I had to flinch when I saw the article today in the Wall Street Journal about Wang Jianlin and Jack Ma's purchases in the Hollywood movie business. We are now going to ask CIFIUS, which tracks and occasionally tries to manage foreign purchases in the US, to see if this grab for movie studio control has national security implications. The theory here is that we should be concerned about the Chinese manipulating content of movies to produce products that more favor the Chinese view of the world and are thus fit for Chinese consumption.
It seems like the Chinese would be more interested in the means of production of movies so they could make more of their own. They have a huge audience and a crying need for content, since they ban all but 34 foreign films every year. In case you missed it, this is all part of the effort to control content of anything in print, film or sound that might be sold in China. This is all part of a new set of laws governing anything not made or controlled by Chinese media companies. Apple fell victim to this type of control and had to give up its iTumes sales in China. They are trying to buy into our media companies and ban US participation in theirs. This is the reciprocity in trade relations that we seem to have put aside for the election. Let the next President deal with it. In normal times, CIFIUS can hold a meeting and make a decision in a couple of months, but this one is going to drag out. It isn't about a national security concern for Chinese purchases of studios; it is about allowing them to buy technology that they wouldn't buy from the manufacturers in the United States.
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