How is this any different than any other state-funded program? I mean, countless English speaking instructors that are shipped over seas are poorly trained, poorly paid, and offering their students a fairly shallow understanding of Western countries.
That may be the case for some things like the Peace Corps, but you don't hear those kinds of things from places like the Cervantes Institute or Alliance Francaise. They may be aimed at promoting positive views about their countries, but the content is much less micromanaged. There's not as much insistence on trying to get people to accept their government's legitimacy (or crowd out dissenting voices).
I don't think the United States government would be too pleased if American professors and students were in say - Venezuela or Iran - bad mouthing the United States.
But it happens all the time, with basically zero ramifications.
Foreigners don't want photos of the Great Wall and Chinese Folk Art?
They might, but there's more than that. Also, I'm not talking about tourist shops, but bookstores and other cultural venues. You may see a lot of beautiful photo books from Mexico, but I have yet to see a Chinese Roberto Bolano emerge from this publishing initiative.
Again, how is this different than the United States? Americans have been decrying the obsence number of sequels, remakes, braindead action flicks...
Yes, the Hollywood MachineTM produces a lot of garbage, but they don't send police around the country to shut down independent film festivals and screenings. They may often be in bed with the state, but they're not the state itself.
I think that is a very naive sentiment that probably demonstrates that the United States is simply better at controlling media that China is.
Thanks for the link. That looks like a fascinating article that's right down my alley. On the other hand, if the US government doesn't like what it sees, the army can take its toys home and the CIA can grumble, but at the end of the day, you can make whatever you want and show it to whomever you want. In the Chinese censorship regime, films get shut down all the time for simple things like not showing China in a positive-enough light (i.e. admitting that gangsters or corruption exist), or even for being deemed too complex for general audiences to understand. You can't even make a shallow Michael Bay alien invasion blockbuster in China if you show the Chinese military being unable to defeat the aliens. One Chinese filmmaker, Jiang Wen, was even blacklisted for a few years for bringing a film, already approved domestically by Chinese censors, to Cannes without applying for "film export approval." That's not a formula for global success.
And yes, I'm aware that America used to be a lot more heavy-handed with censorship and even blacklisting. I also know it's not perfect now. My main point was why China's own efforts have been ineffectual at best.