I find that it's always interesting to THEN consider, okay -- while there's no centralized board or anything -- what does e.g. American censorship go after?
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Easy example: compare the Marvel "Civil War" comics to the movies. The former was critical of the military in a way that could not happen in any big blockbuster movie.
The question is why the people making the content in the US and China don't want to certain content. Is it because they're worried it won't be popular or because they're worried that it will be popular.
I can't prove anything (how would you?) but I tend to think in the U.S. it's the former and in the China the later.
You can, in fact, have critical views of the military in blockbuster movies in the US. But not if you want to use US military bases and aircraft and ships as sets for those movies, or to get support of the US military in making the movie. Depending on the particular movie, this could be a make-or-break deal for them (Top Gun, for instance, would be pretty shitty with stock footage of US aircraft carriers and aircraft instead of actual footage staged for the movie).
Is this better than explicit censorship? That's more of an open question.
This is not outright government censorship - you can still make a picture that says “the US military sucks” - but it certainly has an effect on big-budget films that want every dollar they can get.
It most certainly "could" be made as there is nothing preventing a studio from doing so if they wanted to. It may not be commercially viable and thus it would not get green-lit by a studio but that's a world away from the government explicitly forbidding it.
US programming is highly censored.
30 Rock had to pull episodes because of a gag where a 'completely insensitive dupish character' wore black makeup, to sing as a black person. It wasn't a problem in 2010 but all of a sudden it is in 2020. NBC will not be releasing the original.
A ton of jokes and gags are self censored for a variety of reasons. Eddie Murphy's early specials would absolutely not be aired today for example and I suggest they may face some shelving at some point.
Cultural standards differ.
Now - obviously, there are political elements of censorship, and being in possession of 'banned materials' may be punishable etc. - and that form of censorship is 'not comparable'. But the cultural standards issue is.
It's not directly available. As in, you can't film on a US naval vessel or on a US military base without their support. Stock footage or footage from public spaces are allowed. You may also be able to get the support of another country or make use of mothballed or otherwise decommissioned systems if you have the right connections and money.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimson_Tide_(film)
Used footage of the real USS Alabama, used a decommissioned (and sold-off) submarine, and a French aircraft carrier.
Then you've got things like Full Metal Jacket, which I don't think is getting anyone to sign up for the forces.
Like Top Gun did well recently, but is one of the only movies I can think of in the past couple of years that actually portrayed the US military in a mostly positive light rather than the usual gamut which runs from ineffective bumbling ossfied and useless to straight up evil.
I'm just saying you can make whatever you want in the US and portray pretty much any idea or theme, that doesn't mean people will like it, but you can make it. In China there is no similar comparison they'll take your studio at best or imprison you at worst.
So the ones that seem "anti-Military" are really "anti-traitors-in-the-Military," and/or the healthy kind of self-criticism.
For example, the Transformers movies: https://www.wired.com/2008/12/pentagon-holl-1/
The general concept: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military-entertainment_compl...
That's untrue. A trivial example is porn involving 17 year olds.
Honestly, with the ubiquity of CGI in film, whether the military choses to participate in a film is hardly a barrier to making a movie.