ABSTRACT
When the People’s Republic of China joined the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001, its list of commitments included revisions to trade-related regulations for media goods and services. China agreed to raise its annual theatrical quota on foreign film imports from ten to 20 films in 2002, increasing to 50 films annually by 2005. In the interest of ‘expanding foreign cultural exchange and economic cooperation’, China also agreed to permit joint business ventures with foreign companies in the ownership and operation of movie theatres, entertainment complexes, advertising agencies, and audiovisual distributors (WTO 2002a, 2002b). Each of these commitments comes with some fine print. Audio and video distributors are obligated to ‘disseminate the ideological, ethical, scientific, technological, and cultural knowledge conducive to economic development and social progress’ (WTO 2002a); joint-venture movie theatres may not adopt the names of foreign theatres or TV stations; and box-office revenues from foreign films will still be shared with China Film Export and Import Corporation (a state-owned entity with the sole right to legally import theatrical films into China). Alongside these reforms, China also committed to liberalize its telecommunication market and to honour the international regime of intellectual property rights overseen by the WTO. Even as a package the measures are hardly revolutionary, especially given the Chinese government’s tight control over the range of media and information sources available to its citizens (Hong 1998; Lee 2000). But they do serve to illustrate an emerging trend.
