In our continuation of IR week, here is another piece, published in the LA Times on August 3, 2003, that considers the significance of cultural change, especially pop cultural change, in China.
Chinese punk rock. Chinese hip-hop.
Chinese NBA stars. Twenty years ago, we could have hardly conceived of
such things. What would Chairman Mao have thought of the playful and
prosperous possibilities of Chinese cultural expression in the 21st
century? What would Emperor Qian Long have thought? The
dignitaries of the imperial past and the commissars of the socialist
period would probably reject as "un-Chinese" many of the contemporary
cultural currents in Beijing and Shanghai and Guangzhou. Scantily clad
models gliding down runways of internationally renowned fashion shows?
Immoral, the old men would have intoned. Yet, in spite of derision from
traditionalists and communists alike, the remarkable variety of current
Chinese cultural practice is historically and politically significant. A powerful link among culture and wealth and politics has been broken:
In imperialist and socialist times, the Chinese government closely
controlled both culture and economy, but now the weakening Communist
regime has relinquished both. In imperial times, a universal
ideal of Chinese-ness was to be found in the Confucian classics.
Anyone, regardless of ethnicity, could learn to live the good life.
Qian Long was Manchurian, not Han Chinese, yet he was, in his time, the
epitome of Chinese culture. Indeed, the primary means to political
power and wealth was cultural attainment, tested by the rigorous
bureaucratic examination system. Independent merchants may have made
fortunes through their entrepreneurial wiles, but, once successful,
they quickly took on the trappings of the Confucian gentleman and made
sure their sons studied the classics and practiced the rituals. The tightly knit triumvirate of culture, power and wealth was slowly
shattered by 19th century Western imperialism, which demonstrated new
forms of power and wealth, thus undermining faith in the old culture.
But before the new freedom could be institutionalized, Mao Tse-tung and
the Communist Party rebuilt the troika, this time giving greater
prominence to politics. In communist China, the party
monopolized political power and the state controlled how wealth was
produced and distributed. The party- state was also in the business of
regulating culture. Mao even launched a Cultural Revolution in a
desperate effort to destroy any possible challenge to his own
preeminence. The Confucian gentleman was dead and the Red loyalist
supreme. China's universalist aspiration was also killed. It
seemed, for a fleeting moment, that traditional Sino- centrism might be
replaced by socialist internationalism, that China would be a part of a
grand global revolutionary project. But nationalism proved the stronger
force. Mao was, in the end, much more interested in socialism in one
country -- his own -- than in building a worldwide movement. Socialism ultimately failed, and by the late 1970s China was, in Deng
Xiaoping's view, poor and backward. He devised a strategy for
rebuilding China's stature in the world, but it was a deal with the
globalization devil. The party would hold on to political power but let
go of the economy. Private enterprise would be allowed. Foreign capital
would be invited to invest and build new factories and offices. China
would be integrated into the world economy; it would trade with all.
The resulting economic growth, Deng believed, would enliven the country
and reinvigorate the party's legitimacy. He was only half right. If the enormous Tiananmen Square demonstrations of 1989 proved
anything, it was that economic growth did not automatically translate
into wider popular support for party dictatorship. People were happy
for the new prosperity, but they chafed at the old politics. And the
bloody aftermath proved that the cost of political resistance was just
too high. So, Chinese, especially young Chinese, have turned to
new cultural expressions: conspicuous consumption or pop music or drug-
induced raves or whatever is fun and happy and not tied to the tired
old China of traditional rectitude or communist asceticism. Deng
knew he was taking a gamble on opening up Chinese society to new forms
of economic and cultural behavior. He thought he could let the economy
run while he used state power to regulate culture. But what has
happened is that culture and wealth have broken free from politics.
Communists must now invite capitalists to join their party, an
organization founded to overcome capitalism. Only a handful of
intellectuals bothers to read Karl Marx anymore, but millions clamor
for the latest Hong Kong or Taiwan pop star. The political
liberation of culture and wealth is not unprecedented in Chinese
history. In the early decades of the 20th century, the old ways had
been discarded and the new was everywhere intoxicating the young. But
war destroyed this efflorescence, and communist victory brought back a
stricter political regime. Now, however, the openness is even headier.
Globalized communications and transportation make virtually any
cultural form anywhere available to the Chinese. And they seize the
opportunities with passion. Oddly enough, globalization has also
reconstituted a Chinese universalism of sorts. Imperial universalism
was founded on the notion that (almost) anyone could become Chinese;
now, universalism is a matter of Chinese becoming (almost) anything. There is an important political aspect of this new universal China: It opens up new avenues of freedom. The party can no longer control the cultural sphere. It can harass
large cultural organizations, like Falun Gong, which have obvious
political characteristics. But it no longer has the capacity to chase
down the many who are subverting what used to be called "socialist
spiritual civilization." There is no effort at all to counter the flood
of insipid pop cultural products and productions, none of which uphold
socialist values. At the margins of society, in the avant-garde studios
and back-alley clubs, much more challenging messages are pouring forth. Taken all together, the bland and the brash, culture has become a realm
of freedom: freedom of expression, freedom of choice, freedom of
individual taste and opinion. And this freedom will have political
effects over the not-so-long term. Just listen to what the punk rockers
are saying: Red flag in this sky, but it means nothing, Red flag doesn't need a star, like freedom doesn't need a flag. So many [damn] rules, but I don't care. Let's burn this flag, Now it's the time. It seems that the new universal China cannot be comfortably contained by the old powers that be.
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