Published by: World Tibet Network News ISSUE ID: 97/10/29

By Sharon Waxman

Special to The Washington Post

Wednesday, October 29, 1997; Page D01

The Washington Post

LOS ANGELES-If Chinese President Jiang Zemin happens to turn on the television during his week-long visit to the United States, he may be startled to see images of an American being brutalized by Chinese police, thrown in a Chinese jail and deprived of his civil rights in a Chinese courtroom.

"Red Corner," a movie starring Richard Gere as the American businessman on trial in China for murder, is opening on more than 2,000 screens across the United States this Friday and advertising for the thriller is everywhere.

But it isn't the only film with an anti-China message in American theaters this week. "Seven Years in Tibet," the true story of an Austrian mountain climber and his friendship with the Dalai Lama, Tibet's spiritual leader, is already playing in theaters across the country. The film graphically depicts the bloody Chinese takeover of Tibet in 1950, as does Martin Scorsese's "Kundun," another film about the now-exiled Tibetan leader, which opens on Christmas Day.

Japan and the Soviet Union were cast as the villains in earlier decades. Today, China -- wealthy, populous, armed and communist -- has become the latest foreign boogeyman to flicker across the American silver screen.

"It's undeniable that there is an unfortunate search for new and enticing enemies in Hollywood. It often includes a racist element, a xenophobic element," says Orville Schell, an expert on China at the University of California at Berkeley. He is writing a book on the latest pro-Tibet, anti-China trend in popular culture. "But there is a real issue here: People sense that there is something amiss about the way China tends to treat its own people. . .

Hollywood has tapped into this inchoate resentment, and that's what feeding

Whether the trend is reflecting or feeding public opinion, China's image suffers in these portrayals. In a scene in "Seven into these movies." Years in Tibet," for example, stern-faced Chinese generals coming to

visit the Dalai Lama march deliberately through a Mandalay of sand painstakingly made in their honor. In MGM's "Red Corner" the villainizing of Chinese authorities is even more direct, and the film's star, Richard Gere, a pro-Tibetan activist, plans a protest rally outside the White House today. "We're not going to pretend this is a new, cuddly Communist Chinese government we have here," Gere said in interviews last week. "They haven't proven themselves yet."

All of this can hardly be expected to escape the notice of the Chinese president, and the timing of the movies appears to be making some American officials uncomfortable. "For foreign policy to be successful it has to have the support and understanding of the American people. It's the job of the government and the State Department to create understanding for the policies it

adopts," said one State Department official who asked not to be identified, suggesting that the movies make that task more difficult. "It is not the function of the government to tell Hollywood what movies it should and shouldn't make."

During summit talks this week, U.S. and Chinese officials are focusing on things like China's nuclear exports, the sale of nuclear reactors, trade issues and the status of Taiwan rather than the question of human rights.

"The Chinese . . . if they are smart, they won't kick up undue dust" about the message coming from Hollywood, said Jonathan Pollack, a foreign policy expert at the Rand Corp. For their part, Hollywood executives said the movies had little to do with politics, and much to do with entertainment. In a statement, a spokesman for MGM-United Artists said Monday: "The release timing for the provocative thriller `Red Corner' was driven by competitive market factors, not by political considerations. The film is presented solely for

its entertainment value."

John Jacobs, president of worldwide marketing for Mandalay entertainment, which produced "Seven Years in Tibet," said: "We feel we're at the periphery of this discussion. We never thought of this as an anti-China movie. The purpose of the movie wasn't to make an anti-China statement; if anything it was to tell a piece of history. There was an interesting human story in there, and part of the story was that China invaded Tibet."

But China is nothing if not sensitive about its portrayal abroad, and last year it threatened Disney with repercussions if the studio proceeded with "Kundun." The entertainment giant went ahead with the movie, but recently hired former secretary of state Henry Kissinger as an adviser on its dealings with China.

China experts say the hostile depictions of the Asian superpower may not have a direct effect on Sino-American ties, but overall make it harder for Washington to foster the relationship.

"It does have a negative effect on the basic attitudes of Americans toward China," says Michael Swaine, a senior researcher at the Rand Corp. "It brings people to think that they're dealing with a vicious, authoritarian regime that does not really merit being treated as a legitimate government and a serious power.

"We have some major interests with the Chinese that relate to issues of regional and global security, the balance of power in Asia, nuclear, economic development, a whole host of issues that are critical to U.S. interests that we need to engage with the Chinese on," Swaine continues. "If we use issues like Tibet as the basis of our approach and understanding of China, we are really working against our own interests."

Officials at the Chinese Embassy did not respond to a request for comment. But Schell says the arrival of movies like "Red Corner" reflects Washington's failure to sell its own foreign policy to the American public.

"Washington deliberates on most-favored-nation status, on world trade, on nuclear technology, but it doesn't address the popular sentiment," he says. "It makes it much more difficult for Washington to sculpt its foreign policy because in a certain sense the issue has jumped the fire wall: It's migrated from one locus of power in Washington to another one in Hollywood."