Chinese censorship abroad
[15][16][17] Traditionally, foreign companies wishing to do business in China needed to avoid references to "The Three Ts and Two Cs": Tibet, Taiwan, the Tiananmen Square massacre, cult (the CCP's label for Falun Gong), and criticism of the Chinese Communist Party.
[18] Further sensitive topics include: comments about current CCP General Secretary Xi Jinping's weight,[22] including comparisons to rotund children's character Winnie the Pooh;[23] the Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution, disregard of the Chinese government's nine-dash line in the South China Sea dispute; the internment camps and other human rights abuses against Uyghurs in Xinjiang;[24][25][26][27] expressions of support for the 2019–2020 Hong Kong protests,[28] and the government's censorship of the COVID-19 pandemic.
[31] Historically, censorship in China was contained within the country's borders, but following the ascension of Xi Jinping to General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party in 2012, the focus has expanded to silencing dissent and criticism abroad, particularly in academia.
[35] In 2019, the PRC Consul-General in Brisbane, Xu Jie, faced legal proceedings by Drew Pavlou, a student who had organised a demonstration in support of the 2019–2020 Hong Kong protests.
[44] Concerns have been raised about the activities of Chinese government-funded Confucius Institutes in western universities, which are subject to rules set by Beijing-based Hanban that prevent the discussion of sensitive topics including Tibet, Tiananmen Square and Taiwan.
[46] Foreign Policy has likened Confucius Institutes to the "anaconda in the chandelier"; by their mere presence, they impact what staff and students feel safe discussing which leads to self-censorship.
[59] There is a history of branches pressuring their host university to cancel talks relating to Tibet, democracy movements of China, Uyghurs, the Hong Kong protests, and Falun Gong.
[65][61] The McMaster University branch in Canada had its club status revoked in 2019 after coordinating its opposition to a speech by Uyghur activist Rukiye Turdush with the local Chinese consulate, including sending back footage, in violation of student union rules.
[59] In 2018, the Civil Aviation Administration of China sent letters to 44 international airlines demanding that they cease referring[67] to Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau as separate countries on their websites, or risk being classified as "severely untrustworthy" and subject to sanctions.
[70] Hollywood producers generally seek to comply with the Chinese government's censorship requirements in a bid to access the country's restricted and lucrative cinema market, with the second-largest box office in the world as of 2019.
[74][75] Western productions also engage in self-censorship on topics and themes that may trigger censorship and backlash in mainland China in order to access its lucrative domestic market, and to appease their financial investors.
"[78] Testifying before the United States Senate Committee on Finance, Subcommittee on International Trade, Customs, and Global Competitiveness on "censorship as a non-tariff barrier" in 2020, Richard Gere, chairman of the board of directors for the International Campaign for Tibet, stated that economic interest compel studios to avoid social and political issues Hollywood once addressed, "Imagine Marty Scorsese's Kundun, about the life of the Dalai Lama, or my own film Red Corner, which is highly critical of the Chinese legal system.
[84][85] A 2019 article by The Washington Post stated that Hollywood "tried to avoid content that authorities find morally or politically offensive" to win film distribution slots, and listed Red Dawn modifying the movie's villains as being from North Korea rather than from China as an example.
[86] In 2016, Marvel Entertainment attracted criticism for its decision to cast Tilda Swinton as the "Ancient One" in the film adaptation Doctor Strange, using a white woman to play a traditionally Tibetan character.
[87][88] The film's co-writer, C. Robert Cargill, stated in an interview that this was done to avoid angering China:[89] The Ancient One was a racist stereotype who comes from a region of the world that is in a very weird political place.
"Another instance of China censorship influence on Hollywood productions was when Mission: Impossible III deleted scenes shot in Shanghai, which featured "laundry drying on clotheslines from apartment buildings", that the Chinese censors requested be cut because they believed it presented a backward view of the country to the rest of the world.
[90] According to interviews conducted by human rights group Pen America, LGBT content was removed from Bohemian Rhapsody, Star Trek Beyond, Alien: Covenant and Cloud Atlas, to avoid antagonizing Chinese censors.
[102][103][104] In March 2022, China's major online streaming services such as iQiyi, Tencent Video and Youku removed most of Keanu Reeves' filmography after he made a virtual appearance at a benefit concert for Tibet House, a nonprofit linked to the Dalai Lama.
[114][115] On June 25, 2020, GMM Grammy, the parent company of GMMTV, where he is a talent, sent lawyers to the Technology Crime Unit to file lawsuits against social media users accused of spreading malicious messages about him.
[120] Due to the sensitive nature of this topic, many companies, including many outside China like Riot Games, Electronic Arts, Activision Blizzard, Ubisoft, GOG and Krafton, tend to avoid commenting on this issue, preferring silence to the risk of offending either the Chinese authorities or their critics.
[153] In August 2019, a delegation of the German Bundestag due to visit China had all their visas blocked as one of its members, Margarete Bause, a Green, is a vocal supporter of the Muslim Uyghur minority.
It contained strong endorsements of current Chinese foreign policy, such as "The belt and road initiative (BRI) proposed by China is one of the greatest ideas we've ever heard globally.
[160] On 15 November 2019, the Culture Minister of Sweden, Amanda Lind, went against the wishes of the Chinese Communist Party leadership and awarded Gui Minhai the PEN Tucholsky prize in absentia.
[168] Cambridge University Press drew criticism in 2017 for removing articles from its China Quarterly covering topics such as the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, Tibet, Xinjiang, Hong Kong and the Cultural Revolution to avoid having its Chinese operations shut down.
[172][173] In August 2020, Springer Nature was reported to have rejected the publication of an article at the behest of its co-publisher, Wenzhou Medical University, from a Taiwanese doctor because the word "China" was not placed after "Taiwan.
"[174] Springer Nature has removed articles without even informing the authors and refused "to reverse the decision but continuing to justify it as being in the best interests of the global academic community and necessary for the advancement of research".
[178] Several American technology companies cooperate with Chinese government policies, including internet censorship, such as helping authorities build the Great Firewall to restrict access to sensitive information.
David Greene, Civil Liberties Director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said that content moderation was impossible to do perfectly and "egregious mistakes are made all the time", but he further elaborated that "At worst, this was purposeful suppression at the request of a powerful state.
[289][290] The Milk Tea Alliance arose in response to the increased presence of Chinese 50 Cent Party, Internet Water Army, and Little Pink trolls and nationalist commentators on social media.
[292] The "Milk Tea Alliance" moniker emerged in 2020 after Chinese nationalist Internet commentators criticised the Thai actor Bright for "liking" an image on Twitter which referred to Hong Kong as a "country", and called for a boycott of his TV programme.
