The Middle Kingdom Thinks Big

The Chinese are getting serious about animation.

China has opened a 4.5 billion yuan ($690 million) animation facility in Tianjin, the port city nearest the capital, Beijing ... More than 180 firms have signed up for animation production and related services at the state-backed 190 acre base ...

The Tianjin animation base will be developed into a center for production, trading, exhibition, training, research and development and international exchanges ...

Kung Fu Panda, second iteration is now cleaning up at China's box office. And the Chinese government and others have admitted that having an American company execute a Middle Kingdom subject with such expertise ad aplomb is ... teeny bit irritating. They think they should be the ones doing it.

And now it looks as though they're putting their money where their aspirations lie.

So we'll see what happens in the next five to ten years. Because that's the amount of time, I think, it will take to create an industry that is world class.

Add On: Inactive TAG member Kevin Geiger writes and pictures another animation base in China here:

... [T]he Zhengzhou Animation Base is particularly noteworthy: ... The co-founders of Huayu Brothers Animation Group – Mao Xue Bing, Lin Bo, and Li Qing Guo – were savvy to this, and understood the principle of intellectual property as the necessary “software” to run the “hardware” of their new base. ...

China is working to build itself animation infrastructure in different parts of the country. Seems as if some infrastructure might turn out stronger and better than other infrastructure.