As we have recently seen, nothing is spared from Chinese international politics not even a cute animated movie. The Dreamworks animated film “Abominable” has recently been pulled from all Vietnam theaters for showing a chinese map that contains the “nine-dash line” The movie which follows a chinese girl who befriends a yeti has no intention of starting a political outrage but yet here we are. The nine-dash line in question is a hotly contested border created by the Chinese that includes a lot of territory that the governments of Vietnam, the Philippines, Taiwan, Malaysia, and Brunei all claim they have.
Since China has made the claim in 1940 and created the nine-dash line, they have defended the territory their extensively. They have created islands and added infrastructure on those island so people can live there. They also have their navy defend the waters from other governments.This comes during a very problematic time for China or more importantly human rights, with China erasing any content they deem insults the government. South Park released was completely erased from the Chinese internet after they insulted China’s censorship laws. China has a 8.87 billion dollar movie market and Hollywood and other companies want to get a piece of the market but are sacrificing their rights or at least bending to Chinese censorship. The inclusion of the nine-dash line in the movie was there to appease the Chinese government but failed to respect the other countries involved in this dispute. It is scary to see so many companies and corporations give up their rights to appease a foriegn government based solely on money but I do not think this is going to stop and moving forward I think China is going to start threatening more companies into this censorship. Hopefully more media companies like the creators of South Park take a stand against this kind of censorship because if movies like Abominable can not escape the limelight any movie or show is a target for censorship.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/15/world/asia/abominable-vietnam-china-map.html
Current Issues In Media Management 
This reminds me of an article I posted about earlier this week. China ordered Apple to remove an application that aided Hong Kong protesters because they felt it was an attempt to mobilize violence against their people. And when you look at the numbers, and the amount of impact China has on Apple’s future considering the billions they make for them, it’s clear why Apple pulled down the app almost immediately. Big corporations naturally care more about money than taking a stand for what’s right.
LikeLike