From news reports:
China has suspended imports of American films, US Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez said here today, as he urged the mainland to lift a tight quota on foreign movies.
China allows just 20 foreign films to be shown in the country's cinemas each year but it was not immediately known whether the halt on screenings was due to that number already being reached.
'There has been a suspension,' Gutierrez told reporters, confirming a US media report that Hollywood films had been mysteriously blocked.
Gutierrez, speaking at the sidelines of top-level economic talks between the two nations during which trade tensions have been exposed, said suspensions had happened previously.
'(This) has happened in the past and at certain times of the year where they will suspend foreign movies,' he told Agence France-Presse, declining further specific comment on the latest movie stoppage.
But Gutierrez, who along with other US Cabinet secretaries is taking part this week in a twice-a-year Strategic Economic Dialogue with China just outside Beijing, expressed displeasure with the quota system.
'The problem we have with movies... is that there is a limit, there is a number, there is a quota, and we would like to get that lifted,' he said.
So it's not just the ban that is of concern, but also the quota system itself.
More generally, I guess the U.S. complaint is that China is restricting movies being shown through normal channels, while at the same time allowing them to be viewed in pirated form.
