Harry Potter shows that China isn’t quite a market economy yet!

In a market economy, moviegoers are generally free to choose what they want to see, subject of course to rating restrictions. But Chinese authorities have set an important condition before the latest Harry Potter movie is allowed to be released.

You may or may not have seen “Beginning of a Great Revival: The Founding of a Party” but it is the pride of the Chinese Communist Party and they are very keen for it to be a success. So much so that the release dates for “foreign” blockbusters such as Harry Potter and the Transformers movies were pushed back to ensure that there was no competition from Hollywood. But after negative reviews (that were quickly censored) and empty theatres, the head of the state cinema management cinema issued an ultimatum - no big foreign movies will be allowed into China until “Beginning of a Great Revival” has made at least 800 million yuan (£77.5 million) at the box office, which would be a record for a Chinese production.

But the inherent entreprenuerial nature of the Chinese people may still see this happen - reports are that cinemas are issuing tickets for the movie with the title crossed out and the movie that the people actually want to see handwritten on the ticket! And doubtless many will see a pirated version of Harry Potter before the official release date.

So “Capitalism with Chinese characteristics” still has a way to go before the citizens have the same choices available as those in other countries.

What would you choose?

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The full article can be read here

And thanks to my esteemed colleague Paul Godfrey for showing me the article.