A new place to go for fun in China. China's largest private property developer, the Wanda Group, opened an entertainment complex on Saturday in Southeastern China's Jiangxi province. It's being positioned as competition for Disney, which is opening a theme park in Shanghai in June.

'Wanda City' theme park opens in SE China

Wanda executives unveiled their 3 billion US dollar "Wanda City" in the southeastern provincial capital of Nanchang to thundering music reminiscent of the "Pirates of the Caribbean" theme. They're hailing the center as a representative of Chinese entertainment in the face of foreign influences.

"The best bit was up there at the top. It's really fast when you come down," Tourist CHen Kang said.

As a leading player in Chinese firms' globalisation push, the property group has invested heavily in the film and cinema business and has spoken openly about overtaking Disney as a leading entertainment brand.

Wanda's massive site includes an 800 million US dollar theme park, an indoor shopping mall with cinemas, restaurants, hotels and the world's largest ocean park.

As Disney is set to open its own resort in Shanghai in June. Wang Jianlin, Wanda chairman and China's richest man, said Chinese people "fawn" over Western culture.

"Chinese culture led in the world for 2,000 years, but for the last 300 years, because of our lagging development and the invasion of foreign cultures, we have more or less lacked confidence in our own culture," Wanda chairman Wang Jianlin said.

Earlier this month, he told Chinese state television in an interview that Disney's foray into China would crumble under more competitive pricing from his group, and warned that the "the frenzy of Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck and the era of blindly following them has passed".

"You can tell where he was going, with how he was positioning his theme parks. He was emphasising the high cost of Disneyland versus his parks. He was appealing to Chinese culture, understanding the local market. He's not necessarily looking with his parks to beat them on an equivalent level of quality and price, but something that's more value for money," China Market Research Group James Roy said.

Wanda's deal-making has been similarly aggressive as it quickly diversifies away from China's weakening real estate market.

The group purchased US-based AMC Theaters cinema chain in 2012 for 2.5 billion US dollars and paid 3.5 billion US dollars for Legendary Entertainment — the Hollywood studio behind the Batman franchise — earlier this year as it ramped up its international push.

And the group is expected to build 20 more entertainment complexes in the next five years.

It seems that Wanda is fully prepared to compete with Disney, but perhaps it will take time to say who's the winner.

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