On July 1, there was a massive celebration in China to commemorate the centenary of the founding of the Chinese Communist Party. In his speech, General Secretary Xi Jinping gave an official narrative arc to China's history:
When the Chinese Communist Party was founded in 1921, China was poor and oppressed, and ordinary Chinese had no dignity. They were routinely insulted by westerners, who had no respect for them.
The founders of the Party had to fight against foreign oppression and aggression and internal traitors, and the People's Republic was founded in 1949;
Under the leadership of the Party, Chinese have come together, and through their hard work and perseverance, China is a country all Chinese can be proud of;
Chinese will no longer tolerate insults from foreigners, but we will listen to thoughtful criticism of how we can become better.
China will play a leading role in the improvement of humanity for all people, and will cooperate with others who share the same dream.
When Xi came to power in 2013, there was not much faith in the Party, and it was assumed that someone would join because they wanted to make money through corruption. Smart Chinese with good educations would prefer to work for the private sector or in western corporations.
Xi proceeded to clean up with his ongoing long-term anti-corruption campaign. Instead of the Party taking a backseat in the Chinese economy, he put it front and center in the foreground, and insisted that state-owned enterprises should play a leading role, and that private businesses should acknowledge the leadership of the Party in all aspects. When a private entrepreneur like Jack Ma, founder of Alibaba, publicly criticized the government's financial policy, the IPO of Ant Group was very publicly pulled less than 48 hours before its scheduled date.
The situation has now changed. The US attacks and criticisms of China have made many Chinese think that China is now on an equal footing with the US. As China gets closer to taking the leadership mantle from the US, the criticisms become more shrill and more worried. Doesn't this prove that China is becoming stronger? And doesn't this prove that the Party has been leading us in the right direction? This is how many Chinese feel now.
While the Party does not normally disclose its membership numbers, Xi mentioned in his speech that it now has 95M members. When he came to power, it was estimated that it had 80-85M members. This suggests that there is a strong desire now to join the Party compared to a decade ago. Xi would likely say that the motivation to join is now different, and it is no longer the opportunity to become corrupt which drove some people to join earlier. Now, Chinese are motivated by patriotism, and the desire to be part of a strong and growing China.
This is a beautiful narrative, and in order to maintain it, crime is not widely covered or mentioned in the official media. Criminals are outliers, or are crazy people who are acting in isolation, and are in no way representative of the society as a whole. There is a marked contrast with, for example, Hong Kong and South Korea.
In the past decade, South Korea has developed and exported its own entertainment industry, including movies. Among the crime genre, Oldboy (2003) is a classic about revenge which put South Korean movies on the international scene. Chinese television and entertainment are mostly comedies, science fiction or other genre which gloss over the dark parts of society. This is part of the reason why South Korean productions are so popular on Netflix and Amazon Prime. Crime is a popular genre, and drives much of the productions in South Korea and UK. The UK detective genre is largely about how seemingly polite, well-behaved people come up with novel ways to kill each other.
Hong Kong's movie industry was built on kung fu movies and then later, gangster movies. Over the past decade, production companies have spent more on Chinese movie productions, and the Hong Kong movie industry has shrunk. With the passage of the National Security Law in Hong Kong, will Hong Kong gangster movies become unpopular with the Hong Kong authorities? Will Hong Kong movies become just as sanitized as Chinese entertainment?
Time will tell.