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Leading Chinese film director Zhang Yimou shows his best director prize at the 2018 Golden Horse Awards in Taipei. China has announced a boycott of the awards, considered the Chinese Oscars, as it seeks to raise political pressure on self-governing Taiwan, which it sees as a renegade province. Photo: AP
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Amid China boycott of Taiwan film festival, five other times it used culture as a political tool

  • Arts are meant to serve politics under Communist Party doctrine, and China has employed them as a weapon before when nationalist hackles have been raised
  • K-pop singer Chou Tzu-yu, Taiwanese actor Leon Dai, Hong Kong’s Denise Ho, Anthony Wong and Chapman To have been hit by Chinese bans inspired by politics
Chinese language cinema
Elaine Yau
Elaine Yauin Beijing
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The news that China will not take part in the Golden Horse Film Festival and Awards in Taiwan this year has reinforced China’s image as a country that uses arts and entertainment as a political tool.

The decision to withdraw from the annual event, dubbed the Asian Oscars, is just the latest example of arts and entertainment being entangled in tensions across the Taiwan Strait. The island has self-determination but Beijing considers Taiwan a renegade province.

That arts should serve politics is a mantra to which the Chinese Communist Party has long adhered. In 1942, its then leader Mao Zedong said at the Yan’an Forum on Literature and Art that all art should reflect the life of the working class, advance socialism and serve politics.

Taiwanese artists and entertainers aren’t the only ones to have been caught up in political tensions involving China. Hong Kong and South Korean artists and entertainers have received similar treatment.

A supporter of Taiwan's Democratic Progressive Party holds up a placard of K-pop artist Chou Tzu-yu, a member of the South Korean all-girl band Twice, who was forced to apologise after waving the Taiwanese flag, at an event in 2016. Photo: AFP

Here are five other times political controversy has had cultural repercussions for China’s neighbours:

1. Chou Tzu-yu

In 2015, a Taiwanese member of K-pop girl group Twice, Chou Tzu-yu, waved a flag of the Republic of China, as Taiwan calls itself, during an appearance on a South Korean TV show. The act prompted waves of anger from Chinese internet users, who accused Chou of promoting separatism and called for a boycott of the singer and band.

She was forced to release a videotaped apology issued by her South Korean management company, JYP Entertainment.

Chinese television stations barred Twice from their broadcasts, telecommunications giant Huawei ended its endorsement of Chou, and JYP Entertainment suspended all her engagements in China. Taiwan’s then president, Ma Ying-jeou, and his presidential election rival, now president, Tsai Ing-wen, came out in support of Chou, further inflaming cross-strait ties.

Taiwanese director and actor Leon Dai.

2. Zhao Wei and Leon Dai

In 2016, Chinese actress and director Zhao Wei became the target of nationalist ire when Taiwanese actor Leon Dai Li-jen was cast in her film Mei You Bie de Ai, or No Other Love. Dai supports independence for Taiwan, and was a strong supporter of Taiwan’s “sunflower” student movement and the Occupy Central pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong. The Communist Youth League mounted a vehement social media campaign calling for a boycott of the film.

3. Ten Years

In 2016, when Hong Kong film Ten Years , a dark sociopolitical fantasy that imagines what Hong Kong might look like in 2025 amid China’s growing influence on the city, was nominated for best picture in the Hong Kong Film Awards, Chinese media including state broadcaster CCTV and Chinese streaming giant Tencent refused to show the film awards ceremony.
A scene from Chow Kwun-wai's mockumentary Self-Immolator, one of five short films that make up dystopian Hong Kong film Ten Years.
Actor Anthony Wong and singer Denise Ho show their support for the 2014 “umbrella movement”. Both have been banned from appearing in China and in Chinese productions since then. Photo: Dickson Lee

4. Participants in Hong Kong’s “umbrella movement”/Occupy Central

Hong Kong stars who are pro-democracy supporters, including singer Denise Ho Wan-sze and actors Anthony Wong Yiu-ming and Chapman To Man-chat have been banned in China since they took part in the Occupy Central protest movement in 2014.

5. K-pop and K-drama stars

China is South Korea’s second-largest overseas market for dramas, songs and other media content. But the 2016 decision by South Korea to deploy a US-developed missile defence system within its borders to deter North Korea led to a Chinese blackout of South Korean actors and singers. Entertainment events featuring South Korean stars were cancelled. Mainstream video sites including Youku, Tencent and iQiyi took down Korean dramas and variety shows.

Given the continuing cross-strait tensions and current political unrest in Hong Kong, in which some protesters have shown antipathy towards China, artists and entertainers from Taiwan and Hong Kong are certain to find themselves negotiating the minefield of Chinese cultural censorship.

Cast members of Chinese film An Elephant Sitting Still pose backstage at the Golden Horse Awards in 2018 after the production won the award for best feature film. No one from China’s film industry will be allowed to attend this year’s ceremony. Photo: Reuters

But the Taiwanese public seemed unfazed and defiant yesterday in the face of China’s boycott of the Golden Horse Awards in November.

TEDxTaipei co-founder Jason Hsu said on Facebook that culture and the arts should not be a tool to serve politics.

“I believe movie-makers across the strait are also [facing a] crackdown [by their government]. Movie-makers are victims [of] cross-strait political reality. They long for freedom [to create] ….”

Karen Yu, a legislator from Taiwan’s Democratic Progressive Party, said she was grateful that China had willingly withdrawn from the Golden Horse Awards, because it meant people in Taiwan and Chinese people around the world could enjoy the awards ceremony without it being besmirched by politics.

“China uses politics to direct the arts and ride roughshod over Taiwan. The Golden Horse Awards has shown much tolerance but China regrettably does not take up our goodwill and went out of its way to [politicise] them.

“On the surface, China’s decision seems to be a crackdown and a boycott. But it actually is good news, as the Golden Horse Awards can finally stop being a stage where politically motivated filmmakers [from China] throw tantrums.”

Taiwanese director Fu Yue delivers her acceptance speech next to producer Hong Ting-yi after wining the best documentary prize at the 2018 Golden Horse Awards. Fu said her biggest hope was for “our country” to be regarded as an “independent entity”. Photo: Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival Executive Committee/AP
Talk of a ban on Chinese artists taking part in the awards began after last year’s ceremony, at which award-winning Taiwan-born documentary filmmaker Fu Yue called for the world to recognise Taiwan as an independent country in her acceptance speech.

This is the first time that Beijing has banned its films from competing in, and its filmmakers from attending, the Golden Horse Awards since Taiwan officially allowed participation by China in 1996.

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