China’s Trade Warriors Can’t Hit Hollywood
Trying to boycott U.S. entertainment and travel, as Beijing did with South Korea, will only backfire on Chinese companies and consumers.
Los Angeles saw an uptick in Chinese tourists last year.
Photographer: Mark Ralston/AFP/Getty ImagesChina may want to stand tough against Donald Trump’s trade threats. It’s going to have a hard time retaliating, though, and not only because it doesn’t import enough goods to match the U.S. president tariff-for-tariff.
One obvious target would be the $58.9 billion in services the U.S. exports to China. These include everything from Hollywood blockbusters to tourism and education. In theory, Beijing could easily enough cut off the flow of American entertainment into China and Chinese students and tourists out of the mainland. Indeed, the nationalist editor-in-chief of the Global Times newspaper has already suggested such a strategy.