Chinese online streaming service begins to offer 2018 Korean movie

China has resumed the online streaming of a South Korean movie for the first time in six years. Tencent Video, one of China's top three over-the-top (OTT) platforms, is now offering the 2018 film, "Hotel by the River," directed by Hong Sang-soo. This marks the first time that a South Korean movie has been released on a Chinese OTT service since Beijing imposed a blanket ban on all cultural content from South Korea in 2016 over the deployment of a U.S. missile defense system in the South.

The resumption has raised hopes that the Chinese government will lift its ban on "hallyu" (the Korean wave) across the board. In fact, the presidential office said last week that the release of the Korean film on Tencent Video is a follow-up measure to President Yoon Suk-yeol's summit with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, held on Nov. 15 on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Bali, Indonesia.

However, it's too early to make a hasty conclusion. In December last year, the Korean comedy film, "Oh! My Gran," was screened in Chinese cinemas, raising hopes about Beijing's move to normalize cultural exchanges with Seoul. But no other Korean film has since been screened in China. Since China banned Korean movies and dramas in retaliation for Seoul's deployment of the anti-missile system, China's illegal online platforms have been flooded with pirated Korean movies and dramas.

During his summit with Yoon, Xi said the suspension of cultural exchanges negatively impacted the two nations' perceptions of each other and expressed hopes for a full restoration of the exchanges. But his statement is not new, considering that Chinese leaders have underscored the need for bilateral exchanges every time there were high-level meetings, but that they have turned a deaf ear to calls for lifting the ban on hallyu.

The importance of cultural exchanges cannot be overemphasized, given that they will serve as the link connecting the young people of our two countries who will shoulder the future. It's long overdue for China to take action with respect to hallyu.