is a U.N. correspondent covering diplomatic and defense issues. He writes weekly for WorldTribune.com.
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