AG Barr slams Hollywood, big tech for ‘kowtowing’ to the Chinese Communist Party

U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr slammed Hollywood and Big Tech companies for pandering to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), in a press conference at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum on Thursday.

“If American corporations continue to bow to Beijing, they risk undermining both their own future competitiveness and prosperity, as well as the classical liberal order that has allowed them to thrive,” Barr warned. “American companies must understand the stakes. The Chinese Communist Party thinks in terms of decades and centuries, while we tend to focus on the next quarterly earnings report.”

Barr lambasted Hollywood for “kowtowing” to the CCP’s regime in pursuit of economic profits. He cited reports that in the movie “World War Z,” Paramount Pictures changed a scene that suggested the virus at the center of the film may have originated from China, in an attempt to receive a distribution deal in China. He also referenced the Marvel movie “Dr. Strange,” in which a character’s nationality was switched from Tibetan to Celtic because acknowledging the existence of Tibet might anger the Chinese government.

“Chinese government censors don’t need to say a word, because Hollywood is doing their work for them,” he said. “This is a massive propaganda coup for the Chinese Communist Party.”

Barr also noted the quotas and pressures to enter joint ventures that the CCP has placed on Hollywood, in an attempt to learn from American technology and to increase China’s own film industry. “In the long run, as with other American industries, the People’s Republic of China may be less interested in cooperating with Hollywood than co-opting Hollywood—and eventually replacing it with its own homegrown productions,” Barr said.