Rice universities Public Policy hosted the event. It is over one hour. Welcome to the Baker Institute webinar. I am steve lewis. The head of our china studies program. We are happy to have you all this afternoon. Thank you for tuning in. I am hoping not only do you find it informative and unique colleague, but froma welcome respite domestic politics, which is never as important as aging asian affairs. I would like to thank all of you again. Our hardworking staff at the Baker Institute. My Research Assistant for helping. The foundation for endowing a lot of the events here. The doctor i have known her for 10 years one of our top scholars. I think it has been 10 years. She was a postdoc here for asian interested in media. Had her and her expertise in many of our past webinars on chinese politics. We are happy to have her again today. Also, we are happy this year because she is newly minted as an associate professor, tenured professor at media studies at the university of virginia. The only thing i can say before letting her take over is to point out in the public chat section, i put in some links to a lot of our Baker Institute publications, also a book. If you want to click on those, i will refer to them but also you might find them interesting to have on the webinar. To saveage everybody questions you might have until the end. We will ask the doctor to speak for 1520 minutes, then i will talk for 1520 minutes. The topics as you can tell from the title is straightforward. Most of us have been following the news. Politics,lot about military, Security Studies and things like this in u. S. China relationships. You can read about the south china sea, all of those things. I have been at the Baker Institute for 24 years since 1996. We have a different take looking at the growth of the chinese middle class, how it relates to the chinese political system for things like energy, consumption and media. Ourselves as ae program that does original and timely and hopefully policy research on media and political communication with china. Talkingwhy we will be about the soft power side, culture, media, and these interactions. I would like to start and ask the doctor to start us off and talk about her research and what about u. S. And china and soft power. Lewis,k you so much, dr. And many thanks to the Baker Institute staff for their amazing work on this event. I would like to thank the which are funding my research this year. Assistant for her amazing assistance. About howi will talk china and one other thing i wanted to note even though i am not back in texas, i feel spiritually back in texas for this hour. It brings me a lot of joy. Ill not get the benefit but it is wonderful to be culturally back. This is a since wantpower panel i did to talk about china extending media in the cloud Entertainment Industries as well as the tech sector, and how that is shaping it overall, the advantage point of a global arbiter of soft power. This is happening in an interesting backdrop. We see chinas intentions in 2020 for the first time ever. China is poised to have the Biggest Box Office in the world largely due to the u. S. Pulling back because of the coronavirus. We are also seeing for the first platforms taking a significant Global Leadership as in the case of tiktok. A significant Inflection Point for the Chinese Media and Technology Industry where we have seen a lot of promise of the growth of the Chinese Media and Tech Industries start. This is occurring with the backdrop of the u. S. Having to pull back in a lot of areas because of covid19. It is an interesting shift, and we will see if this is a longterm Inflection Point, but we have seen a shift in 2020. As we have seen, the u. S. Is pushened in its terms to back against chinese tech investment. For example, the u. S. Wants to block chinese datagathering on tiktok. Ban has been stymied. They are facing competition from a Chinese Market were consumers have resumed precovid commercial activity. And we have seen that because of chinese protectionism within its Technology Sector and to a lesser degree the media sector, there is a moment where there are a lot of viable Chinese Technology products emerging in hardware and consumer applications. These are tools other countries are interested in using. A lot of them are expensive. We have seen global angst about huaweiption of technologies. There is a logic to that. For a lot of countries it is unclear that the u. S. Products would offer them greater security. And huawei products are cheaper. This is an area of tremendous controversy. I will throw it out as a bomb and allow us to talk about it in the q a. Today i will talk about the evolution of chinas relationship with hollywood. I will also talk about a little about my new project, data looks atng which chinese commercial datagathering within the u. S. We will explore those areas, and i am eager and happy to talk u. S. Chinalarger tech war in the q a. As far as media industries, the economic cloud allows it to insist other countries comply with its censorship structures. As a prerequisite to doing business in the country. In the context of chinas relationship with hollywood, we see a situation where Hollywood Studios are not in position to ssh back against beijing demands if they want their products in china. This does not apply to individual movies, it applies to anything that the studio does. We have seen studios pull back from different projects that they have been interested in and are doing outside of the Chinese Market. Powers a broadbased soft , turning u. S. Soft power on its head where we see a situation where hollywood, the traditional lever of soft power is being used as a way for china to control the global narrative. This is a significant moment and Inflection Point. One of the ways it is happening is in the case of the recent film, mulan. I talk about this in an oped for the washington post. The film offers a narrative for why china should overtake its whichn regions and why, is something it is doing now in real time. By making this argument for chinese imperial power and the and lack ofrence intelligence on the part of western people on china. Islan, this hollywood film making the same arguments that chinese propaganda movies would make, but doing so with the veneer of a disney movie. See, and atng to the same time we see in the case of mulan, an interesting moment where disney filmed part of the film in a place where there are active human rights abuses, there are camps where people call them concentration and reeducation camps people taken from their in aies and forced to stay government controlled place for years at a time. That is the site disney chose to film part of its film. That in itself is tacit approval of a controversial chinese policy, and policies through which china is violating human rights of its own people. This is a Shocking Development in the overarching relationship be between china and hollywood. The part that is more difficult to believe is disney has not been held to account. The human rights scandal, the cfo came out and said there was a problem with the Chinese Market, but this is only after because of the scandal reported in the u. S. That the Chinese Government instituted a media blackout s boxonstrained mulan office. The problem began when disney faced problems in the Chinese Market. We are seeing hollywood being constrained. That is only increasing as the u. S. Box office is unable to concerns about covid19. And othermulan, films released on streaming platforms, but those are lower returns. In essence, we are seeing a dramatic shift toward Hollywood Studios that must depend on global box offices outside of the u. S. , if they are to make longterm returns on investment. Most of these are publicly traded companies. It is a significant economic question. D. C. Efforts to push back against this. For example, texas senator cruz introduced an act that would prevent any u. S. Military films that studio sensor. This is something difficult to assess. We cannot know what a develop a team we do not know what stories are being told. Most of the time when things come out, it is an egregious change, for example, in top gun there was a taiwan flag on tom cruises jacket in the first film. Patch wasake, that mysteriously gone. That is an issuer we see a clear difference. We see clear examples of censorship, studio emails show there is an effort to pull back due to concerns about china. This is a thorny issue. I would argue that and in the q a we can talk about Different Solutions but it is something to keep an eye on. Another thing we have seen, attorney general barr has started to talk about these issues publicly, as has secretary of state pompeo. The u. S. Government does not have a great history of involvement in hollywood. It recalls back to dark days. After this talk, i would love to speak with dr. Lewis about ways of addressing these real concerns, but not enter a new era of mccarthyism, which does not help these issues. Within the tech landscape, we see there is an increasing shift toward Chinese Government control of any type of data being gathered by chinese firms. June 2017, china has a requires datait stored in china for chinese firms, and that includes u. S. Firms operating in china. From july 2020 Hong Kong National security law, as well as the july 3 2020 security law, an increase in extraterritorial enforcement of chinese laws, particularly as they relate to security. Pressurean increase in from the Chinese Government for china. Ta to be stored in once it is stored in china, it must be stored in Chinese Government run servers. Whichs a further way for seeming soft power. When we first look at tiktok, it appears to be soft power that enhances the popularity of chinese brands. It also has a significant hard power element because it can serve as a datagathering function. Very real hard power benefits for the Chinese Government in terms of intelligence gathering, modeling, ai modeling, developing new tools for misinformation. Is a really interesting area where we see a lot of movement. I have only given you a couple of examples how the Chinese Government is moving on this illegally, but there are additional justifications and datagathering inside and outside china. The problem is, much like with the entertainment industry, it is difficult within the context of a u. S. Free market system to constrain the activity of chinese firms that are doing this. Much like in the case of Hollywood Studios, one of the strengths of the u. S. Tech ecosystem is its openness. Much like the strengths of hollywood, its openness to new ideas. Constraining that and constraining investment from Different Countries or partners from joining in has the potential to dampen u. S. Innovation ecosystem. Saw a lote, when we forushback against the bans wechat, those bans dont work within this system. We can talk about this in greater detail in the q a. Fundamentally, what we are we are in the middle of what many have argued is an emerging or emerged cold war between the u. S. And china in the tech landscape and other trade areas. However, the significant challenges to the economies that are heavily entwined, and the strength of the u. S. Economy is its ability to absorb different influences, different capital, different ideas, and use that as a driver for innovation. Cutting off our trade relationship with china also prevents Significant Growth within the u. S. We are in a challenging moment, particularly in the context of the media and Tech Industries where it is not just about products but ideas. The u. S. Is in a challenging moment because we have a relatively slow recovery from the coronavirus. Street just across the from where this would be held, the texas medical center, the cases are rapidly increasing and putting a strain on those places. Reinvigorating the economy and these sectors necessarily comes second to making sure everyone inys healthy and safe this difficult time. On that cheerful note [laughter] i will yield to professor lewis. I look forward to speaking in greater detail about ways we can work through this, things we should discuss, Commonsense Solutions that allow us to work through this challenge with the u. S. China media and tech sectors. Thank you. I always learn so much from you, and i look forward to having our discussion with the audience in the q a session. Warrioralk about wolf diplomacy, a lot of people are not familiar with the term. Wolf warrior refers to a chinese film that came out in 2015, a chinese version of seal team s ix. Snipers, they do heroic things. It was very successful. So much so there was a second one and a third one is in the making, some of the highest grossing. Unfettered,as unapologetic nationalism, testosterone driven nationalism. One of the things that has happened is that chinese diplomats by and large for the last 4050 years have been quiet, safe, cookiecutter diplomats. They repeat the government line and do not stray far from that. They seem passionate and work a lot behind the scenes, including with chinese citizens overseas. They are fairly active, but they do not do much openly. And especially in the media, they let a traditional state media handle a lot of that. In the last year, there have been prominent cases of chinese diplomats in high profile laces like canada, u. K. , europe speaking out openly on twitter, which is remarkable because twitter is banned in china. But twitter is where there is increasingly more Public Officials feel compelled to speak out. Everything from President Trump to state department officials. Secretary of state pompeo is quite active on twitter. An american diplomat compelled to have a twitter presence. Of congress. Mbers dan crenshaw is very active on twitter. Aoc in new york also. It is the chinese diplomats seen aggressive in the sense individually arguing with people , retreating things including conspiracy theories about the pandemic. Hunching back aggressively one could say punching back aggressively, and it has drawn a lot of comment and concern. I was a particularly amongst western diplomats who wonder if it is a sign of the times, more aggressive diplomacy by the Chinese Government. Ofnever i look to see a list the more egregious comments, all i have to do is look to my emails because the director of the Baker Institute, every time he reads something outrageous put out by chinese diplomats, he sends me a copy of it. That is common for people in the state department. Let me talk about where i think this is coming from. It is tied to the Chinese Government letting its media state,and these cause i because i private media organ developed personalities. Can tie intots that. It has been a big change in Public Diplomacy but because of a big change in propaganda. , and ild talk about that will play the old timey guy role. Graduated,s when i in 1985 a degree in journalism, i found out because of the recession in america in the 1980s there were no jobs for journalists, i thought i could work on my chinese. I went to china. After a year, one of the things that opened up was a possibility inwork as a copy polisher the china news agency. Public disclosure for future security clearances, technically i worked for the chinese propaganda organ for two of 1986. The summer it was because at that time i worked in a section called domestic news, and they had four editors. Three had advanced degrees of journalism from American Colleges. This was 1985. There were big reforms going on and experimentation, including letting newspapers compete with each other and print things that disagreed with the government. As part of that, i had new comeds who said, can you and work with our reporters on teaching them on journalism, and at the same time you polish our stories and make them more understandable for a foreign audience which was a chore because they would put out a story saying, we did our first survey of Peoples Liberation army officers, and 10,243 of them support the direction of economic reform. I asked, what percentage of that . We do not have a percentage. I said, is that a good thing . They ended up pulling that story. Morewere trying to develop westernstyle journalism, more independent journalism. Before tiananmen. Not long after all the editors were fired if not investigated. Back in those days china had a brute force propaganda machine, not subtle. A lot of Outdoor Advertising at the time were big slogans and bright red letters telling people to do this and that kind of thing. The government tightly controlled state media. Newspapers in particular. The cultural revolution in the 1960s and 1970s brought out factions in the middle of the commonest party, and a lot of it was sparked and used by journalists. Ever since then, the Central Government has been careful to keep an eye on competing newspapers. Throughout the 1980s up to the to thousands, the government was careful to keep a tight eye on journalists and the socall