Choo Yut Shing / Flickr
China and Western countries are imposing mutual bans, and it is hard to tell whether they are fighting for minds and hearts or for profits and markets
Two American lawmakers, Chris Smith and John Moolenaar, expressed concern about the performances of the National Ballet of China at the Kennedy Center in Washington. The tour’s repertoire included «The Nutcracker», which is extremely popular in Russia. What could be wrong with Chinese dancers bringing high art to the American masses?
In a letter to the center’s management, the congressmen said that the Chinese Ballet is a propaganda tool for the Communist Party of China because its leadership is composed of CPC members and its activities are funded by the Chinese government. Consequently, it is all communist propaganda that must be curtailed. The lawmakers called on the Kennedy Center (whose board of trustees has been chaired by Donald Trump since February 13, 2025 — editor’s note), which is funded by the US budget, not to provide a stage for «ideological subversion». Especially at a time when representatives of «true» free art in China are being suppressed and creative dissidents are being persecuted — very much in the spirit of Soviet cultural policy.
The People’s Republic of China Embassy in the United States, of course, immediately dismissed the accusations as groundless and emphasized that the performance was an example of cultural dialogue. The Center ignored the warnings and the performances went on. At the premiere of «The Nutcracker» performed by Chinese dancers, China’s ambassador to the U.S., Xie Feng, expressed hope that cultural ties between the two countries would strengthen despite political differences.
This unfortunate episode shows how sharp ideological confrontations can be and how high art can be used not only for propaganda purposes but also for political ends. Certainly, American art is approached with caution in China as well, although they tend not to let things escalate into public scandals; instead, they coordinate in advance who will be allowed to tour and what repertoire will be presented.
And what art is there that doesn’t have an enormous impact on minds and hearts! In the United States, some believe that even Russian air and Chinese planes can have a negative impact on American officials. Since the beginning of the Special Military Operation, American airlines have been banned from flying through Russian airspace. But since they still have to fly, they take detours that greatly increase ticket prices and travel time. For example, flights to Shanghai by American airlines now include a stop in Incheon, South Korea. As a result, U.S. citizens have become accustomed to flying with Chinese airlines, which, for understandable reasons, have no such restrictions.
A couple of years ago, Senators James Risch and Robert Menendez (the latter heading the Senate Foreign Relations Committee) wrote a letter to the Biden administration. They proposed that commercial airlines flying to or from U.S. airports should not fly over Russia. In effect, they wanted to ban Chinese companies from flying into the United States. In addition, they called on the administration to «strongly and publicly discourage» U.S. citizens and permanent residents from flying over Russian territory. As for officials, the senators even demanded that they be banned from breathing Russian air aboard Chinese airliners. But the proposal was unsuccessful.
In the United States and the European Union, the Chinese social network TikTok is considered an instrument of espionage and mind control. Officials on both sides of the Atlantic are banned from using it. In the European Commission, there have even been cases of dismissal for using the banned app. In turn, Western online pleasures are inaccessible in China. Attempts to circumvent China’s great Internet firewall against the corrupting influence of an overly free world are punishable by law. But the Chinese have long been accustomed to this, and are happy to spend time on domestic Internet platforms, often allowing themselves freedoms not sanctioned by the state.
Last year, Chinese authorities called on state-owned companies to stop using foreign auditors. As in Russia, the «Big Four» auditing firms — Ernst & Young, Klynveld Peat Marwick Goerdeler, Deloitte and PricewaterhouseCoopers — controlled a significant share of the market in China. Their annual profit reached 22 billion US dollars, even though there are large domestic auditing firms in China. But everything is changing… No deadline has been set for switching to domestic services; the phase-out is happening gradually as contracts expire. Obviously, China does not want to give Western firms access to confidential data of local companies for reasons of national security. On the other hand, this is a convenient excuse to clear the market for domestic business. Who knows — perhaps the day is not far off when Chinese auditors will be as respected as their Western counterparts.
There has been a lot of fuss about the emergence of a number of Chinese artificial intelligence models, the most famous of which is DeepSeek, which has shaken up global markets. But even that was preceded by a war of bans. For example, Chinese authorities restrict travel to the United States for entrepreneurs and scientists working in the field of artificial intelligence. It is believed that they might disclose confidential information and risk being detained by American authorities, as happened to Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou. In addition, the American chatbot ChatGPT is by default inaccessible to users in China. Chinese Internet companies are also prohibited from hosting it on their platforms. It is believed that these measures, along with government and business efforts, have contributed to the breakthrough of artificial intelligence in China.
In other words, sometimes mutual bans can be beneficial.