And we thought Jackie Chan was a nice guy. Or we did if the only evidence of moral character that we looked at was the nice-guy characters he portrays in movies like “Mr. Nice Guy”; or how fun and nice he seems to be when he’s goofing around in interviews.
But then there’s this, a pronouncement reported in July 2021 by Variety:
Chan declared his admiration for the Party at a symposium organized by the China Film Association last week to “study and implement the spirit” of a keynote speech delivered by Chinese President Xi Jinping.
“Abroad they often say, ‘proud to be Chinese.’ I’m very lucky to be a Chinese person, but I also am very jealous that you all are Party members. I just think the Chinese Communist Party is really so magnificent,” he said, according to video footage from official broadcaster CCTV. “What the Party says, what it promises, it doesn’t need 100 years to accomplish. It will definitely accomplish it in just a few decades. I want to be a Party member!”
His declaration was followed by a strong round of applause. . . .
Earlier this month, Chan participated center stage in an enormous propaganda spectacle event put on by the Party at Beijing’s 91,000-capacity Bird’s Nest national stadium, best known abroad as the location of the 2008 Olympics opening ceremony.
You may have no freedom in China, and you may be especially at risk of being incarcerated, tortured, and/or murdered by the Chinazi government if you are a member of a targeted group, like Falun Gong, the Tibetans, or the Uyghurs. But the Party keeps its promises, according to Chan.
Which promises did he have in mind when making this statement? Chinese Communist Party officials chronically lie through their teeth—about how the Party has treated and will treat the Uyghurs, its motives for violating the rights of Hong Kongers, whether it has violated and will violate the territorial rights of neighboring countries, etc. It is unlikely that Chan can point to a robust record of keeping the sort of promises that a civilized, rights-respecting government would be justified in making and keeping.
And then there’s this, reported a year later, in July 2022, at CBR:
Since early 2021, the Chinese Communist Party has pushed the production of an increasing number of propaganda films, sparked by the Party’s centennial last year. During that time, Chinese theaters were instructed to screen at least two propaganda films per week. Jackie Chan’s involvement in one of these projects should come as no surprise, as the actor has long expressed his support for the Party.
Such action in service of a CCP agenda suggests that Chan had not been misunderstood the year before, when he gushed about what he called the Party’s magnificence. Moreover, the history of Chan’s pro-CCP sentiments is more than a couple of years old.
