China International Censors

A US senator from Texas, Ted Cruz, has long championed new laws to ban Hollywood from using military assets in the making movies that have kowtowed to Chinese censorship pressure.

Cruz seems to have got his way. A DoD document provided to Politico this week, revealed the department updated policy when it comes to working with Hollywood. It claimed the department will not provide production assistance when there is demonstrable evidence that the production has complied or is likely to comply with a demand from the Government of the People's Republic of China to censor the content of the project in a material manner to advance the national interest of the People's Republic of China.

The issue became prominent several early trailers for last year's Top Gun: Maverick had the Taiwan and Japan flags removed from the iconic flight jacket worn Capt. Pete Maverick Mitchell, the classic character made played by Tom Cruise.

Recently, Chinese censors have requested that Warner Brothers remove references to a gay relationship in its Harry Potter spinoff, Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore . According to reports, the studio accepted the request and cut six seconds from the movie.

Chinese censors have also requested that Disney/Pixar remove a same-sex kiss from its 2022 movie Lightyear , though that request was rejected by the American studios and the film was not shown in China.

A Canberra art gallery has removed three artworks relating to Chinese leaders after receiving complaints and hundreds of angry messages in what appears to be an attack coordinated by China.

The Ambush Gallery at the Australian National University (ANU) in Canberra removed three pieces -- including one depicting Communist China's founding leader Mao Zedong as Batman and another depicting him as Winnie the Pooh.

The works were part of a 25-piece exhibition exploring the pressures people are facing during the COVID-19 pandemic. The whole show is a comment on the abuse of power, artist Luke Cornish said.

In response to criticism of supposed racism, Cornish previously apologised for the work depicting Chairman Mao as Batman, which he said was an attempt to mock conspiracy theories around coronavirus origins. He said the other two works were taking the piss out of an authoritarian regime.

Gaming store GOG changed its plans about listing horror game Devotion just a few hours after the game's developer announced it would be available on the platform. GOG tweeted:

After receiving many messages from gamers, we have decided not to list the game in our store.

Red Candle Games did not detail the messages received, but clearly these from China or Chinese website users demanding censorship of the game.

The game from Taiwanese Red Candle Games was first released on February 19, 2019. The game received critical acclaim, but contained a reference to the internet meme likening Chinese president Xi Jinping to Winnie the Pooh. The game was removed from Steam after six days on release. Chinese users (or bots) retaliated against the meme by review bombing the game on Steam.

Dragonfly Eyes is a novel written by Cao Wenxuan, a well-known Chinese author of children's and young adult books. The book was licensed for translation into German, but the original Chinese publisher was not happy with the translation and is demanding small cuts and edits to show Chinese characters in the book in a better light.

The Chinese publisher told Nora Frisch, the German publisher of the translation, to take the book off the market pending edits.

Dragonfly Eyes tells the story of a French woman married to a Shanghai entrepreneur. During the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s, the woman - by then a grandmother -- is accused of being a spy. She is captured by the Red Guards paramilitary movement, who shave off her hair and parade her through the streets. When infighting breaks out between various factions, she is able to escape.

The corrections which the Chinese publisher demanded from Frisch concerned a few passages in the last chapter. In the original version, the French woman asks one of the Red Guards, an 18-year-old girl, to lend her a scarf so she can cover her head. In the revised version, it's the girl who offers the scarf to the old woman.

As Chinese authorities have begun paying more attention to how China is perceived abroad in recent years, censorship has increased. President Xi Jinping has repeatedly stressed that he expects Chinese media and publishers to contribute to the country's soft power by telling China's story well.

The impact of this policy recently became apparent in Germany, when Thalia, a large chain of bookstores, suddenly designated an unusual amount of shelf space to Chinese literature in some of its stores. Clients quickly noticed that the shelves lacked any literature critical of the Communist Party. Instead, speeches by Xi Jinping were front and center.

Thalia later admitted that the display had been curated by China Book Trading, a German subsidiary of China International Publishing Group, which is owned by the ruling Communist Party.

A history museum in western France has postponed an exhibition about the Mongol emperor Genghis Khan for three years, citing censorial interference by the Chinese government.

The Château des ducs de Bretagne in Nantes says that it decided to pause the production after Chinese authorities asked that names and terms like "Genghis Khan," "empire," and "Mongol" not be used in the exhibition. The museum also alleges that the Chinese government asked to oversee the exhibition's brochures, legends, and maps.

The museum further detailed that the collaboration was hampered by the interference of the Chinese Bureau of Cultural Heritage, which requested changes that included notably elements of biased rewriting of Mongol culture in favour of a new national narrative. The museum noted that censorship underscored the hardening ... of the position of the Chinese government against the Mongolian minority.

Taiwanese horror game Devotion is available for purchase again -- but only in its home country. A Resetera gaming forum poster has discovered that physical copies of the game are up for sale on its developer's online shop and can be purchased in Taiwan. Devotion was only available for a week early last year before its developer, Red Candle, pulled it from Steam . The game suffered from a review bombing campaign after players had discovered the presence of the Winnie the Pooh meme referencing Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Red Candle quickly released a patch and apologized a handful of times for the incident, but that wasn't enough. Chinese authorities stripped Indievent, the China-based company that published Devotion in the country, of its business license a few months after the game was pulled. Red Candle then issued a statement, saying that the game won't be back anytime soon.

Those in Taiwan can now preorder either of two physical versions of the game with different soundtracks. It's available for pre-order until June 15th, but delivery is limited to Taiwanese addresses.

A Chinese Consulate put pressure on Belfast Council to remove an image of Tiananmen Square from a public art exhibition.

A photo from the Double Take exhibition, by Zurich-based artists Jojakim Cortis and Adrian Sonderegger, displayed images of Airfix like model kits recreating globally significant events. In this case depicting an iconic image of a lone protester in front of a convoy of military tanks in Beijing.

The photograph was not removed, although it is understood the exhibition was scheduled to end a short time after the matter was raised. A council spokesman said:

We received a complaint in June 2019 in relation to a photograph in the Double Take exhibition, part of the Belfast Photographic Festival, on the front lawns of Belfast City Hall. The photograph was not removed.

Amnesty International's Northern Ireland programme director Patrick Corrigan said:

It is outrageous that the Chinese Consulate apparently sought to have the photograph, commemorating the brave students of 1989, removed from the grounds of Belfast City Hall. The state censorship of Beijing cannot be extended to Belfast.

China has reportedly threatened to sanction a Houston congressman, Dan Crenshaw, who has promoted legislation allow let U.S. citizens to China for costs stemming from the coronavirus pandemic. Crenshaw is one of at least four U.S. politicians identified by China for abusing litigation against China.

Now China's Global Times has reported that China is threatening that the four lawmakers should expect Chinese sanctions that will make them feel the pain,

The Global Times named Crenshaw and three other Republicans as targets: Sens. Tom Cotton of Arkansas and Josh Hawley of Missouri, and Rep. Chris Smith of New Jersey. All have called for legislation allowing Americans to sue China over the outbreak. Two state attorneys general, also Republicans -- Eric Schmitt of Missouri and Lynn Fitch of Mississippi -- who have sued China to recover costs from the outbreak were also named.

US Senator Ted Cruz will introduce legislation cutting off Defense Department assistance for US movie studios that permit China to censor their content,

Cruz said the bill, called the Stopping Censorship, Restoring Integrity, Protecting Talkies Act, (SCRIPT), would bar Hollywood studios from doing business with the Pentagon if they accommodate Chinese censors. He said:

For too long, Hollywood has been complicit in China's censorship and propaganda in the name of bigger profits. The SCRIPT Act will serve as a wakeup call by forcing Hollywood studios to choose between the assistance they need from the American government and the dollars they want from China.

It is common for major Hollywood films to work with the Pentagon in order use Defense Department assets such as jets, tanks or naval bases. Cruz's legislation would prohibit the DoD from providing access to such assets to US studios that censor films for screening in the Communist nation.

A cited example of Chinese censorship was the removal of a Taiwan flag from Tom Cruise's flying jacket in the film Top Gun.

The senator's office said he would introduce the bill when the Senate is next in session.

An EU report about Chinese and Russian disinformation on coronavirus was watered down after pressure from Beijing.

Chinese diplomats exerted pressure on the EU to change the wording of the report. The report -- on narratives and disinformation around the coronavirus pandemic -- was finally published with heavily toned-down language on China.

Most strikingly, references to China running a global disinformation campaign and Chinese criticism of France's reaction to the pandemic were erased.

Canadian animator Steve Angel recognizes the irony that his cartoon about censorship was, itself, censored.

Angel produced an animated sequence for the US CBS TV series The Good Fight , a legal drama that argue cases about the issues of the day.

The censored episode was based on a criticism of Chinese censorship, including Angel's animated sequence typically of around 90 seconds. The animation was censored and replaced with an 8s screen reading, CBS has censored this content.

In a statement, a CBS All Access spokesperson said after raising concerns about the animated short's subject matter, it had reached this creative solution with the show's producers.

Angel said he was disappointed adding:

There's the obvious irony of it, but at the same time, I think because it's pretty incendiary material, it wasn't a gigantic surprise.

Angel said he couldn't comment on the content of the segment, but The New Yorker reports the animation alludes to several subjects that have been banned online in China, including Winnie-the-Pooh, as the character was used in memes as a way to poke fun at Chinese President Xi Jinping. The magazine reports the clip featured the leader dressed as the cartoon bear, shaking his exposed bottom.

But according to the Hollywood Reporter , the segment began with a song that referenced China's decision to ban The Good Wife from internet video services in 2014 . It also alluded to how American studios remove content from international releases to avoid upsetting Chinese censors.

Channel 4 broadcast the show in the UK and have stated that it will show the episode n the same censored form as was shown in the US.

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) condemns repeated attacks by the Chinese embassy against Swedish journalists and insists that diplomatic missions have no say in the editorial content of media in their host country.

Chinese ambassador to Sweden, Gui Congyou, has embarked on a truth crusade against the country's media since taking office in August 2017. The ambassador seems to have trouble understanding that in Sweden, a country ranked second in the RSF's 2018 World Press Freedom Index, journalists are not subject to censorship.

On the embassy's website, the ambassador recently posted a long, unsigned attack against SVT Nyheter, a major Swedish news outlet. The diplomat castigates the site for giving a platform to David Liao, Representative to the Taipei Mission in Sweden, on February 27. Liao published an opinion piece calling support for Taiwanese democracy against Chinese threat. According to Gui Congyou, the article challenges the one China principle and amounts to serious political provocation. Beijing is very aggressive in claiming sovereignty over the island of Taiwan, despite it having an independent government since 1949.

The attack on SVT Nyheter is indeed not an isolated incident. Since July of 2018, the Chinese Embassy in Stockholm has attacked multiple Swedish news sources. The ambassador was particularly harsh towards Swedish journalist Jojje Olsson, author of a book on the Swedish publisher Gui Minhai, who was kidnapped in Thailand in 2015 and is still detained in China with no scheduled sentencing. Last December, he also attacked Swedish journalist and commentator Kurdo Baksi, accusing him of instigating hatred against China.

China has complained to Sweden over a satirical news show on Swedish state television that advised Chinese tourists how to avoid culture clashes. China complained that the show insulted the Chinese people.

The satirical programme Svenska Nyheter (Swedish News), was aired a week after police removed three Chinese citizens from a Stockholm hotel. Local media reported they had refused to leave the hotel despite the fact they were not booked to stay there.

Geng Shuang, a spokesman for the Chinese foreign ministry said in a statement:

The [Svenska Nyheter] anchor's remarks are full of discrimination, prejudice and provocation against China and other ethnic groups, completely deviating from professional media ethics. We strongly condemn this.