On October 15, President Trump publicly confirmed that the US and China are now engaged in a trade war. This confirmation came on the same day when six channels of China’s state broadcaster CCTV suddenly aired the Hollywood blockbuster “Captain America”, sparking widespread attention on social media.
According to the program schedule on CCTV’s website, CCTV 6 aired “Captain America: The First Avenger” at 22:24, followed by “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” at 23:00 after the China Sports Lottery Sunshine Draw.
Throughout the afternoon, the channel also showed films such as “Lost Love”, “Beijing Love Story”, “Seven Guns”, and “Frozen Front”.
CCTV’s decision caused a stir online, with netizens speculating on its implications. Some comments included: “What does this mean? Have they reached a negotiation outcome?”, “Indicator of the wind direction”, “Notice: Don’t hate, love instead”, “CCTV has been showing American movies lately”, “Looks like they have already coordinated, otherwise such a sensitive film would not be aired directly”, “Tonight on CCTV 6, Captain America, I’ll trade soybean futures”, “It seems there’s no problem now, America is our big brother”, “Being the little brother is fine too.”
Some netizens also speculated on the sequence of films shown, suggesting a hidden message in watching “Seven Guns” and “Frozen Front” before “Captain America”: “Seven Guns Frozen Front Captures Captain America”.
The recent actions by China and the US leading to the public announcement of a trade war include China’s sudden announcement on October 9 to significantly expand restrictions on rare earth exports, prompting Trump to announce a 100% tariff increase on Chinese goods. This escalated further on October 15 when Trump openly declared the US and China in a trade war.
Of note, in May of this year, following progress made in talks in Geneva, CCTV had planned to air “New York, I Love You” on the evening of May 12. This generated a buzz on Weibo and raised speculations that CCTV’s move indicated a consensus on tariffs between the US and China. However, “New York, I Love You” was suddenly pulled, and discussions relating to the topic were subsequently censored.