When Christian Bale made an enemy of the Chinese government: “You will not be welcome here”
Whether he’s hacking yuppies to pieces with an axe, serving as Vice President of the United States, or saving Gotham City from an assorted gaggle of the mentally ill, Christian Bale is always worth watching.
One of his films that might have past Western audiences by was 2011’s The Flowers of War. Directed by the highly respected Zhang Yimou, and tells the story of the Nanjing Massacre. During the Second Sino-Japanese War, the Imperial Japanese Army killed between 100,000 and 200,000 Chinese civilians and foreign prisoners of war (POWs). Bale plays John Miller, an American mortician caught up in the action.
As the film was a joint venture between China and Hong Kong and pertained to a key event in the Chinese public imagination, the Welsh actor spent some time in the country promoting the film. Alas, China can be a tricky place, especially if you’re seen to endorse opponents of the ruling Communist Party. Bale found this out firsthand when he tried to visit activist Chen Guangcheng. When approaching Chen’s house, the star was blocked by security guards, who then tried to forcibly stop a TV crew from filming the scuffle.
“What I really wanted to do was to meet the man, shake his hand and say what an inspiration he is,” CNN quoted Bale as saying. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Weimin didn’t see it this way, saying that the actor should feel “embarrassed” in a public statement.
“[Bale] was not invited to create a story or shoot film in a certain village,” he said. “I think if you want to make up news in China, you will not be welcome here.”
Chen Guangcheng is one of the most well-known anti-government figures in modern Chinese history. A so-called ‘barefoot lawyer’, he rose to prominence in 2005 when he attempted to sue the authorities of a city in Shangdong province. He claimed that they had been particularly excessive in enforcing the country’s notorious ‘one child’ policy, including forcing women to abort second pregnancies. He served jail time between 2006 and 2010 and remained under house arrest until managing to flee to the United States in 2012.
The star of The Dark Knight is far from the only big name to fall afoul of the regime. John Cena was forced to rescind comments he had made during a press tour that implied Taiwan was its own country, asserting that it was instead a part of China in a widely criticised move. At the other end of the scale, Richard Gere was essentially blacklisted for his views on Tibet. As a committed Buddhist, Gere campaigned for the freedom of the long-disputed region and, in doing so, angered many of Hollywood’s Chinese backers.
The case of Christian Bale and Chen Guangcheng is one of the many worrying stories that show the extent of widespread Chinese censorship. From TV to the Internet to the time they banned Winnie-the-Pooh memes, the country can be a very alarming place. Imagine how bad it gets when you’re not a globally famous superstar.
