Cultural Policy and Film Industry as Negotiation of Power: The Chinese State's Role and Strategies in its Engagement with Global Hollywood 1994–2012

This article explores the global-local interplay by analyzing the changing role of the Chinese state and its evolving cultural policy during its engagement with global Hollywood from 1994 to 2012. It further investigates the impact of the state policy on the formation of a domestic film industry. Drawing on both English- and Chinese-language sources and combining both primary and secondary empirical data, the article examines local strategies and resistance toward global Hollywood, and argues for the Chinese state's adaptive and negotiation capability that serves to reverse the power relationship in international communication. The state employs a strategy of taking advantage of Hollywood resources to build the domestic film industry in order to promote Chinese soft power. Therefore, by weaving both market forces and global capital into the state mechanism, the Chinese state effectively reinforces its authoritarian power.