August 2012

Last Saturday China’s independent film community faced their latest setback when the Beijing Independent Film Festival was forced to cancel its public screenings upon pressure from local authorities.  This was the third consecutive cancellation of a festival sponsored by the Li Xianting Film Fund, which has been organizing independent film screenings in Beijing for over a decade.

Since its inception, the Film Fund’s activities have faced scrutiny from government officials, as public film exhibitions in China are typically required to pass approval from the State Administration for Radio, Film and Television (SARFT).  But with the tacit, unofficial approval of local authorities, the Film Fund was allowed to operate uninterrupted for its first seven years.

Americans today seem to know a lot more about China than they used to, as evidenced by their familiarity with more Chinese names than just Mao Zedong and Jackie Chan. Americans who have only a passing interest in China will often ask me, "What do you think of Liu Xiaobo and Ai Weiwei?" Some who have trouble with Chinese names might just ask about "that political prisoner who won the Nobel Peace Prize," "that outspoken artist the Chinese authorities keep hassling," or, now that Chen Guangcheng has spent some time in the news, "that blind lawyer who escaped from house arrest."

Every time I walk down the street and see a new project about to break ground, I know that several billionaires are about to be made. Every time I see a project has been completed, I know that a few unknown “temporary workers” are about to become famous. In this country, the completion of an infrastructure project lays the groundwork for the beginning of an anti-corruption project. It’s a place where a bunch of people drown in a mere rainstorm, or when it’s reported that people died from a “thunder” on a train, or…well, you know…where the Harbin bridge that collapsed just 10 months after construction was completed left killed three drivers. At first, I didn’t think it was anything out of the ordinary.

Over the next few months we should start to see an answer to the “hard vs. soft landing” question. Since talk of a possible hard landing began, I’ve often wondered how China’s propaganda apparatus would respond if and when China’s economy takes a sharp turn south.  The party can’t exactly just say, “Oops. I guess our system is deeply flawed and not as superior as we led you to believe.” Its legitimacy lies almost completely in the idea that efficient economic growth is a result of its authoritarian model.