Hollywood has increasingly been looking east, encouraged by the recent relaxation of the quota on foreign films allowed into China and the popularity of Hollywood-made but China-based international blockbusters such as Kung Fu Panda 2.

China has long kept up a barrier against foreign films — wary of insidious cultural influences while sheltering its own filmmakers. Officials last raised the annual cap on foreign movie imports as a condition of joining the WTO in 2001. The recent increased foreign movie quota is a belated response to a trade dispute the U.S. won nearly three years ago.

Walt Disney Co. said it would join an initiative to develop China's animation industry, marking the latest push by Hollywood to expand into the world's most populous country.

China’s government has identified animation as a key area for development to boost the country’s global influence, or soft power. The success of DreamWorks Animation’s “Kung Fu Panda” franchise has sparked wide debate within China about why the country can’t leverage its culture as effectively as Hollywood.

The 2012 American Film Showcase...is an international cultural diplomacy initiative that will bring award-winning American films, including documentaries, feature films and animated shorts, to foreign audiences through events worldwide.

Big studios are trying to push further into China, where box office receipts rose more than a third last year to $2 billion. China represents one of the most attractive growth opportunities for the U.S. movie industry, which is facing declining North American theater revenue and slumping DVD sales.

At the end of November 2010, the world did a diplomatic double-take when WikiLeaks, a not-for-profit media organization released confidential U.S. diplomatic cables.