Janet Yang is a veteran Hollywood producer who has worked with Steven Spielberg and Oliver Stone and whose films include Empire of the Sun, The People vs. Larry Flynt, and The Joy Luck Club. In their conversation, Yang tells Robert Scheer about connecting to her Chinese heritage on a visit to the country as a young adult after growing up in New York. She discusses the contradictions she sees within China's people and the tension between socialism and capitalism in China. Yang also discusses her struggle to produce The Joy Luck Club, and why it probably couldn't be made today.
Photo: Producer Janet Yang poses during an interview with Reuters in Beijing October 19, 2013. (Kim Kyung-Hoon/Reuters)