Illustration: John Shakespeare But the movie was already finished. No problem. The nice Chinese were digitally airbrushed out and North Korean nasties Photoshopped in. As Forbes magazine's Dan Bigman observed: "Where moviemakers were once just terrified of their films being pirated by audiences in China, now they're scared of audiences not seeing their films at all." But this is nothing compared to Wang's stated ambition: "A few American movie companies have these commanding heights of the movie industry in the world. We want to change this situation and the landscape." After 17 years in the People's Army, Wang moved into the property business as China's development was booming. Today his company, Dalian Wanda, is the world's largest private property development company.

Chinese businessman Wang Jianlin's Wanda Hotel Development company is likely to be hit by the investment curbs. With a personal net worth of $US30 billion, according to Forbes, Wang is now aiming to establish control of 20 per cent of the global movie business. Not content to own more screens than anyone else, Wang wants to own the movies that are played on them. That would make him the global behemoth, bigger than Disney, the biggest US studio. In January, he paid $US3.5 billion for the US filmmaker Legendary Entertainment, one of the producers behind the mega franchises Dark Knight, Jurassic Park and Godzilla. He's in the market to buy Europe's biggest cinema chain and his US cinema business is pursuing a merger with another major US operator. He's in it for the money, of course, but he has other aims, too. In announcing its tie-up with Sony, his company said that it would "strive to highlight the China element" in Sony films from now on. Wang is a champion of Chinese national greatness and an agent of it, too: "I want to change the world where rules are set by foreigners," he said in a Chinese interview last year.

China's President Xi Jinping would approve. China's official news agency Xinhua reported in January, 2014, under the heading "China to Promote Cultural Soft Power": "Efforts are needed to build China's national image, Xi said when delivering a speech at a group study session of members of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee." And he was quite specific: "China should be portrayed as a civilised country featuring rich history, ethnic unity and cultural diversity, and as an oriental power with good government, developed economy, cultural prosperity, national unity and beautiful mountains and rivers, Xi said." He added his personal signature theme: "The publicity and interpretation of the Chinese Dream should be integrated with such values," according to Xinhua's report. A leading Australian Sinologist, Geremie Barme, observes: "If promoting the China Dream is your goal, why not buy the dream factory – Hollywood?" By leading this effort in Chinese cultural imperialism, Wang is "not only being a canny businessman but he's also being a patriotic Chinese and surviving in the treacherous atmosphere of Chinese politics", says Barme, an ANU professor emeritus. "Mr Wang would say he doesn't have anything to do with the Chinese government and that's all very well," Barme continues. "You don't need to push the government line, but, when you produce something, you consider China's political sensitivities. The party doesn't need to tell Mr Wang what to do.

"You autocensor or precensor, and that's the highest form of censorship. It's not the crude, postproduction 'let's cut a few unpleasant scenes'." Hollywood is very far from perfect. It has maligned the Chinese image in the past – the old Charlie Chan and Fu Manchu portrayals, for instance – and a little remedial effort wouldn't be such a dreadful thing. And Hollywood has long served as a propaganda tool of the US. Nobody can argue that Hollywood is so fine that it must be preserved intact. There was alarm in the 1980s when Japan's Sony bought Columbia to create the same company that Wang is now buying into. That xenophobia proved groundless. But Barme makes the point: "When Sony bought in, I don't recall ever reading about the Japanese government trying to change the international movie portrayals of Japan." The West, he says, is unprepared for China's unique "party-state" phenomenon. "We must be alert to the Chinese party-state, which is a Chinese term. It's not democratic, it's not elected, it's not open to criticism.

"The party-state is not of the Chinese; it's of a political party that took power through violence and continues to hold power by violence since. These are not trivial matters." As they say at Hoyts, enjoy your movie! Peter Hartcher is international editor.