I have been asked a good many questions over the years about my experiences living and producing animated films in China. In response, I often reply that explaining China is analogous to the old saying about the three blind men trying to describe an elephant. Each man touches a different part of the elephant and so their descriptions are extremely varied.

A great deal has changed since I first went to China in 1985. I believe to try to understand what is presently happening in the animation and television industries in China, you must begin by looking at the larger picture, the country itself. China is a country of 1.5 billion people living under a political system that can be highly schizophrenic and at times, paranoid and xenophobic. `A mystery wrapped up in an enigma,' to paraphrase another old saying. The growth of the animation and broadcast industries in China is reflective of the overall changes that have occurred in the economy specifically, and throughout Chinese society in general. These changes are still on going and are basically driven by China's desire to become one of the leaders in a global economy. More simply put, China wants their slice of the pie and they realized that to do so, they needed to modify their political philosophy to accommodate their economic goals. Remember, the Chinese have only been Communists for fifty years, while they have been pragmatists for well over two thousand years.

Deng Xaioping and the Open Door
Arguably no individual was more influential in China's change of direction than Deng Xaioping. He emerged from great disfavor during the Cultural Revolution to become China's Paramount Leader and most energetic and influential adversary for economic and social change. Somehow he walked the very thin line of advocating the development of an open, market based economy, while still upholding the basic tenets of a socialistic society. Not an easy task. Under Deng's leadership China's economic policies began to shift noticeably in the early Eighties. Special Economic Zones (SEZ) opened in Shenzhen and Zhouhai in Southern China and others followed around the country. These zones were established to provide foreign investors specific areas to build factories and plants and establish headquarters for service based joint-venture businesses. Tax incentives were offered along with beefed-up infrastructures and relaxed customs regulations, all meant to entice foreign investment and new technology into China.

Early Animation Production in China
When I arrived in China in 1985 I had few expectations of finding a studio able to handle the production I was producing. At that point in time Asia already had a number of successful studios spread throughout Taiwan, Japan, Korea and beginning in the Philippines. My client however had specific reasons for wanting to place the work in China. The financial group backing the film had other ventures in China and were seeking ways to use their potential RMB (non-convertible) profits to produce a product that could be exported and sold for hard currency outside of the country. In other words, the film had to be produced in China.

At that point in time there were really only two animation studios to be considered. Shanghai Animation Studio and Jade Animation in Shenzhen. Shanghai Animation was a state-owned and managed studio which produced films for the home market. The company had been in existence for a number of years and had a number of talented artists but they were not familiar with western animation techniques or timing. Also, being the quintessential state-owned company, the bureaucracy was so thick you could cut it with a knife. The other studio, Jade Animation, was a new joint-venture company located roughly 60 miles from Hong Kong in the new Special Economic Zone in the city of Shenzhen. Jade was owned and operated by a large broadcast group in Hong Kong (TVB). It had been established to produce animation for TVB and provide ink and paint services for numerous Japanese studios. Neither of these studios felt right for the project I was to produce. Jade was primarily an ink and paint service lacking animators, while Shanghai Animation was too entrenched in the bureaucracy of a state-owned company.