The CCP’s Unrestricted Warfare: Weaponizing Culture and the Entertainment Industry

(Minghui.org) While the new presidential administration has made strides toward restoring traditional values in the United States, the communist infiltration that began decades ago continues to pervade the arts.

In a recent example, the John F. Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. hosted the National Ballet of China, a group controlled by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Back in 2011 and 2015, “The Red Detachment of Women” was performed at the Kennedy Center and at New York’s Lincoln Center, respectively. Like the other few model plays allowed in China during the Cultural Revolution, “The Red Detachment of Women” was produced to incite class struggle and violent revolution. The Observer called the performance “a communist spectacle.”

Most American audiences aren’t aware that the CCP exports its ideology of class struggle and hatred to American society through various art forms, in addition to social media platforms like TikTok.

Weaponizing Culture

The CCP has long understood the power of turning art into a weapon. Mao Zedong said, “We also need a culture army. This is an army that is indispensable for uniting ourselves and defeating the enemy.”

“The White-Haired Girl” (another revolutionary model drama) was first performed during the Yan’an Period (1935 – 1947). The depiction of class struggle was so vivid that it once drove a soldier in the audience to shoot the “landlord” on stage.

The CCP continues to increase its penetration into the American cultural market. In 2012, Wanda Group invested $2.6 billion to acquire AMC, the second largest theater chain in the U.S. In January 2016, it spent $3.5 billion to control Legendary Entertainment (a U.S. listed film production company) and paid $1.1 billion to acquire Carmike Cinemas, the fourth largest theater chain in the U.S.

Also in 2016, Alibaba Pictures acquired part of Amblin Partners, a company owned by renowned Hollywood director Steven Spielberg, and sent a representative to join its board of directors to participate in the company’s decision-making process. After achieving its goal, Wanda sold all its shares to Legendary Entertainment in October 2024.

Wanda Group was founded by Wang Jianlin, a CCP member. Wang served as a representative at the CCP’s 17th National Congress, a member of the Standing Committee of the 11th National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, and vice chairman of the 10th All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce. When American companies partner with CCP officials, they can incur a high social cost.

In addition to acquiring American businesses, the CCP also extends its influence through propaganda–“culture exportation” and “telling the China [CCP] story well.” Many beautiful and moving stories have been passed down throughout China’s five-thousand-year history. The CCP makes use of these stories to advance its own agenda by injecting its own ideology.

A well-known example is the song “Nanniwan,” where the CCP took a popular folk melody and added lyrics about people “working happily.” These superimposed lyrics are political propaganda that serve to glorify the CCP. When the CCP controlled Nanniwan, opium was grown in large quantities, and the resulting money was used to defeat the Kuomintang (the sole ruling party in China from 1929 to 1949). The opium was sold in Kuomintang-controlled areas that were defending China against Japan’s invasion.

Demonizing Traditional Culture

The CCP has extensively weaponized literature and art since the Yan’an period. This is one of the reasons the Kuomintang lost to the CCP, and these old tactics are now part of the CCP’s “unrestricted warfare.” This time, the target is the U.S., which the CCP considers its number one enemy.

A new Chinese animated film, Ne Zha 2, will be shown in North America starting on February 14, 2025. Based on an ancient legend, the original Ne Zha was modified to fit the CCP’s ideology and was released in 2015. The CCP claims the film earned unprecedented ticket sales.

Ne Zha 2 is adapted from the Chinese mythological novel Investiture of the Gods. In the original novel, Ne Zha is a child prodigy born with a mission. Because he carries karma from his previous lifetimes (caused by bad deeds), his body must be purified before he can complete his mission, so he has to go through all kinds of setbacks and trials.

However, in Ne Zha 2, the plot has changed—the child prodigy is a “demon child” with all kinds of obscene and vulgar behaviors–stepping on the fairy’s skirt in the sacred Yuxu Palace of Kunlun Mountain, urinating in the container for collecting nectar, drinking his own vomit, and so on. One of the main characters, the “Wuliang Xianweng” in the film, corresponds to Nanji Xianweng in the original story. Nanji Xianweng not only has powerful magic but holds a respectable status in the fairy world. But the “Wuliang Xianweng” in the film Ne Zha is a culprit who blames others. He is scheming, insidious and cunning—a troublemaker.

A Chinese netizen wrote that Chinese people always took immortals to be symbols of happiness, wealth and longevity, but this immortal (“Wuliang Xianweng”) in Ne Zha 2 is a villain who harms all living things. This blatant denial and slander of traditional Chinese culture serves to brainwashing teenagers and children with an atheist worldview.

Another example is the character of Shen Gongbao. In the original novel, Shen is a jealous character who secretly does evil. But in the film, he’s a hard-working person who pursues the path to immortality. Even Chinese media thought this was too much.

In short, Ne Zha 2 subverts the traditional view of good and evil, as well as common sense. It demonizes traditional Chinese culture.

If the U.S. continues to embrace these CCP exports—part of its unrestricted warfare, the American people will be paying to be brainwashed by the CCP’s Party culture.

Communist Ideology Repackaged

So, why has such a film become a hit in China? The reasons are simple. It’s a Hollywood-style production. It replaces the cultivators’ (Nanji Xianweng, Nezha) truthfulness and kindness with human emotions and scheming. It satisfies Chinese people’s need for emotional catharsis with all kinds of stimulation and antics. Chinese people have been squeezed to the limit by the CCP, but in the virtual environment of the cinema, they see the gods as sinister and inferior.

In the past, the CCP could not produce Hollywood-style blockbusters because the world’s leading film industry was in the U.S. After the CCP spent millions to solicit American talent and replicated the production model of the American film industry, it was finally able to produce blockbuster movies.

In the film, Ne Zha shouts, “My fate is determined by me, not by God,” and, “If heaven and earth do not allow it, I will change the world.” Those familiar with communism might know that these lines come from the Internationale (“No savior from on high delivers, no faith have we in prince or peer”) and the CCP’s slogan of “Fighting with the sky and fighting with the earth are a great joy.”

The Internationale is the CCP’s anthem and is widely repeated in communist rallies and literary works. These communist slogans repeated by Ne Zha are meant to inspire those who watch these movies.

The Yuxu Palace in the film references the U.S. Pentagon, the green card for the disciples of the Zen Sect that the immortals dream of is the American green card, and the U.S. dollar sign appears on the Tianyuan Ding door (the alchemy furnace).

A white palace (left) and Yuxu Place (right) in the movie in the top row vs. U.S. White House (left) and Pentagon (right) in the bottom row

The bald eagle in the United States Code (left) vs. the green card for the Zen Sect disciples (right)

The U.S. dollar symbol (left) vs. the symbol on the Tianyuan Ding door (the alchemy furnace, right)

In the movie, Wuliang Xianweng, who represents the Yuxu Palace, was beaten to the point of having lumps all over his head, and the Tianyuan Ding exploded, which implies’ the U.S.’s defeat.

The CCP claims to have descended from Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin. But in the Communist Manifesto, Marx refers to communism as a ghost [“A spectre is haunting Europe — the spectre of communism” —the Communist Manifesto]. Communism spread through the Soviet Union to China. Through a series of political campaigns (the Land Reform Movement, the Anti-Rightist Campaign, the Cultural Revolution, and the persecution of Falun Gong), the CCP achieved its goal of making the Chinese people betray their ancestors and cutting them off from their cultural traditions. The CCP takes pride in its ability to influence the United Nations, Europe, Africa, South America, and North America.

Darkest Before the Dawn

The world has undergone many changes. Michael Burawoy, a professor of sociology at the University of California, Berkeley, was walking in Oakland on February 3, 2025, when he was hit by a car and died. Burawoy was a British sociologist and Marxist. He was famous for his book Manufacturing Consent: The Transformation of the Labor Process in Monopoly Capitalism, which was translated into many languages and developed public sociology. His death was widely mourned by CCP media, and he was highly praised by the CCP.

A new political party, the Forward Party, has emerged in the U.S., led by former Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang and former Republican Governor of New Jersey Christine Todd Whitman. The name of the party echoes the “woke” and “progressive” forces that swept across the U.S. in recent years. These terms are similar to the propaganda methods used by CCP to replace the Kuomintang. They are extremely persuasive and deceptive, especially to students and young intellectuals. People who fled communist China to the safety of the U.S. see these tactics as a worrying development.

The U.S. was founded on its belief in the divine. If the CCP is allowed to use culture and the arts as weapons with which to invade the United States, subvert the principles that underpin America’s free society, and brainwash American children, the consequences would be unimaginable.

The CCP despises the principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance, regards human life as worthless, tells people to openly curse their own ancestors and slander the divine. How far will such a group of people go? As long as traditional values are devalued and marginalized in China, the Chinese people’s morality will be increasingly and thoroughly degraded. There is no hope for a nation that only knows hatred, fighting, and violence.

To be blessed and protected by the divine, we have to live by traditional values and stay clearheaded and firm in rejecting the CCP’s influence that has permeated so many different areas of society.