This article analyses the coverage of the current US–China trade war in the Global Times. Some scholars argue that official nationalism, which stress the unity of the Chinese people, is challenged by popular nationalism, which privileges the dominant Han ethnicity, and that official nationalism is forced to make concessions to popular nationalism. If this is true, then one would expect to find evidence in the coverage of international issues in a ‘popular’ official newspaper like Global Times. The newspaper’s coverage stresses negative features of the USA, but devotes considerable space to the damage that Trump's policies are doing to ordinary Americans. It does not present China as the unique victim of US economic aggression. The coverage stresses broad international agreement for free trade, leaving the USA isolated in adopting protectionist policies. At least in this instance, state-led nationalism remains central and no concessions are made to popular sentiments.

Political pressure and censorship are unavoidable conditions for producing an entertainment show in Chinese TV. The relationships between a production team and the government are, however, extremely complex. Based on participant observation in a TV channel and in-depth interviews with related television professionals, this article analyses the tensions between production and politics in Chinese television. The article argues that a centralized and topdown model fails to capture all the aspects of power relations in television production. A more productive starting point is that television production necessarily involves negotiation between different participants. This article analyses relations between the production team, the central broadcasting authorities and local governments. The production team in this case study utilized different strategies to negotiate with multiple levels of government.

This article analyses the localization, as Hurry Up, Brother, of the Korean celebrity reality game show format Running Man by the Chinese broadcaster Zhejiang Satellite TV. Based upon field work involving participant observation and interviews with Chinese and Korean production personnel, the article explores the complex forces involved in realizing the final, highly successful, project. It is argued that localization involves the interplay of complex forces, the outcome of which is a process of negotiation. In particular, the article analyses in detail two major players in this production, Korean format consultants and the Chinese production team. It details the distinctively Korean practice of licensing a format without recourse to a formal specification of production details, and Chinese television professionals' response to these practices. It is shown that the more informal methods employed result in a transfer of decision-making power from the Korean company to the Chinese company in the course of the production. As a television format show produced in China, the production of Hurry Up, Brother necessarily involved interaction with political forces as well as cultural differences between China and Korea. The article concludes with considering the findings for our concepts of globalization, localization and hybridization.

Entertaining animated television programs often carry significant educational and national discourses that are rarely given much scholarly attention. This article examines the Chinese children’s animation program Boonie Bears and explores its narrative strategies in portraying heroism. By employing content analyses, in-depth interviews, and focus groups, the article discusses how producers construct animation heroes according to the ideological framework of the Communist Party, economic preferences embedded in the Chinese market, and broader cultural expectations held by society. Finally, this article offers a preliminary exploration of the collaboration between political power and market forces in children’s animation, thus revealing the changing needs and interests of the government, producers, and audiences in the process of modernization, and the social significance of animation in Chinese modernity.