2022: Hollywood, China, and the Global Battle for Cultural Supremacy

Competition between the United States and China dominates the foreign policy landscape, from trade to technology to military might. But this battle for global influence is also playing out in a strange and unexpected arena: the movies. ERICH SCHWARTZEL, author of Red Carpet, will explain how the film industry is the latest battleground in the tense and complex rivalry between these two world powers. In recent decades, China has become a crucial source of revenue for the American film industry; Hollywood studios are now bending over backward to make movies that will appeal to China’s citizens and gain approval from severe Communist Party censors. At the same time, and with America’s unwitting help, China has built its own film industry into an essential arm of its plan to export its national agenda to the rest of the world. The competition between these two movie businesses is a Cold War for this century, a clash that determines whether democratic or authoritarian values will be broadcast most powerfully worldwide.