China makes soft power hard

Strict Chinese censorship of movies and television, which has ramped up under Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping, has ceded the entertainment field to free and democratic neighbors like South Korea. Although Netflix is blocked by China’s Great Firewall of internet censorship, the platform’s global hit Korean-language TV show “Squid Game” has been pirated on dozens of streaming sites in China, while manufacturers are pumping out knock-off merchandise of the dystopian show.