Disney Thanks Chinese Labor Camp Authorities in Mulan Credits
https://reason.com/2020/09/08/disney-th ... n-credits/
That's makes Disney's filming location—Xinjiang—an extra slap in the face. Xinjiang is where China has been holding Uighurs in concentration camps and subjecting them and other Muslim minorities to horrible human rights abuses.
"The repression of ethnic Uighurs and Kazakhs in the western part of the country has been increasingly brutal and systematic," explained Daniel Drezner at Reason in April. "The erection of a massive network of internment facilities, prisons, and forced labor camps speaks to the regime's ruthlessness and deep illiberalism."
Which brings us back to Mulan. After the movie's Friday release "observers noted [that] in the final credits Disney offers 'special thanks' to eight government entities in Xinjiang, including the public security bureau in Turpan, a city in eastern Xinjiang where several re-education camps have been documented," notes The Guardian. In addition:
The film also expresses thanks to the "publicity department of CPC Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomy Region Committee", the Chinese Communist party's propaganda department in Xinjiang. Disney has been approached for comment. […]
Activists calling for a boycott of the film are now highlighting its links to Xinjiang, while other researchers noted that the public security bureau in Turpan oversees at least 14 internment camps in the area.
Mulan specifically thank the publicity department of CPC Xinjiang uyghur autonomous region committee in the credits.
You know, the place where the cultural genocide is happening.
They filmed extensively in Xinjiang, which the subtitles call "Northwest China"#BoycottMulan pic.twitter.com/mba3oMYDvV
— Jeannette Ng 吳志麗 (@jeannette_ng) September 7, 2020
"It's sufficiently astonishing that it bears repeating: Disney has thanked four propaganda departments and a public security bureau in Xinjiang, a region in northwest China that is the site of one of the world's worst human rights abuses happening today," writes Washington Post contributor Isaac Stone Fish.
"Disney has a long and ongoing relationship with China, where its films often find success in theaters and where its Shanghai Disneyland theme park resides," notes The Verge. And the company is expecting the new Mulan to do well in China where, unlike the U.S., it will actually be shown in theaters.
"Theatrically, Mulan has generated $6 million in limited markets—including Thailand, Malaysia, and Singapore—in its first weekend The film is slated to be released in China on September 11th," The Verge adds.
