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If you live in the west there is a good chance you haven’t heard of, far less seen, the highest grossing global movie of 2021. It isn’t the latest Bond film, nor some Marvel flick. Rather a

war epic, _The Battle at Lake Changjin_, claims the top spot. In many ways it’s typical of the genre, reflective of the type Californian studios have been pumping out for decades. A small

force, barely subsisting on frozen potatoes, defeats a far superior enemy via pluck and smart tactics. But there is one crucial difference from your standard Hollywood fare. This time the

bad guys are the Americans. And our heroes? The Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA). _The Battle at Lake Changjin_ is well worth watching, though as much because of what it tells us about

Chinese politics as for the performances. Unable to find it at any of my local cinemas, I had to make a trip to a tiny screening in London’s Leicester Square. The film is set during the

Korean War, which it insists on calling “the war to resist America and aid Korea”. A Chinese Communist Party (CCP) production, it purports to tell the story of the 1950 Battle of Chosin

Reservoir, a major Chinese offensive which pushed US and UN forces out of north-eastern North Korea. As a movie, it’s pretty good. The acting is generally solid and the plot naturally makes

you side with the PLA protagonists. From a historical perspective, it is almost entirely illiterate. The film portrays the Americans as aggressors, entirely ignores the initial North Korean

invasion of the South and treats the battle as an underdog story, whereas in reality the Chinese outnumbered their opponents by four to one. Mao Zedong makes a brief appearance, during which

he is treated as a jovial “father of the nation”, rather than as he was: one of humanity’s most ruthless butchers. The film’s message almost perfectly reflects CCP ideology in the age of Xi

Jinping. Whilst the CCP itself is warmly portrayed, the movie largely ignores communist ideology and class war. Instead, the message is purely nationalistic. The gutsy Chinese accepting

great hardship to overcome an aggressive United States. Our heroes are defined by their Chinese, rather than their proletarian, characteristics. In this respect _The Battle at Lake Changjin_

reflects a growing nationalist and militarist bent in Chinese cinema. The second highest grossing film of 2020 globally was _The Eight Hundred_, another Chinese war epic. Based around the

1937 defence of Sihang Warehouse from Japanese attack, 452 Chinese soldiers (they pretend to have 800 – hence the name) gallantly resist against overwhelming odds. Their sacrifice provides

an important moral boost, and impresses European and American observers in Shanghai’s foreign concessions. Similarly, the top grossing _Wolf Warrior_ action movies, released in 2015 and 2017

respectively, depict a maverick Chinese special forces veteran fighting villainous American and European mercenaries._ Wolf Warrior 2_, by some margin the most commercially successful, sees

our hero rescue Chinese civilians from the hired-guns in an African civil war. The film’s tagline, “whoever attacks China will be killed no matter how far the target is”, could scarcely be

more explicit. Critics may point out Hollywood has long produced movies that glorify the US military, and celebrate American patriotism. This is of course true, but also misleading. To be

approved Chinese films have to reflect, or at least not challenge, state ideology. We may be seeing China’s answer to _Rambo_ and _Hacksaw Ridge_, but don’t expect their version of _Platoon_

or _Full Metal Jacket_ anytime soon. The CCP has, through its history, proven to be quite the ideological chameleon. From Mao’s peasant-based Marxism, through Deng Xiaoping’s pro-market

reforms, to Xi Jinping’s increasingly belligerent nationalism. State approved Chinese cultural output has, inevitably, reflected these changes. The message of _The Battle at Lake Changjin_

and _Wolf Warrior 2_ is that violence and sacrifice to defend Chinese interests, embodied by the CCP, is a virtue. And, perhaps most significantly of all, that China’s primary enemy is

American. With China replacing the US as the world’s biggest box office in 2020, the influence of its cinema is only likely to increase. Despite blatant self-censorship, such as the removal

of a Taiwanese flag from Tom Cruise’s jacket in _Top Gun 2_, foreign films are finding it increasingly difficult to gain approval to screen. It seems quite possible that world politics, over

the next few decades, will be defined by a herculean confrontation between China and the United States. A second Cold War, though perhaps minus the chilly part. As such the West can no

longer afford to ignore Chinese popular culture, nor the political messages it is spreading to more than 1.4 billion people. A MESSAGE FROM THEARTICLE _We are the only publication that’s

committed to covering every angle. We have an important contribution to make, one that’s needed now more than ever, and we need your help to continue publishing throughout the pandemic. So

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