Here's a depressing story in China Daily:
Just as housing and cars drive today's consumption in China, the cultural industry including cultural and entertainment products and services will be an engine of economic growth, a top Beijing-based think-tank says.
They try to argue that the "cultural industry" will help address the growing economic inequality between the booming eastern coastal provinces and the interior western provinces:
Economically and culturally, the coastal regions are more advanced than the central and western parts, Zhang's research team says in the "Report on Development of China's Cultural Industry (2006)."
But the central and western regions are by far abundant in cultural resources, so in the long run, the eastern areas need them for sustainable development.
East or west, the cultural industry will undoubtedly become the strategic focus of their economic and social development, the report observes.
But what does it mean that the "central and western regions are by far abundant in cultural resources"? It means that the cultural resources of the traditional heartland of Chinese civilization - you know, terracotta soldiers in Xian and all of that - should and will be turned into commodities for world markets. Think of the business possibilities: bobble-head terracotta soldiers!
And Lao Tzu could become part of the mix. In legend, he was supposed to have left the hustle and bustle of towns and government and set off for the west, the interior, the untamed places, away from the demands of the economic and social changes of late Zhou Dynasty China. So, how long will it take before some enterprising young buck in, say, Shaanxi or Gansu, comes up with a Lao Tzu doll, complete with acessories for his trip to the interior? Or, has somebody already done this...?
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