In the last of a four-part series, Minnie Chan reports on Beijing’s softly, softly approach to global image-building
Minnie Chan 9 March 2009
For many years, Spanish student Ruben Sanchez Sabate has found a lot to like about Chinese cultural values. “I like the respect for old people and hard work,” says Mr. Sabate, a 27-year-old humanities student from Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona. Mr. Sabate seems a ripe target for Beijing’s efforts to boost the appeal of China Inc to the rest of the world through cultural exports such as movies.
But there is a big stumbling block: Mr. Sabate and many others like him have strong antipathy towards what they see as Beijing’s political gimmicks in promoting Chinese culture overseas.
China is hoping to emulate the soft power success of Japan and the United States by extending the overseas reach of its culture industry and has made development of the potentially multibillion-dollar sector beyond its borders as one of the key projects in the 11th Five-Year Plan (2006-2010).
Top officials believe that the plan will not only drive domestic consumption in tourism, entertainment, performances, audio and video products, movies and the arts but also export a “good national image” to the outside world. Beyond that, a more burnished reputation in the international community could allow easier acquisition of much-needed overseas resources.
In Mr. Sabate’s hometown of Barcelona, for instance, Beijing set up a non-profit Chinese-language school in 2007 and held a Chinese cultural festival last month to coincide with Premier Wen Jiabao’s European trip.
But the efforts may be futile because many Spaniards equate the Chinese government with human rights violations. “What I read in the news is that the Chinese government does not respect human rights,” Mr. Sabate said. “And I think Chinese values respect human rights. I don’t like the violation of human rights in China and that they are a capitalist economy under a communist government.”
China’s high-profile internet crackdown in January, targeting websites and blogs containing content that “harms public morality and corrupts youth” angered human rights activists around the world. More than 1,500 so-called pornographic websites were shut down and authorities warned internet giants like Google, MSN and Baidu that they risked closure if they continued to provide lines to such material.
The crackdown triggered outcries at home and abroad. Overseas media alleged that the “pornography” tag was used as a cover-up to clamp down on dissidents. One example cited was the shutdown of a blog by Beijing resident Wang Jingmei pleading the case for her son Yang Jia, who was executed in November for murdering six Shanghai police officers.
It is these kinds of incidents that foreigners like Mr. Sabate say tarnish China’s charm offensives abroad. “We only buy Chinese culture and religion, especially Buddhism, but we don’t buy the Chinese government. We differentiate between them.”
Exporting culture is a complex undertaking because its advocates risk being viewed as imperialists. But Beijing is determined, with plans to spend 45 billion yuan (HK$51.11 billion) on overseas expansion of its main media organisations in an aggressive global drive to raise its international image. Officials have forecast that the added-value of the cultural industry to the economy will reach 3 trillion yuan in 2020, accounting for 5 per cent of GDP and growing at an average pace of about 14.6 per cent between 2005 and 2020.
China’s propaganda chief, Li Changchun, has called on increasing cultural soft power to enhance the nation’s international image.
The nation’s ambitions for greater influence follow its economic rise in recent years. The mainland is cash-rich and has been on a spending spree, snapping up raw materials abroad to ensure supplies at home.
And there is no time like now to be doing it. With global commodity prices crashing, opportunities for mergers and acquisitions are emerging like never before. The US$25 billion energy agreements with Russia; a US$19.5 billion bid by Aluminium Corp of China for stakes in debt-ridden Rio Tinto; and a US$1.7 billion takeover bid by China Minmetals for OZ Minerals are prime recent examples of mainland purchases of overseas assets.
However, the nation’s overseas acquisition bids have been far from smooth sailing. The high-profile bid by state-owned CNOOC for US-based Unocal in 2005 ended in a humiliating defeat amid rival offers from Chevron and strong opposition from US politicians.
A similar fate befell Huawei Technologies and partner Bain Capital’s bid for 3com in 2007. The pair withdrew their bid after failing to ease concerns that China’s military may get access to security software used by the US government.
In contrast, it has had better results with developing African and Latin America countries, where natural gas and energy are abundant, providing foreign aid to these countries.
Still, mainland players would have learned hard lessons from the botched deals. One lesson is the need to soften China’s image abroad, particularly in the developed west.
The mainland’s economic ascendancy has heightened concerns in the international community of a rising “China threat”.
However, this resentment has been easing in the current global downturn for fairly basic reasons - the rest of the world wants China’s cash. At the recent G7 meeting in Rome, China was portrayed as having played a defining role in creating desperately needed demand.
But for the average person in the west, Chinese movies might be the best advertising the country has. Margaret Hall, an American-born Chinese teenager in Boston, said younger people in the west were comfortable watching Chinese movies - one of the most popular Chinese cultural exports.
“I watched more [Chinese movies] as a teenager, including Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Hero and other Jet Li movies,” the 17-year-old Wellesley College student said. “I know many Americans who know a lot more about Chinese movie stars.”
In St Petersburg, 27-year-old Russian Maria Pyshkova said she and her father enjoyed watching Chinese movies. “I heard about Bruce Lee about 20 years ago, because my father liked to read books about kung fu and Bruce Lee,” the logistic specialist with General Motors said.
Ms. Pyshkova, who started learning the Chinese language several years ago, said the influence of mainland culture had gradually permeated among the young through movies, food and other civilian exchanges.
But on the mainland, the cultural industry is a different story. With the exception of the movie and food sectors, culture has been predominantly government-driven since 1949. “Compared with the mass media like publications, the internet and television, we have to say that movie development is so far the most successful pillar in our cultural industry,” Chinese Academy of Social Science (CASS) researcher Pan Xiaosong said. “This is because it is the only entertainment and cultural sector that our government allows private investors to play a part in.”
Last year’s domestic box office in mainland urban cinemas increased 27 per cent to total 4.2 billion yuan, putting it in the world’s top 10 box office revenue earners for the first time.
Nearly half of the revenue came from eight of the 402 productions and seven of them were joint mainland, Hong Kong and Taiwanese productions, according to Xinhua.
But even though the investment in the sector is private, movie makers still have to be aware of the official line, a factor that could hamper eventual success overseas.
The producers of some Hong Kong crime thriller films such Infernal Affairs, Mad Detective and Sparrow were forced to prepare two versions - one for Hong Kong, Taiwan and overseas markets, and one for mainland cinemas in which all bad guys were punished and confessed.
Even literary films like Lust, Caution were submitted for cuts. The film was severely criticised despite 15 minutes of erotic shots being taken out, Jiang Ping, former deputy director of the State Administration of Radio Film and Television (SARFT), told Hong Kong media in a workshop.
“The problem is not ‘lust’, but ‘caution’ which is our red line - the nationalism and anti-Japanese sentiment,” he said.
He added the authority could not accept the idea of a Chinese spy betraying her nation and failing to remain tough during her execution by Japanese.
In the workshop, many Hong Kong movie producers complained that ideological restrictions and underlying politics limited their creativity.
For example, in 2004, Hong Kong director Derek Yee Tung-shing changed Cecilia Cheung’s original line in A Night in Mongkok from “I came from a poor village in Hunan” to “I came from a poor island in South Asia” when explaining her reason for working as a prostitute in Hong Kong.
Few Chinese movie stars are in a position to gain the international popularity that Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan gained in the past because today’s producers have to be mindful of the vagaries of mainland authorities.
“A country’s soft power influence in the world should be supported by hard power political impact,” Mr. Pan said. “It was impossible for China to develop soft power in developed countries because the rules of the market were made by western powers like the US.”
He stressed enhancing its soft power beyond its borders using culture would be difficult in the absence of a good political reputation and powerful bargaining chips.
Take the recent bids by Chinalco and China Minmetals. Both are Beijing-controlled monopolies run by top officials and their political links could be concerns of the prospective takeover targets and host country.
The findings of the Pew Global Attitudes Survey in China of 3,212 adults last year before the Beijing Olympics - the mainland’s biggest charm offensive - found that 77 per cent of respondents believed their country enjoyed international popularity.
But conversely, only seven of the 23 nations surveyed liked China.
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Charm offensive takes a cultural leap
In the last of a four-part series, Minnie Chan reports on Beijing’s softly, softly approach to global image-building
Minnie Chan
9 March 2009
For many years, Spanish student Ruben Sanchez Sabate has found a lot to like about Chinese cultural values. “I like the respect for old people and hard work,” says Mr. Sabate, a 27-year-old humanities student from Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona. Mr. Sabate seems a ripe target for Beijing’s efforts to boost the appeal of China Inc to the rest of the world through cultural exports such as movies.
But there is a big stumbling block: Mr. Sabate and many others like him have strong antipathy towards what they see as Beijing’s political gimmicks in promoting Chinese culture overseas.
China is hoping to emulate the soft power success of Japan and the United States by extending the overseas reach of its culture industry and has made development of the potentially multibillion-dollar sector beyond its borders as one of the key projects in the 11th Five-Year Plan (2006-2010).
Top officials believe that the plan will not only drive domestic consumption in tourism, entertainment, performances, audio and video products, movies and the arts but also export a “good national image” to the outside world. Beyond that, a more burnished reputation in the international community could allow easier acquisition of much-needed overseas resources.
In Mr. Sabate’s hometown of Barcelona, for instance, Beijing set up a non-profit Chinese-language school in 2007 and held a Chinese cultural festival last month to coincide with Premier Wen Jiabao’s European trip.
But the efforts may be futile because many Spaniards equate the Chinese government with human rights violations. “What I read in the news is that the Chinese government does not respect human rights,” Mr. Sabate said. “And I think Chinese values respect human rights. I don’t like the violation of human rights in China and that they are a capitalist economy under a communist government.”
China’s high-profile internet crackdown in January, targeting websites and blogs containing content that “harms public morality and corrupts youth” angered human rights activists around the world. More than 1,500 so-called pornographic websites were shut down and authorities warned internet giants like Google, MSN and Baidu that they risked closure if they continued to provide lines to such material.
The crackdown triggered outcries at home and abroad. Overseas media alleged that the “pornography” tag was used as a cover-up to clamp down on dissidents. One example cited was the shutdown of a blog by Beijing resident Wang Jingmei pleading the case for her son Yang Jia, who was executed in November for murdering six Shanghai police officers.
It is these kinds of incidents that foreigners like Mr. Sabate say tarnish China’s charm offensives abroad. “We only buy Chinese culture and religion, especially Buddhism, but we don’t buy the Chinese government. We differentiate between them.”
Exporting culture is a complex undertaking because its advocates risk being viewed as imperialists. But Beijing is determined, with plans to spend 45 billion yuan (HK$51.11 billion) on overseas expansion of its main media organisations in an aggressive global drive to raise its international image. Officials have forecast that the added-value of the cultural industry to the economy will reach 3 trillion yuan in 2020, accounting for 5 per cent of GDP and growing at an average pace of about 14.6 per cent between 2005 and 2020.
China’s propaganda chief, Li Changchun, has called on increasing cultural soft power to enhance the nation’s international image.
The nation’s ambitions for greater influence follow its economic rise in recent years. The mainland is cash-rich and has been on a spending spree, snapping up raw materials abroad to ensure supplies at home.
And there is no time like now to be doing it. With global commodity prices crashing, opportunities for mergers and acquisitions are emerging like never before. The US$25 billion energy agreements with Russia; a US$19.5 billion bid by Aluminium Corp of China for stakes in debt-ridden Rio Tinto; and a US$1.7 billion takeover bid by China Minmetals for OZ Minerals are prime recent examples of mainland purchases of overseas assets.
However, the nation’s overseas acquisition bids have been far from smooth sailing. The high-profile bid by state-owned CNOOC for US-based Unocal in 2005 ended in a humiliating defeat amid rival offers from Chevron and strong opposition from US politicians.
A similar fate befell Huawei Technologies and partner Bain Capital’s bid for 3com in 2007. The pair withdrew their bid after failing to ease concerns that China’s military may get access to security software used by the US government.
In contrast, it has had better results with developing African and Latin America countries, where natural gas and energy are abundant, providing foreign aid to these countries.
Still, mainland players would have learned hard lessons from the botched deals. One lesson is the need to soften China’s image abroad, particularly in the developed west.
The mainland’s economic ascendancy has heightened concerns in the international community of a rising “China threat”.
However, this resentment has been easing in the current global downturn for fairly basic reasons - the rest of the world wants China’s cash. At the recent G7 meeting in Rome, China was portrayed as having played a defining role in creating desperately needed demand.
But for the average person in the west, Chinese movies might be the best advertising the country has. Margaret Hall, an American-born Chinese teenager in Boston, said younger people in the west were comfortable watching Chinese movies - one of the most popular Chinese cultural exports.
“I watched more [Chinese movies] as a teenager, including Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Hero and other Jet Li movies,” the 17-year-old Wellesley College student said. “I know many Americans who know a lot more about Chinese movie stars.”
In St Petersburg, 27-year-old Russian Maria Pyshkova said she and her father enjoyed watching Chinese movies. “I heard about Bruce Lee about 20 years ago, because my father liked to read books about kung fu and Bruce Lee,” the logistic specialist with General Motors said.
Ms. Pyshkova, who started learning the Chinese language several years ago, said the influence of mainland culture had gradually permeated among the young through movies, food and other civilian exchanges.
But on the mainland, the cultural industry is a different story. With the exception of the movie and food sectors, culture has been predominantly government-driven since 1949. “Compared with the mass media like publications, the internet and television, we have to say that movie development is so far the most successful pillar in our cultural industry,” Chinese Academy of Social Science (CASS) researcher Pan Xiaosong said. “This is because it is the only entertainment and cultural sector that our government allows private investors to play a part in.”
Last year’s domestic box office in mainland urban cinemas increased 27 per cent to total 4.2 billion yuan, putting it in the world’s top 10 box office revenue earners for the first time.
Nearly half of the revenue came from eight of the 402 productions and seven of them were joint mainland, Hong Kong and Taiwanese productions, according to Xinhua.
But even though the investment in the sector is private, movie makers still have to be aware of the official line, a factor that could hamper eventual success overseas.
The producers of some Hong Kong crime thriller films such Infernal Affairs, Mad Detective and Sparrow were forced to prepare two versions - one for Hong Kong, Taiwan and overseas markets, and one for mainland cinemas in which all bad guys were punished and confessed.
Even literary films like Lust, Caution were submitted for cuts. The film was severely criticised despite 15 minutes of erotic shots being taken out, Jiang Ping, former deputy director of the State Administration of Radio Film and Television (SARFT), told Hong Kong media in a workshop.
“The problem is not ‘lust’, but ‘caution’ which is our red line - the nationalism and anti-Japanese sentiment,” he said.
He added the authority could not accept the idea of a Chinese spy betraying her nation and failing to remain tough during her execution by Japanese.
In the workshop, many Hong Kong movie producers complained that ideological restrictions and underlying politics limited their creativity.
For example, in 2004, Hong Kong director Derek Yee Tung-shing changed Cecilia Cheung’s original line in A Night in Mongkok from “I came from a poor village in Hunan” to “I came from a poor island in South Asia” when explaining her reason for working as a prostitute in Hong Kong.
Few Chinese movie stars are in a position to gain the international popularity that Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan gained in the past because today’s producers have to be mindful of the vagaries of mainland authorities.
“A country’s soft power influence in the world should be supported by hard power political impact,” Mr. Pan said. “It was impossible for China to develop soft power in developed countries because the rules of the market were made by western powers like the US.”
He stressed enhancing its soft power beyond its borders using culture would be difficult in the absence of a good political reputation and powerful bargaining chips.
Take the recent bids by Chinalco and China Minmetals. Both are Beijing-controlled monopolies run by top officials and their political links could be concerns of the prospective takeover targets and host country.
The findings of the Pew Global Attitudes Survey in China of 3,212 adults last year before the Beijing Olympics - the mainland’s biggest charm offensive - found that 77 per cent of respondents believed their country enjoyed international popularity.
But conversely, only seven of the 23 nations surveyed liked China.
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