The huge success of 'Top Gun: Maverick' shows that even Hollywood has now realized the threat posed by China, according to military contractor Erik Prince, who praised the movie on Thursday for restoring a Taiwan patch to Tom Cruise's famous jacket.
A trailer for the movie in 2019 raised fears that producers were bowing to China's new financial might by removing two of the patches that were seen on Cruise's back in the original movie.
However, they were eventually restored despite worries the presence of a patch representing the autonomous island nation would offend Beijing.   
'It's amazing to see Hollywood has come alive to the fact that a movie like Top Gun that is pro-America, HD Rezka and kind of stands up to China because China was complaining about the mere patch of Taiwan on Tom Cruise's jacket,' Prince told Steve Bannon on his War Room podcast, which was recorded at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Dallas, Texas.
Prince and Bannon have long railed against the threat of communist China.









Tom Cruise's original jacket (left) showed patches with the flags of Japan and Taiwan. In the 2019 trailer (right) they had been replaced with patches with generic symbols






Prince made his comments on Steve Bannon's War Room podcast, which was broadcast from the Conservative Political Action Conference in Dallas, Texas


















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And they have criticized liberals for being too slow to react and mistakenly believing that helping China develop would turn the country into a peace-loving democracy.
In recent years, Hollywood has tried to cash in with Chinese audiences by avoiding using China as an aggressor in action movies.
But Prince said the producers of Top Gun had managed to make money by standing up to the Chinese. 
'And that movie did over a billion dollars,' he said.

'Amazing. 
'And so Hollywood has woken up.' 
The controversy erupted in 2019 when eagle eyed viewers of a trailer for the sequel noticed something strange. Two patches on the back of Cruise's iconic jacket, which marked port visits to Japan and Taiwan, had been changed to generic symbols.
Reports suggested the change was made to appease Chinese censors and one of the movie's backers, the Chinese company Tencent Pictures. 
But the patches were restored when the Chinese backer pulled out.
However, the film does not yet have a Chinese release date.
Analysts have also spotted another trend.

After years of action movies set among Afghan mountains or dusty Iraqi villages, with U.S. soldiers tackling counter-terrorism operations, the latest Top Gun movie depicts big, bold American power.
It features huge aircraft carriers patrolling the oceans, and the latest generation of warplanes flying daring missions. 
It comes as the U.S.
refocuses its military posture with billions of dollars of assets and retools its alliances in the Indo-Pacific region to confront an emboldened China.
'Are you on the side of freedom? Or on the side of the [Chinese Communist Party] and all its tentacles,' asked Prince.
The threat was on full display on Thursday as China held live fire exercises in the waters around Taiwan following the visit of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.





China fires short-range ballistic missiles into waters near Taiwan on Thursday, as four days of live-fire exercises kick off that will effectively blockade the island in the biggest threat to its independence in decades





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Chinese missile batteries open fire from the coast near Pingtang Island across the Taiwan Strait as Beijing begins its biggest-ever war games around the self-governing island

The autonomous island said China fired 11 ballistic missiles into waters off its south-western and north-eastern coasts on Thursday during a two-hour period. 
Beijing also scrambled fighter jets and sent some of its most up-to-date warships to surround the island, in what state media said is a rehearsal for an invasion. The drills are due to last until Sunday, and are due to including long-range bombers and hypersonic missiles.

China's two aircraft carriers are also holding position nearby.
American forces - including the USS Ronald Reagan aircraft carrier which is forward-deployed with the Pacific Fleet - are thought to be lurking nearby, while missile-tracking spy planes have been sent to watch over the drills. 
Prince said he did not believe China was preparing for an invasion. 
'I'm glad I'm glad to see representatives of the US government visiting Taiwan,' he said
'My worry is that it only gives them a casus belli to do this and to lash out at Taiwan. I still don't think they're trying to go the distance right now.'