Rupert Murdoch has warned China that it will encourage piracy and limit opportunities for its own booming movie market if it does not open up to foreign films, in the latest sign of western media owners’ frustrations with Chinese restrictions.
The chairman of News Corp, which owns Twentieth Century Fox, used a speech at the Shanghai International Film Festival to praise China’s optimism, global aspirations and creativity, saying there was “no more exciting market in the world”.
But he mixed his praise with a warning that the quota that allows just 20 foreign films to be imported to China a year and puts limits on foreign groups’ investment in marketing and distribution ventures there meant that China’s promise as a film market was not being fully realised.