Born To Copy: Communist China Tries To Best Tom Cruise at His Own Game

Later this year the Chinese Communist Party is set to release a “Top Gun”-esque air force film, “Born to Fly.” Having over the summer banned a Hollywood blockbuster hit, “Top Gun: Maverick,” due to its ostensible displays of solidarity with Japan and Taiwan, Beijing instead opted to produce its own. One might jeer at the apparent absurdity of such a gambit. Jeer not. Communist China’s aversion to Western cinema is part and parcel of the party’s aim to shutter the nation from external influence and to fashion the population in its image.Values, social mores, conceptions of femininity and manhood, say, are all to be defined by, and to reflect, Communist Party ideology. What’s more, such explications are eventually to be exported, with a view to engendering what President Xi has long touted as a new and “fairer” world order. The arts –– film among them –– have a storied and prodigious history of shaping culture and defining social norms. Consider the formative influence of productions like “Casablanca,” “Gone With the Wind,” or “The Godfather” on American conceptualizations of family, sacrifice, and the muddiness of historical turnings.It is then little wonder that Mr. Xi regards China’s artists and literati as the linchpins of the country, and the world, he wishes to occasion. In recent remarks made at a national conference of Chinese Literary and Art Circles, China’s biggest arts association, Mr. Xi encouraged “morality and decency.”“Our artists and writers must be honest and clean, and their work should be about human decency and never compromise themselves for falsehood and decadence,” Mr. Xi said.Falsehoods, of course, are for the Chinese president narratives that would stray from the Party line. His nod to “decadence,” too, is but a crafty implication of the wanton West that Ross Douthat so aptly captured in his 2020 book bearing the name.“Born to Fly” will then follow the story of Lei Yu, a fighter pilot who is part of a new generation of Chinese test pilots. Alongside his comrades, and under the aegis of his navy captain, Lei trials China’s most sophisticated stealth fighter jets. It is a tale of bravery and dedication, and of overcoming one’s inevitable and fated flaws to glorify country and beget honor. It is also a tale of a country flexing its military might. Alongside the character of Lei, China’s advanced weapons systems play a starring role. The film’s trailer showcases the Chengdu J-20, Communist China’s most sophisticated stealth fighter.As such, “Born to Fly” is intended to give Chinese movie-goers a glimpse into the modernizing efforts of the People’s Liberation Army Air Force. Joining the J-20 on screen will be the Shenyang J-16 and Chengdu J-10c fighters.The film is scripted to imbue a sense of national pride. For who, indeed, cannot help but feel a tinge of patriotism when confronted with the bravery of her countrymen and the strength of her nation?Since the founding of the People’s Republic in 1949, China’s film industry has been a fundamental extension of the state. Under Jiang Zemin, for instance, state-run companies were responsible for delivering patriotic productions.Those productions then became mandatory viewing for students during his patriotic education campaign in the 1990s. That Beijing today harnesses film to advance its ideology and aims is therefore nothing new. Yet as Xi Jinping waxes lyrical about new global orders predicated on divergent values, the marriage between party and film assumes a renewed air of import. For the kind of China that Mr. Xi hopes to fashion domestically will, if he has his way, translate into how China perceives and acts in the world beyond its borders –– and how that world should act in turn.Speaking soon after the release of the 2019 Chinese historical war drama “The Eight Hundred,” the head of the China Red Culture Research Association, a group of retired military officials and writers associated with state-run media, accused the film of going beyond the scope of art to “reverse history.”“If left unchecked, it will certainly deprive the entire Communist Party of its historical basis,” he said. The film, which was set during the Second Sino-Japanese War, told the story of Chinese soldiers battling against their Japanese invaders.Beijing’s quibble was that the Kuomintang appeared in too heroic of a light. Hours before it was to have its premiere at the 2019 Shanghai International Film Festival, the film was pulled and, later, edited. History, even if fictional, had to be rewritten.In deliberations over geopolitical competition there is a tendency to focus on the formative roles of military capabilities, strategic industries, and alliances. The coming release of “Born to Fly” might then be a reminder of the need to consider the role of the arts, too.

Born To Copy: Communist China Tries To Best Tom Cruise at His Own Game

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