As you ponder the pleasures of a lazy, patriotic Canada Day on Friday have a thought for fellow partygoers in China, where July 1 officially marks the 90th anniversary of the founding of the Chinese Communist Party.
China is going all out to make the anniversary a red-letter day. In the process it is undertaking a massive propaganda campaign the country hasn’t seen since the Cultural Revolution.
In the days before and after July 1, the Chinese people are being urged over and over again “to love the Party, love the nation, and love socialism.”
The country’s propaganda czar, Li Changchun, recently ordered the official state media to create “a dense atmosphere of solemnity and ardour, joy and peace, unity and advancement and scientific development.”
Sixty million commemorative five -yuan coins have been minted; all major Chinese Internet portals have decorated their home pages with red backgrounds and patriotic banners; and television audiences are being bombarded with 90 new patriotic and historical documentaries and dramas.
One popular series being aired on China Central Television is 90 Years of Red Songs, a show in which a parade of Chinese celebrities sing such classic revolutionary songs as The East is Red, Without the Chinese Communist Party There is No New China, We Travel on the Great Road and Striking Down the Western Powers.
But the centrepiece of the propaganda blitz is a two hour feature film, Jian Dang Wei Ye (The Founding of the Party), which has just been released internationally with the English title Beginning of the Great Revival.
An historical epic set in the decade between the ending of the Qing Dynasty in 1911 and the founding of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in Shanghai in 1921, the movie showcases the early lives of such historical figures as Mao Zedong, Chiang Kai-shek and Zhou Enlai.
The star-studded blockbuster features 178 of the world’s top Chinese actors from the mainland, Taiwan and Hong Kong. Established international stars like Chow Yun-fat, John Woo and Andy Lau were so eager to take part they reportedly waived their salaries.
In a sign of how much China is changing, General Motors’ Shanghai subsidiary is listed the film’s “Chief business partner.”
Essentially, GM, which is about 30% owned by the U.S. government, is helping sponsor a propaganda film about the CCP.
Still, the country’s leaders are leaving nothing to chance in their determination to make the movie and the party’s anniversary a huge success.
Movie theatre operators all across China have ordered to put Beginning of the Great Revival on as many movie screens as possible. Officials have guaranteed there will be no serious cinematic rivals for the first six weeks of its run by postponing the China release dates of such films as Transformers 3, Cars 2, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Strange Tides and the last installment of Harry Potter and the Deadly Hallows.
Last week, Chinese movie goers had little else to choose from, as Beginning of the Great Revival ran on more than 6,000 screens, including 20 of the country’s 24 IMAX theatres.
To guarantee viewers, many Chinese companies are compelling their employees to see the film. Local government websites are also urging people to see the film as a patriotic responsibility and some municipalities have bought up an entire day’s worth of tickets to ensure a full house.
That could push the movie into the ranks of China’s highest grossing Chinese-language movies, with projected earnings of more than US$92-million.
Not bad for a film produced by the state-owned China Film Group for just US$10.8-million. But profit is almost as important as propaganda in new China.
Some things haven’t changed. Chinese officials still aren’t prepared to have their propaganda projects criticized in public.
When preliminary reviews of the movie were posted on Chinese Internet sites, viewer comments were generally negative. As a result, the most popular movie review websites suddenly found their public star rating systems disabled.
China communist leaders may have good reason to be sensitive to criticism, especially since last month they put down an uprising by ethnic Mongolians and more recently suppressed riots in southern China by migrant workers.
After all, in dramatizing one of the most chaotic periods in Chinese history, Beginning of the Great Revival has had to depict mass protests, with students storming government offices, and outlines the secret founding of the CCP, which at the time was an illegal organization.
National Post
pgoodspeed@nationalpost.com
pgoodspeed@nationalpost.com
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