Hong Kong action star Jackie Chan (成龍) this week joins China’s top political advisory body in a move analysts say highlights Beijing’s growing “soft power” efforts to project unity between itself and the former British colony.
However, the 58-year-old actor, famous in the West for Rush Hour and Police Story, faces a backlash in his hometown where the mainland is viewed with increasing suspicion.
PROMOTING TIES
According to professor Sonny Lo (盧兆興), co-director at the Center for Greater China Studies, Chan was selected to appear at the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) because his stardom could help promote ties.
“Jackie Chan is acting under the soft power and united front of the PRC [People’s Republic of China] government,” he said.
The “united front” strategy, he said, was a campaign to promote a strong and peaceful homeland, unified with Taiwan.
China’s growing clout over the past decade has seen actors from Hong Kong and Macau drafted into patriotic movies that glorify the country’s past, from the mighty Han Dynasty to the early Chinese Communist Party (CCP) era, Lo added.
However, the appointment of the martial arts star was met with derision online in Hong Kong where Chan’s reputation has taken a nosedive in recent years over his pro-Beijing stances such as calling for limits on the right to protest.
Dissatisfaction towards Beijing has risen in recent years over a range of issues from alleged political interference to an influx of mainlanders blamed for driving up property prices and for shortages of baby formula.
The announcement of Chan’s appointment was greeted with online derision.
‘BIG DOPES’
“Yet another movie star turns into a CPPCC member. Since when did this negative social trend become so popular?” one user posted on the Sina Weibo microblogging site.
“Sure, add another big dope to a veritable congregation of big dopes,” “ianson” commented on the Web site of the South China Morning Post newspaper.
The CPPCC is a 2,000-strong advisory body which includes China’s other token political parties and a few celebrities, including former NBA basketball star Yao Ming (姚明).
The conference, which is to convene today, functions as a high-profile organization, but it is more toothless than the National People’s Congress (NPC), China’s essentially rubber-stamp legislature, which opens its annual session on Tuesday.
However the NPC, with nearly 3,000 delegates, has a higher profile this year as it will confirm the completion of China’s once-a-decade power transfer.
At the meeting, new CCP General Secretary Xi Jinping (習近平) is to be installed as Chinese president, taking over from Hu Jintao (胡錦濤).
FIGHT-BACK
Chan, who is known for his martial arts skills and daring comedic stunt work, provoked a furious fight-back in December last year after reportedly suggesting in a Chinese magazine interview that protests in his native city should be restricted.
And in 2009, he landed in hot water for telling a forum that “we Chinese need to be controlled.”
Pro-democracy Hong Kong lawmaker Emily Lau (劉慧卿) said his appointment was more evidence that Beijing was not prepared to take the city’s concerns seriously.
“Maybe he represents a certain segment of the population, but he has also upset quite a number of people. So if Beijing decides to appoint him, it shows you what kind of views they want to listen to, which is quite unfortunate,” she said.
However, while increasing numbers of entertainers have allowed themselves to be co-opted by Beijing, Lau was not hopeful many would be willing to voice dissent.
“The last time Hong Kong artists came together was on June 4, 1989, [after the Tiananmen Square crackdown on pro-democracy protests],” she said.
“Now, many of them are very frightened of upsetting Beijing. The mainland is also now the biggest market so they cannot afford to let go of those commercial opportunities,” she said.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
China would train thousands of foreign law enforcement officers to see the world order “develop in a more fair, reasonable and efficient direction,” its minister for public security has said. “We will [also] send police consultants to countries in need to conduct training to help them quickly and effectively improve their law enforcement capabilities,” Chinese Minister of Public Security Wang Xiaohong (王小洪) told an annual global security forum. Wang made the announcement in the eastern city of Lianyungang on Monday in front of law enforcement representatives from 122 countries, regions and international organizations such as Interpol. The forum is part of ongoing