Internet Security

Booming Chinese film market is still vulnerable

Published 5 years ago in 11th March 2021

By John

Booming Chinese film market is still vulnerable

(china org) Two phenomenal tentpole films soared into the top five ranks of all time on the Chinese box office chart, but filmmakers are still worried about the future. Chen Sicheng’s “Detective Chinatown 3,” the latest installment in Wanda Pictures’ well-received “Detective Chinatown” franchise, had grossed 4.32 billion yuan ($668.56 million) by Sunday night since its Spring Festival release, making it the fifth highest-grossing film ever in Chinese film history.It surpassed the 4.25 billion yuan total generated in China by Hollywood juggernaut “Avengers: Endgame,” according to box office tracking agency Beacon. The new statistics of “Detective Chinatown 3” means all top five spots of all time on the box office chart are occupied by Chinese domestic productions, a major milestone. Its rival, comedy actress Jia Ling’s tear-jerker directorial debut “Hi, Mom,” also released during the Spring Festival 2021, took haul of 4.82 billion yuan and is currently sitting at the No. 3 on China’s highest-grossing film chart.The 2017 action-adventure film “Wolf Warrior 2” and the 2019 animated fantasy film “Ne Zha” are currently topping the chart with total revenue of 5.69 billion yuan and 5.03 billion yuan respectively. The 2019 sci-fi blockbuster “The Wandering Earth,” which made 4.69 billion yuan, fell one spot to No. 4.It is also very rare to have two tentpoles both grossing more than 4 billion yuan respectively during a certain holiday season, which also indicated moviegoers’ extreme enthusiasm and the infinite potential of Chinese film market, already the biggest in the world.For the whole of February, the mainland film market ended with a dazzling result of 12.26 billion yuan ($1.89 billion) in box office revenues. The monthly record also set the world’s highest single month record in a single market. The new Chinese box office record is $500 million higher than the monthly record in North America ($1.39 billion for July 2011).But director Chen Sicheng remains worried. At a film event held on Feb. 22, he asked the audience to lend more support to Chinese domestic films. “Everyone thinks the film business is making big money, but actually in the last year, many film companies went bankrupted. You don’t really know about us and our struggles,” he said.He revealed that recently, a top Chinese special effects film company will soon be unable to survive, because the entire middle-level special effects staff have been poached by China’s video game industry, as the game industry is indeed more profitable than movies. China.org.cn verified the statement was from Xu Jian, the founder of MORE VFX who supported “Detective Chinatown 3,” “A Writer’s Odyssey” and many other big Chinese blockbusters.”In fact, the position of our entire film industry does not match the position of China’s entire cultural economy, and does not match China’s overall national strength. Everyone knows that the film industry is one of America’s seven pillar industries. But China’s film industry is still too elementary, and it does not match our overall economic status,” Chen said. “It is not that our film industry is very strong, but it happens to be too weak. We need support, rather than attacks for various reasons.”The director said he and fellow filmmakers are always thinking about how to make Chinese film industry stronger. “No matter if we have done enough or been good enough, we have made films for letting more people in the world to know about China and our capabilities, and we never lost face in front of those foreign peers. We are generation of filmmakers who take our responsibilities to heart. Please support and encourage us to do more in the future.”Chen’s concerns are backed by reason. Although “Detective Chinatown 3” and “Hi, Mom” are making big money during the Spring Festival, the busiest and most lucrative film season, the other films mostly are losing money. The third most popular film during Spring Festival was “A Writer’s Odyssey,” an imaginative and creative fantasy movie in the making for five years by Lu Yang, which grossed 895 million yuan by Sunday but is still a money-losing project against its budget. “The Yinyang Master,” a fantasy film adapted from the popular mobile game Onmyoji and in the making for four years, is a flop that had a sub-par performance, grossing only 256 million yuan so far compared to its big investment in visual effects. “The current situation of the film made me sleepless,” director Li Weiran said in retrospect on his social media account on Feb. 21, “What have we done wrong? I’m afraid we have to wait for a while to see it clearly.””Endgame,” a Chinese comedy-drama adaptation of the Japanese cinema hit “Key of Life” (2012) by Kenji Uchida, also seemed to flop at the box office despite starring Hong Kong megastar Andy Lau and comedy actor Xiao Yang. It was once the worst-performing blockbuster during the Spring Festival. Its director Rao Xiaozhi, who previously directed comedy hit “A Cool Fish,” took to social media during the holiday to say that other blockbusters had taken too much share of the market and left him with little. He even pleaded for more screening arrangements and for people to give the film a chance. His appeal drew a response, and its rave reviews helped the film climb on the chart again after the holiday and has grossed 458 million yuan so far. Zhao Ji’s animated feature “New Gods: Nezha Reborn,” took in a decent gross of 400 million yuan so far, but paled in comparison with the phenomenal animated film “Ne Zha” in 2019. “One of my colleagues resigned after the holiday. He is very important for our next project. I told him, let’s wait. If ‘Nezha Reborn’ does well, we can hang on. But he told me, he wanted to try something else, ‘Dream can wait, but life can’t’,” Zhao said in a social media post on Feb. 21 to reflect the film’s performance. “The harsh realities made many animators who had dreams switch to other industries and professions. Eventually, I have no reasons to persuade them to stay.”With various elements from the audience taste changes to films’ own qualities that affect their performances, the COVID-19 pandemic-hit film market faces other threats such as piracy. On Feb. 26, in order to regulate the copyright order of the film market, the copyright administration of the Publicity Department of the CPC Central Committee, the China Film Administration, and the Ministry of Public Security jointly deployed a centralized action campaign to combat film pirates and dissemination of the Spring Festival theatrical releases, and adopted various effective measures to crack down on illegal and criminal acts.The new amendment of China’s Criminal Law that went into effect on March 1, 2021 stipulates the maximum sentence for copyright infringement will be raised to 10 years.Source: china.org by Zhang Rui
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How a national security threat label has reignited Indonesia’s LGBTQ debate

Advertisement Asia How a national security threat label has reignited Indonesia’s LGBTQ debate Indonesia last October classified the “spread of LGBTQ culture” as one of the country’s non-military threats. A series of developments thrust the provision into the public eye this month, sparking a debate. A street vendor walks past a banner reading ‘Indonesia

Published 1 week ago in 28th July 2026

Asia

How a national security threat label has reignited Indonesia’s LGBTQ debate

Indonesia last October classified the “spread of LGBTQ culture” as one of the country’s non-military threats. A series of developments thrust the provision into the public eye this month, sparking a debate.

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SINGAPORE: For more than eight months, a provision tucked away in an Indonesian presidential regulation on national defence drew little public attention.

In an appendix to Presidential Regulation No. 111/2025 on the General National Defence Policy signed in October last year, the government classified the “spread of LGBTQ culture” as one of the country’s non-military threats.

The clause, referring to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual and queer culture, appeared alongside a range of other threats deemed capable of affecting national resilience. They included illegal trafficking, natural resource theft, terrorism, atheism and radicalism.

A presidential regulation is a legally binding regulation published in the State Gazette, while General National Defence Policy documents are highly technical and usually attract little public attention outside government and defence circles.

But a series of developments thrust the provision into the public eye this month, sparking a debate on the place of LGBTQ issues in state policy and the extent to which social issues should be framed within Indonesia’s defence strategy.

The issue quickly spread beyond social media into mainstream Indonesian media with national outlets including Antara, Kumparan, and Tempo examining the regulation and prompting public responses from senior government officials.

Some observers and activists say the clause could heighten discrimination against LGBTQ individuals in society, even as Indonesian ministers have defended the regulation while saying the government has no intention of curtailing the fundamental rights of citizens.

“As Indonesian citizens, LGBTQ people are entitled to education, employment, healthcare and other public services without restrictions, segregation or discrimination,” Indonesia’s Human Rights Minister Natalius Pigai told CNA in a phone interview.

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Indonesia’s Human Rights Minister Natalius Pigai. (Photo courtesy of Human Rights Ministry)

But he added that Indonesian society is not ready to accept the LGBTQ community, even as the state remains obliged to respect, protect and fulfil every citizen’s rights to education, employment, healthcare and public services.

“The time has not yet come to formally recognise them as an official group because society is not yet ready to accept them,” he said.

HOW THE CLAUSE CAME TO PUBLIC ATTENTION

While it remains unclear what first drew widespread attention to the provision, it resurfaced amid a series of developments involving LGBTQ issues. One was a Pride Month-themed social media post in mid-June by Suara Mahasiswa, a student publication at the University of Indonesia.

The post had led to a heated online debate, with critics arguing it was inconsistent with Indonesia’s religious and social norms. They questioned why it invoked the Pancasila national ideology to defend the LGBTQ community. Pancasila comprises five principles: Belief in one God, civilised humanity, national unity, democracy and social justice.

The backlash prompted the university to publicly distance itself from the post and launch an internal review.

Then in late June, the Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI) said it was preparing an academic paper and a draft bill to criminalise LGBTQ-related conduct for Parliament’s National Legislation Programme.

MUI deputy chairman Muhammad Cholil Nafis argued that moral appeals alone were no longer sufficient to curb what he described as the growing activities and campaign surrounding LGBTQ culture.

“If there are no legal penalties at all, it eventually becomes normal. We should not normalise it. Punishment helps people understand that it is not normal,” he said.

“Deviant activities, such as same-sex parties, are now increasingly being displayed openly in public without any sense of shame,” he added.

Scrutiny then shifted to the new regulation that had previously gone largely unnoticed.

The belated attention came as no surprise to Agus Wahyudi, head of the Inter-Religious Studies Programme at Gadjah Mada University (UGM) in Yogyakarta.

Documents such as the General National Defence Policy typically circulate within government bureaucracy and rarely become the subject of public debate, he said.

But a provision can take on political significance when a series of events – in this case, the Pride Month-themed social media post and the MUI’s planned bill – draws the public’s notice, said Agus.

“What changed was not necessarily the policy itself, but the public attention it attracted,” Agus said.

WHY WAS IT PLACED IN A NATIONAL DEFENCE DOCUMENT?

Asked whether the presidential regulation represented the first national policy to explicitly mention LGBTQ, human rights lawyer Asfinawati said Indonesia’s 2008 Pornography Law referred to “lesbian” and “homosexual” acts in its explanatory notes to a provision banning the production, distribution and sale of pornographic material.

It defined what the law described as “deviant sexual intercourse” for the purposes of pornography offences, rather than creating a standalone offence based on sexual orientation or gender identity.

Presidential Regulation No. 111/2025 goes further by classifying the “spread of LGBTQ culture” itself as a non-military threat, argued Asfinawati, the former chair of the Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation.

“This regulation no longer links it to sexual conduct. Simply having a particular sexual orientation or gender identity is placed within a threat framework,” she said.

Experts have questioned whether a national defence framework was an appropriate instrument for addressing issues such as sexual orientation and gender identity.

In principle, national defence should focus on military threats, said Tangguh Chairil, a lecturer in security studies at the Department of International Relations at Binus University, Jakarta.

Indonesia, however, classifies threats into three categories: Military, non-military and hybrid. As a result, issues beyond the traditional defence sphere are increasingly viewed as national security issues.

“Because the definition is so broad, almost anything can be treated as a national security threat,” Tangguh told CNA.

Classifying LGBTQ culture as a non-military threat under a defence framework means the issue may be treated as a security concern requiring state attention and resources, he added.

“Issues that have been successfully securitised tend to receive greater attention than others,” he said.

Yusril Ihza Mahendra, Coordinating Minister for Legal Affairs, Human Rights, Immigration, and Corrections, told news outlet Tempo on Jul 9 that “non-military threat” was used to categorise risks against national resilience.

In the socio-cultural context, “resilience” refers to values, ethics, character of the younger generation, families, digital space, and social cohesion, he said.

“What the government perceives as a threat is the campaign, propaganda, and dissemination of LGBT behaviour aimed at altering the values that align with the nation’s culture and morality,” he added.

Indonesia’s Chief Minister for Law and Human Rights, Yusril Ihza Mahendra, speaks as Australia’s Minister for Home Affairs, Tony Burke, listens during a press conference following their meeting in Jakarta, Indonesia, December 3, 2024. (REUTERS/Willy Kurniawan)

Asfinawati said the regulation cannot serve as the legal basis for introducing new criminal provisions or for regional governments to impose criminal sanctions unless authorised by law.

Under Indonesian law, a person’s sexual orientation as well as consensual same-sex relations between adults are not, by themselves, criminal offences. The exception is Aceh province, which implements Islamic crimina

Internet Security

Nigeria: UNICEF chief urges child protection amid security, humanitarian crises

Violence in Nigeria The head of the U.N. children’s agency visited northwestern Nigeria on Friday as conflict, poverty and rising food insecurity leave millions of children in the region in need of aid. Catherine Russell, executive director of UNICEF, toured the state of Sokoto, where the agency is seeking to draw attention to worsening humanitarian

Published 2 weeks ago in 25th July 2026

Nigeria: UNICEF chief urges child protection amid security, humanitarian crises

Violence in Nigeria

The head of the U.N. children’s agency visited northwestern Nigeria on Friday as conflict, poverty and rising food insecurity leave millions of children in the region in need of aid.

Catherine Russell, executive director of UNICEF, toured the state of Sokoto, where the agency is seeking to draw attention to worsening humanitarian challenges facing children.

She met with state officials and visited UNICEF-supported programs aimed at improving the health of both mothers and children and protecting vulnerable youngsters.

“We have to make sure that children are protected in these conflicts,” she said.

“That their healthcare is protected, that their food is protected, that their education is protected. Children can’t waste years of their life because conflicts are going on.”

Northern Nigeria is already gripped by an intensifying security crisis that has killed thousands.

The ongoing Middle East conflict has deepened food insecurity for millions living in poverty, making children in poor households more vulnerable.

According to UNICEF between 18.3 million and 23.4 million more children in monetarily poor households worldwide have fallen into deeper poverty, including 6.5 million to 8.8 million in Africa.

Nigeria has one of the world’s largest populations of impoverished children, and humanitarian organizations warn that those in the country’s conflict-torn north remain among the most vulnerable.

For some, UNICEF-supported programs have made a tangible difference.

Zainab Bello, 19, said she had been out of school before joining the agency’s “Digital Village” program.

“I was taught digital literacy… how to use a digital tool,” she said.

“I also learned how I can promote my vocational skills on various social media platforms.”