Why Chinese Play Their 'Cards'

BEIJING -- I knew before arriving that Netflix's "House of Cards" was an unexpected hit here. Still, it took the ripped-from-the-airwaves coincidence of five members of the Chinese military indicted on charges of cyber espionage to grasp more fully the allure of this American political drama for Chinese citizens and leaders alike.

You might not think a censorship regime that recently yanked such seemingly benign shows as "The Good Wife" and "The Big Bang Theory" would comfortably tolerate "House of Cards," especially with its second-season pivot to a subplot involving corrupt Chinese businessmen, Chinese hackers committing industrial espionage, trade battles with the United Sates and territorial disputes with Japan.

"Mao is dead, and so is his China," Francis Underwood, the series' relentlessly scheming main character, lectures a Chinese billionaire in one episode that aired undisturbed.

For Chinese authorities, the upside of tolerating such effrontery is that it buttresses a dark, skewed vision of American politics.

Americans watch "House of Cards" and see it as a dramatic-license version of capital intrigue, manipulation and skullduggery. However low the national regard for politicians, American viewers know that soon-to-be vice presidents don't dispense with nosy reporters by shoving them off Metro platforms, however tempting that may be. American audiences automatically discount the buffoonery of "Veep" or the implausible scenarios of "Scandal."

To Chinese viewers, however, "House of Cards" serves as a streaming video CliffsNotes to the American political system. The depiction of politics as noble calling on "The West Wing" arrived before the Internet era, yet the conspiratorial, manipulative worldview of "House of Cards" is a more fitting match for this edgy moment in U.S.-Sino relations. It is unsurprising that the series, offered on the video service Sohu, attracts an above-average proportion of government workers.

Chinese viewers -- from conversations on this trip arranged by the Committee of 100, a U.S. nonprofit dedicated to mutual understanding -- seem happy to assume the worst of U.S. politicians even as they marvel at the freedom of a system that permits airing of such an unvarnished depiction of governmental malfeasance. "House of Cards" helps assuage their quiet anxieties about U.S. superiority and their own systemic shortcomings.

"I think it should be true," one 27-year-old management trainee told me about the show. Still, she said, "In China we cannot imagine to write this kind of series and to show the dark part of government."

Added Tom Doctoroff, the Shanghai-based CEO of the advertising firm JWT Asia Pacific, "it basically confirms what Chinese think of their own government."

Which explains the series' usefulness to Chinese leaders: It helps level the political playing field.

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