Culture Wars?
That's a No-No, Beijing!
China regrets the decision. Notice, they didn’t say that they regret having done anything naughty, they just regret the decision that went against them. In a December 21 ruling, a WTO appeals panel upheld the ruling by an earlier panel of experts that restricting imports and distribution of foreign films, TV shows and books to a handful of government-controlled companies runs counter to China’s WTO obligations. The case was brought by the United States, but cheered on by any country that exports media products to China.
I confess that I have not read all 195 pages of the ruling, though it is worth a glance to see how thorough and, frankly, even-handed a WTO panel really is. The ruling was on reasonably narrow grounds, focused on the monopoly aspects of China’s actions. Beijing tried to obfuscate by saying they have the right to control imports for moral and cultural reasons, but that was not the immediate issue, which was the artificial narrowing of choice for how to distribute media products in China. But China persists in arguing that “… cultural goods combine commercial and cultural value, and should be managed in a different way than other products.” Uh hunh. That wasn’t what the case is about. Besides, the WTO recognizes the occasional need to take action to protect public morals (that’s why most countries can control cross-border movement of pornography, however it is defined in their society). From 1947, and now incorporated in the WTO, GATT Article XX specifically allows trade restrictions “… necessary to protect public morals.” It is OK for China to censor imported media for morals, but they must do so on a non-discriminatory basis and allow open access for products that clear the censors. China hasn’t been doing that.
There is a long history in the WTO and the GATT about imports of “cultural products.” A famous battle took place in Geneva between Hollywood and France over France’s old screentime quotas, which were meant to protect the French industry under the skirts of protecting French culture. This doesn’t bode well for the future of China’s current restriction that only twenty foreign films can be imported annually, which wasn’t addressed in the current case. (Gee, does China restrict its film pirates to copying only twenty films a year? I don’t think so.) I’m anticipating that Bollywood and Hollywood will join together to force New Delhi and Washington to bring the next case.
