Animation Sector Going in Circles

BEIJING --- For many years, China's animation industry has been at the forefront of SARFT efforts to rationalize the conflicts between market-led developments and ideological argument. As reported in CMM over the last few years, various campaigns to protect the domestic industry have tended to result only in that industry discovering ever more creative ways to beat the ban on foreign product.

Having removed foreign animation from primetime and demanded that at least 10 minutes of original domestic product be shown each day, SARFT then went further by demanding the establishment of children's channels across the country at provincial TV level. While this dramatically increased the number of available broadcast minutes, it did not lead to improved quality, just quantity.

In its efforts to balance imports and domestic production, SARFT introduced a rule that to import one hour of animation, broadcasters had first to produce one hour of domestic animation. Instead of encouraging local production, this policy was quickly subverted with broadcasters producing high volumes of very low quality productions, in order to apply for import licenses.

Secondly, local broadcasters spotted CGI animation as an interesting way around the ban and started producing real-action series injected with cheap CGI graphics in an effort to produce hybrid series that would count within animation targets. But SARFT has already moved to block that route, arguing that reality-CGI series do not count as animation.

Another popular trick that has also been blocked is the ?cartoon review? format where long extracts from foreign animation films are broadcast within thinly disguised academic or informational shows.

With SARFT campaigns leading to sneaky tricks and so more SARFT campaigns, it would seem as if the animation sector, while alert to the issues, cannot break away from its reliance on foreign animation. As SARFT continues its blunt attacks on foreign animation (see articles), we predict that the industry will continue to spend its efforts on finding ways around the bans rather than working towards a stronger domestic industry.