Why is the Chinese Communist Party afraid of ghosts? – US Embassy in Georgia

Who doesnt like a good scary movie? Or a tale of adventure that spans the dimensions of time and space?

The Chinese Communist Party routinely censors movies, newspapers, television and social media within China that criticize its repression in Tibet, its crackdown in Tiananmen Square and, of course, its censorship.

But why would the CCP be afraid of ghosts and time travel?

According to PEN Americas recent reportMade in Hollywood, Censored by Beijing,the CCP censors topics that could remind viewers of its authoritarian control and corruption.

In Chinese literature and folk tales, evil ghosts serve as a metaphor for corrupt officials, the report says, citing Aowen Jin, a British artist who was born in China. Banning ghost stories sounds almost absurd and laughable to the West, and yet it carries the deep-rooted, historical fear that the government feels about its own people, Jin said.

The 2016 U.S. remake of the comedyGhostbusterswas banned in China. It fell victim to the CCPs 2008 restrictions of movies that depict terror, ghosts and the supernatural.

One Hollywood writer tellsPEN America, a nonprofit that defends freedom of expression, that the popular 1990 movieGhostwith Demi Moore would likely not be remade today for fear CCP censors would ban it from the lucrative Chinese market.

ThePEN Americareport is merely the latest evidence of how far the CCP will go to maintain its grip on information. The Committee to Protect Journalists, in a December 2019 report, found thatChina jails more journaliststhan any other country in the world.

The CCP also employs tens of thousands of people at the national, provincial and local levels to monitor the internet. Banned content ranges fromreferences to the regimes human rights violationsat Tiananmen Square in 1989 to images of Winnie the Pooh, which Chinese internet users sometimes use to represent President Xi Jinping.

The regime seeks to ensure Chinese people learn only the partys version of history.

CCP censors in 2011 issued guidelines banning depictions of time travel, claiming those movies had been treating serious history in a frivolous way. Although the prohibition is vague, a Hollywood producer tellsPEN Americathat stories of time travel could offer different interpretations of history.

A critical view of modern historylanded Mongolian historian Lhamjab Borjigin in jailin 2019 on charges of separatism and sabotaging national unity for publishing a book documenting CCPbacked atrocities in Inner Mongolia during the Cultural Revolution.

CCP censorship reaches beyond China, as movie producers worldwide acquiesce to CCP demands to change details,alter charactersand rewrite major plot points to gain access to the countrys market of moviegoers.

American film director Judd Apatow recently told MSNBC that movies that would awaken the world to the CCPs ongoing human rights abuses, such as its internment of more than 1 millionUyghursand other minorities in Xinjiang, might never get made.

Instead of us doing business with China and that leading to China becoming more free, Apatow said, what has happened is China has bought our silence with their money.

U.S. Attorney General William Barr said in July, Globalization does not always point in the direction of greater freedom. A world marching to the beat of Communist Chinas drums will not be a hospitable one for institutions that depend on free markets, free trade, or the free exchange of ideas.

By U.S. Embassy Tbilisi | 21 October, 2020 | Topics: History, Human Rights, News | Tags: China

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Why is the Chinese Communist Party afraid of ghosts? - US Embassy in Georgia