It is common for media globalization to be characterized as the erosion of national cultural sovereignty under the onslaught of the world’s largest media conglomerates. Such portrayals evoke the specter of a hydra-headed Hollywood juggernaut spreading its tentacles into every corner of the globe. This macro level analysis of media imperialism directs attention to a worldwide system of domination that favors capitalist interests, particularly those based in the United States (Guback 1969; Schiller 1969). Critics point to the ubiquity of media products such as Batman, CSI, and Lady Gaga, while also portraying the world’s masses as susceptible, even gullible, participants in a transnational circuit of culture that feeds corporate conglomerates and impoverishes local modes of expression and public life (Miller et al. 2008). Many scholars and government policy makers argue that national governments are the best hope for stemming the tide of media imports, pointing to policies that aim to promote indigenous values and responsible citizenship by employing various strategies, ranging from local tax subsidies to public service media and from import quotas to outright censorship. Global studies scholars acknowledge that cultural power is unequally distributed throughout the world, but this school of thought sees globalization not as a centralized structure of power but rather as an interactive dynamic that unfolds at a variety of levels. They say globalization has no uniform logic and no central command center but rather is a push and pull process with many unexpected outcomes (Tomlinson 1999). The interaction between global and local institutions is therefore radically contextual. Researchers point to examples of local media competing with dominant global counterparts in many parts of the globe, and they pay attention to the ways that popular culture appropriates, reconfigures, and reinterprets global hegemonic texts. Although conscious of systemic patterns of power, global studies scholars are especially alert to local contingencies, differences, and disjunctures (Appadurai 1996). For example, they argue that national governments

are not necessarily the best antidote to globalization, since they too are characterized by unequal structures of power that advance the interests of elites through the fabrication of supposedly indigenous values and cultural artifacts. With respect to China, these researchers are quick to point out the many internal differences that belie the fiction of national unity as promoted by the Chinese Communist Party (Pan 2010). Global studies scholars therefore acknowledge that national political action can be a site for contesting cultural domination, but they also aim to uncover other important sites of cultural struggle and to explain them within the context of globalization. Although they differ in their approaches to globalization, these two schools of analysis share a set of central questions with respect to modern media. They ask: What are the relations between global, national, and local institutions? How do these relations of power affect the creative workers and media users? How do they affect the political and socio-cultural fortunes of human communities? And where might we expect to find the thriving centers of cultural endeavor in an increasingly transnational media environment? Ultimately, these questions revolve around the constitution and contestation of spatial boundaries and relationships. These relationships have shifted throughout history; they have never been fixed or stable. They are rather the product of a complex interplay of political, economic, and social forces as well as migratory and cultural flows that give shape to our understanding of who and where we are in the world at any given time. In ancient and medieval times, imperial regimes exerted their influence across space by subduing local populations and building alliances at strategic cities and towns within their spheres of influence. This was superseded by the modern system of states that were predicated on the establishment of fixed political boundaries and the internal cultivation of national populations. Under both systems, political and cultural power often coincided, as centers of creative activity developed around the centers of political rule. But capitalism also endowed many cities around the world with resources that grew from industrial and commercial activity rather than political power and military conquest. Especially important in this regard were port cities-such as Mumbai, Lagos, Beirut, and Hong Kong-that functioned as centers of trade, finance, manufacturing, and culture. Port cities often operated in between the grand empires or on the margins of powerful states. They were places where the exchange of goods, ideas, and cultural artifacts was the basis of metropolitan prosperity. The emergence of modern publications, movies, and sound recordings enhanced and expanded the circulation of popular culture. These cities were especially well situated to facilitate the circulation of transnational cultural goods and influences. They became centers of regional media economies that transcended national borders and served as launch pads for the circulation of cultural products even further afield-Indian movies to the Gulf States, West African music to the Americas, and Arab television to Europe. Such cultural flows accelerated in the latter part of the twentieth century with the emergence of satellite television, digital recordings, and internet communication. At first, these new technologies seemed to serve the interests of western

media powerhouses based in Hollywood, New York, and London, but over time they facilitated counter-flows within and between regions, and from the margins to the centers. These circulations also enabled new ways of thinking about one’s affinities with others and about one’s place in the world. Some dreamed of life in Hollywood or America but many others looked to cities such as Mumbai for leadership in fashion, culture, and lifestyle (Mitra 2010). For those that were politically disempowered in their locality or nation, these cultural centers fed their imaginations with alternative ways of seeing the world. National governments were uneasy with cultural competition from afar, whether it came from Hollywood or Mumbai, and they grew even more unsettled as it became easier to circulate music and screen media in the digital era. At the same time that cultural products were moving more fluidly across national borders, so too were capital, technology, and commercial goods circulating widely, eventually tying countries into an interdependent global economic system (Castells n.d.; Harvey n.d.). As states saw their cultural and economic sovereignty eroding, they found their decision making and administrative power increasingly being constrained by forces from afar. Many political leaders and cultural critics decried the fact that states were finding it difficult to develop policies that would allow them to manage the circulation of ideas and images within their national borders. They felt pressure from western powers to allow transnational media to flow freely and they felt exasperated by a rising enthusiasm among their citizens for cultural options from afar. If governments set import quotas on movies, consumers would turn to the lively black market in DVDs. If they banned satellite dishes, audiences would turn to the internet. Such developments helped to heighten tensions between global hegemons, national governments, and port cities. The history of Chinese cinema provides an excellent case example of these shifting relationships. Hong Kong, a port city and cultural leader, has undergone dramatic changes since 1997, when the former British colony was handed back to the Chinese government. Once an unruly and relatively independent competitor for the affections of Chinese audiences worldwide, the Hong Kong movie industry has been brought to heel by the Chinese Communist Party through a set of government policies that have drawn movie companies into the mainland market and disciplined them to accept the primacy of favored state enterprises, such as China Film and China Central Television (CCTV). The government has also successfully exploited its relationships with western media companies by controlling the content and revenue streams from the limited number of movies it allows to be released each year.1 The government has cagily manipulated both western and Hong Kong movie companies to serve its own ambitions, which are to build a movie infrastructure that will ultimately be popular with national audiences and competitive with Hollywood in global markets. It is able to do this largely because China is currently the most rapidly expanding movie market in the world with box office receipts of 2.7 billion USD in 2012, making it now the world’s second largest movie market. The Chinese middle class is reputedly flocking to newly constructed movie theaters in major cities and industry experts estimate that the

Peoples’ Republic of China (PRC) is currently on track to become the world’s second largest theatrical market by 2015 (Coonan 2010). Beijing’s apparent success at controlling its domestic movie market runs counter to what many critics and researchers see as the unrelenting global expansion of western media conglomerates. It raises the prospect of a new center of cultural power based in Beijing under the watchful eye of the state, suggesting that under certain conditions, national regimes may indeed be able to assert their cultural influence on the global stage and may furthermore be able to tame the power of nearby media capitals in cities such as Hong Kong. After elaborating the particular histories of Hong Kong and PRC media, the final section of this chapter examines this proposition and suggests that the transnational reach of Beijing based media may be constrained by the political agenda that informs media policy. It contends that Beijing is unlikely to become a global media capital so long as it is remains the seat of national government. This is because media capitals flourish at cultural crossroads, not at the centers of political power. Beijing may build a vast internal media infrastructure, but it will forever struggle to achieve cultural influence beyond its borders. Beijing has succeeded nevertheless at taming the market power of foreign competitors within its national borders. It has exploited its relationship with Hollywood and it has tamed the influence of nearby Hong Kong. Indeed, the creative community in the latter city has suffered from a serious erosion of its movie-making capacity. Hit hard by piracy, speculation, and hyperproduction during the late 1990s, the quality of Hong Kong films spiraled downward, causing it to lose the affections of audiences in key overseas markets, such as Malaysia, Singapore, and Taiwan (Curtin 2007; Chan et al. 2010). Film companies were floundering just as the mainland market was opening up to partnerships with the Hollywood studios. Interestingly, the Chinese leadership established joint-ventures with American partners while turning a cold shoulder to the Hong Kong industry, whose films were treated as foreign imports for seven long and turbulent years after the city’s return to Chinese sovereignty. The PRC government essentially starved the industry at a moment of crisis and only opened the door slowly when it was sure it had the upper hand in its relationship with “Hollywood East.” Once an independent crossroads of cultural production, Hong Kong has been allowed into the national Chinese film market on conditions that were set by the Communist Party leadership (Pang n.d.). Although it remains somewhat autonomous and continues to make films that are targeted at audiences outside the mainland, the most lucrative projects are now blockbuster co-productions with movie companies in the PRC. This has not only affected the content of movies but also the ways in which they are conceived and executed. It has furthermore transformed the lives of the creative talent that once clustered in the former British colony but now spend much of their time working with partners in the mainland. Their stories provide one way of understanding the dramatic changes that have taken place since the early 1990s. Peter Ho-Sun Chan is one of the most successful directors and producers in the Chinese film business but, unlike his counterparts in Hollywood or Mumbai,

he is still looking for a home. Chan was born in Hong Kong in 1962, lived in Thailand as a teenager, and attended the University of Southern California as an undergraduate student. He started working in the movie business during the 1980s, first in marketing then as an assistant director, apprenticed to some of the leading lights of Hong Kong’s golden age, including Jackie Chan, Sammo Hung, and John Woo. When Peter got his first shot at directing in the 1990s, the director revealed a deft touch with urban melodramas. Chan, during this decade, churned out a string of highly successful movies for young adults such as Alan and Eric, He’s a Woman, She’s a Man, and Comrades. During the 1990s, the Hong Kong industry was booming, but its success was tinged with anxiety about the fact that Great Britain had agreed to relinquish sovereignty over the city to the People’s Republic of China in 1997. The Chinese leadership in Beijing portrayed this as a glorious return to the motherland, but it was greeted with misgivings by many Hong Kong citizens who had grown accustomed to the prosperity and freedoms they enjoyed as a British colony. In the decade leading up to the transfer of sovereignty, Chan recalls, “people who could emigrate would do so. There was a feeling that you should make as much money as you could prior to the handover since everything after that would be a big question mark” (Chan 2009). Chan, like many of his peers, began looking for other options and he has been on the move ever since. He took a shot at Hollywood during the late 1990s; in 1999, he directed The Love Letter for DreamWorks, starring Hollywood stars Kate Capshaw and Tom Selleck. By all reports, production went smoothly, but the film was released that year opposite Star Wars: The Phantom Menace and was therefore smothered at the box office. Chan nevertheless earned respect for his effort and was in line for more projects, but ultimately opted out of Hollywood, stating his discomfort working with the highly corporatized protocols of American film production. Chan then decided to start his own Asian film distribution company, Applause Pictures, and turned to churning out regional co-productions. Chan worked with filmmakers from Thailand, Japan, and Korea to craft titles aimed at mature audiences with a cosmopolitan sensibility. Many of these projects succeeded, due in part to the regional circulation of screen media and popular music via satellite, digital recordings, and the internet. These new technologies helped to fuel the emergence of an East Asian youth culture in major cities throughout the region (Chua and Iwabuchi 2008). For example, young people in Tokyo began having more in common with their counterparts in Singapore than they did with young villagers in rural Honshu. Audiences in Japan might share a national consciousness, but young urbanites in countries across the region were just as likely to feel affinities with those that shared their tastes in music, movies, and television dramas. Applause Pictures rode the crest of this trend, succeeding with a slate of movies in 2001 and 2002 that included a horror film entitled The Eye, a sex comedy, Golden Chicken, as well as a torrid tale of lust and vengeance, Jan Dara. These titles played well with niche segments in cities throughout East Asia, with the exception of People’s Republic of China. Government regulations in the PRC required movies that were released to mainland theaters and television channels to

be acceptable to general audiences, which included children, parents, and seniors. For many years, officials had resisted proposals to implement a movie rating system that would allow screening of films targeted at mature audiences. Portrayals of violence, sexual liaisons, and the supernatural remained off limits. Applause Pictures might succeed in Taipei, but they could not gain access to viewers in Shanghai through legitimate distribution channels. Since Applause executives were focused on other markets, this initially caused them little concern. However, during the first decade of the new century, China’s GDP exploded, more than tripling in size, making China the world’s second largest economy. Although China’s per capita income continues to lag behind most countries in East Asia, its urban middle class is booming and the construction of new theater screens is proceeding at a ferocious pace. The country continues to add about 600 new film screens each year; most of them multiplexes in prosperous cities (Coonan 2010). As the PRC market mushroomed, Peter Chan and his colleagues found it ever more difficult to ignore. When they were pitching new projects, investors would inevitably ask them if film treatments could be adapted so they might be made acceptable to mainland censors. Applause executives at first resisted because of two major reasons: it would not only entail changes to the style and content of their movies, but there were also other challenges associated with the film business in mainland China, which include cronyism, piracy, and a general lack of financial transparency (Yeh 2010; Yeh and Davis 2008; Davis 2010; Song 2010). However, Chan eventually relented, and directed Perhaps Love, a musical, in 2005, and The Warlords, a historical drama, in 2007; both films fared exceptionally well in PRC theatres. As a producer, Chan has likewise shifted his attention to projects with mainland appeal. Despite the many problems associated with doing business in the mainland, China today ultimately looms large in the calculations of directors and financiers in the East Asian movie business. While the mainland film industry is booming, Hong Kong, which was once the capital of Chinese cinema, contrastingly, is littered with the corpses of film companies that have been unable or unwilling to adapt. As for Hong Kong’s creative talent, many have fled the industry and those that remain must keep an eye on distant markets. In fact, Peter Chan claims that the shrewdest strategy for a Chinese director today is to pursue an artistic vision without any allegiance to a particular audience or locale (Chan 2009). That is certainly a big change from the late decades of the twentieth century when Hong Kong filmmakers shot most of their productions on the streets of the city and consciously fashioned their movies for local fans. Hong Kong’s film culture was then renowned for midnight premiers, where the cast and crew would mingle among moviegoers, observing and listening to audience reactions, and sometimes even adapting the final cut accordingly (Bordwell forthcoming; Teo 1997). Movies were ultimately made for locals and their response was considered as a rough predictor of overseas success in markets such as Malaysia, Singapore, and Taiwan. The creative community made its home in this post-colonial and transnational city, among a population that had largely migrated from elsewhere and was in the process of developing a distinctly

indigenous along with a cosmopolitan identity. Moviemaking was therefore a local business with a translocal sensibility (Zhang 2010). Aspiring Chinese talent moved to Hong Kong from many parts of Asia, even as far away as Europe and North America, because they saw the city as the most promising place to build a film career. Movie executives similarly saw it as the best place to raise financing, recruit labor, and launch projects (Curtin n.d.). Today, however, Hong Kong is but one node in an increasingly dispersed circuit of deal-making and creative endeavor that is increasingly driven by the exigencies of the mainland market. Filmmakers must be attentive to Chinese government officials that explicitly make use of import policies, subsidies, and regulations to shape movie messages and to nurture the development of large national enterprises in hopes that someday they will be able to compete with their Hollywood counterparts. The mainland officials favor big movies with big stars, and tread with caution in regard to themes and dialogue. Nevertheless, China’s production values are growing ever more competitive with global standards. Occasional blockbusters do indeed break out to regional and even global distribution, such as Hero in 2002, as well as 2008’s Red Cliff Most are historical dramas, which are safe with censors because they displace controversial issues into a distant past. These films are also popular with officials because they promote the image of China as a grand and united civilization with a long and distinguished history.