Pengnan Hu | China’s global cinema: state-driven film-related co-operations with BRI countries

Pengnan Hu | China’s global cinema: state-driven film-related co-operations with BRI countries | University of Amsterdam | Promotors: Professor Jeroen de Kloet & Professor Patricia Pisters | Project dates: 01 September 2020 – 01 September 2024 | Email: p.hu[at]uva.nl

China now constitutes the second-largest film market in the world. One significant change accompanying this unprecedented expansion has been the Chinese government’s active encouragement of film exports as part of its drive to augment soft power. This is closely allied to China’s most important foreign policy, known as Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), which aims to intensify China’s influence in Eurasia. Therefore, this proposed Ph.D. study responds to three relevant central inquiries.1. Who are the actors of China’s soft-power, how they contribute to or reverse the Chinese state’s governance of cultural soft power? 2. What are the negotiations of governmentality on cultural soft-power? 3. What are the South-south film co-operations and how such co-operation would resist the otherness in the North dominate culture sphere? To answer those central questions, this study adds to the often-neglected cultural perspectives in BRI studies, emphasizes the unprecedented importance of the State’s role in bringing Chinese films abroad. By studying multiple actors of China’s soft power, negotiation and governmentality in the State-led internationalization of Chinese films, there is an aim to re-conceptualize Nye’s vaguely defined concept of soft power in the Chinese context. The project also seeks to contribute to the common good. With the scope of South-South connectivity and the resistance of majoritarian culture at the core of this project, the central inquiry of the dissertation is also how film co-operation with BRI countries will benefit the majority of developing countries in the BRI plan