Regulating Political Symbols: China’s Advertising Law and Politicized Advertising
Xin Zhao
University of Hawaii
Jeff Wang
City University of Hong Kong
INTRODUCTION
Total advertising expenditure in China reached $120 billion in 2009 (Ng, 2010), making it the fourth largest market in the world. And that figure still is growing, with cautious predictions that it will bypass the United States to become the largest advertising market by the mid-twenty-first century.
Almost as impressive as the increase in advertising expenditures is the growth in the number of cases of banned advertisements due to political and ideological incorrectness in recent...