Band 8, Heft 3 - Editors’ Forum: Chinese Culture/Global Culture, Guest edited by Heather Schmidt

What has been dubbed “China’s rise” has been met with trepidation or outright fear. The increasing economic and political power of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) is often read as a harbinger of the West’s imminent decline, and as a threat to a Western dominated global order. To match its growing ‘hard’ power, leaders in China have outlined intentions to cultivate the country’s soft power, or its appeal and influence globally. These efforts too have been read in largely negative terms in a body of literature that has sprung up around Chinese soft power. Yet, these works tend to assume negative implications without being grounded in empirical research. The contributors to this issue were tasked with reconsidering China’s soft power in the light of research which attends to the ideas and practices of its mediums – mediums such as the expansion of China’s global media network, the opening of Confucius Institutes around the world, and the increasing presence of Chinese popular culture in global forums. This introduction, in particular, considers some of the lessons that considerations of Chinese soft power can learn from the field of global studies.

Western scholars’ and policy analysts’ attention to the expansion of China’s media abroad has focused on the state’s strategy of soft power behind the global spread of institutions such as Xinhua and China Central Television, on the propagandistic image of China that these institutions seek to project in their foreign-language programming, and on the potential damage to media freedom in Africa and elsewhere. No attention has been paid to the reverse: how the emergence of a global network of Chinese correspondents impacts dominant Chinese views of the world and China’s place in it. The ethnographic research project on which this article is based reverses this lens, seeking to understand how Chinese journalists who report for PRC media from abroad see their work, what stories about the world they want to tell Chinese audiences about the world and how their choices are shaped by state policies, institutional pressures and individual preferences. Its preliminary conclusion is that while the lifestyles of the new generation of correspondents are increasingly cosmopolitan, this does not necessarily translate into more innovative or reflexive reporting.

The Nanjing Massacre (1937–1938) has been rewritten by two controversial Chinese hits aimed at the global market: City of Life and Death (2009) and The Flowers of War (2011). Directed, respectively, by the rising director Lu Chuan and the internationally renowned “Fifth Generation” director Zhang Yimou, the films feature the complicated dynamics between Chinese refugees, Westerners and Japanese soldiers amidst the devastation. Their ambition to reach worldwide audiences, such as the nuanced treatment of wartime occupation and aesthetic references to Hollywood, is either affirmed by international awards or thwarted by the lackluster reception in the West. By examining the various globalist transformations in the cinematic narrative, this paper argues that what begins as a rearticulation of the patriotic discourse turns into a tentative construction of new identity at the historical moment of China’s rise. The reconfiguration of the national epic in City of Life and Death and The Flowers of War manifests a repositioning of Chinese self in response to global consumerism.

In 2010, a reality dating show called Fei Cheng Wu Rao (非诚勿扰) sparked discussions across the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and many viewers saw the show as a reflection of changes in the value systems of contemporary national society. The format that inspired the show, however, has international origins. This article considers Fei Cheng Wu Rao alongside the equally popular British version, Take Me Out , to demonstrate how Jiangsu Satellite Television has been able to adjust a global format to comply with PRC censorship and differing television dating show expectations, drawing out the opposing forms of fantasy each version of the format presents. The article then engages with overseas special episodes (海外专场) as a form of international relations that educate participants and viewers alike in how to approach foreign places and cultural difference.

In 1976 an exhibition of Chinese peasant paintings toured Britain. Made by amateur peasant painters from Huxian (户县), the works were widely celebrated in the British art world for their optimistic portrayal of the new socialist countryside. Analysis of the exhibition’s reviews in newspapers and art journals demonstrate, however, that what appealed to the British critics was less the art itself and more the art system in China in which amateurs were encouraged to paint. This was contrasted to a British and Western art world that many left-wing artists and critics deemed to be elitist, overly conceptual and out of touch with the wider public. The success of the Huxian exhibition then needs to be seen in the context of the debates and criticisms of the British art world that took place throughout the 1970s. It also needs to be contextualized within the broader interest in China, Chinese communism and the Cultural Revolution that developed in the late 1960s and 1970s. This essay therefore explores the broader British interest in China in the 1970s and argues that the success of the Huxian peasant painting exhibition was the result of a unique convergence of events in late 1970s Britain.

Both post-1949 Maoist China and post-1978 reform China have seen a national image of “the good life” imprinted on the domestic public imagination. In both cases such images seek to mobilize the Chinese people towards a vision of a better life. In both, the idea of “industriousness” is present, but the vision of what constitutes “the good life” has changed significantly, becoming more determinedly modernist and outward-looking. With the Beijing Olympics of 2008 and the Shanghai World Expo of 2010, suddenly the vision of the good life was not only a national call to arms for industriousness, but also a vision of China projected globally, yet in a way that, domestically, served to maintain the continuity of the communist party in a fast-changing socio-political landscape. So, while the desire for “the good life” remains a national call to arms, the projected images of it may well now depict a drastically different vision of what it actually consists of. Comparison between 1950s Mao propaganda posters and those from other eras will be used in this article to explore the continuity of political rhetoric surrounding “the good life” in contemporary China.

The idea of soft power – the ability to attract others by means of culture, political values and policies – is broadly debated in the context of the re-emergence of China. Less attention has been given to public diplomacy, the actual instrument governments use to mobilize these soft power resources. This paper goes beyond the literature on China’s soft power and focuses on the instrument of public diplomacy. The two paradigms of old and new public diplomacy help to tackle the idea that China is an undifferentiated, monolithic entity acting with a single, unitary logic across cultural domains. Confucius Institutes (CIs), as one important tool of China’s public diplomacy, illustrate this as they include non-Chinese non-state actors into China’s external communication efforts. This approach requires and encourages more dialogue and greater exchange between the stakeholders which co-create messages about China for foreign audiences. Nevertheless, the paper argues that CIs at the same time also illustrate that China’s public diplomacy system largely remains state-centric which limits its influence to shape China’s image and project its soft power.

This article examines the use of material objects and interactive technologies in Confucius Institutes (CIs) as a means of affectively engaging foreign audiences. By asking for an emotional investment in Chinese culture on the part of foreigners, CIs work to re-orient audiences outside China towards the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in positive ways. In particular, I examine a museum-like exhibit space in CI headquarters titled the China Exploratorium . While the exhibit ostensibly is meant to provide a brief overview of China, its culture and history, the space is less about cognitive learning and more about experiential learning. The Exploratorium invites bodily engagement with interactive displays as a means of getting foreign visitors to “feel” Chinese culture. This article explores three techniques used in the exhibit whereby affect is potentially produced (interactive displays, insertion of the self into the exhibit, and touristic devices). These techniques aim to make Chinese culture fun, entertaining and enjoyable, and the PRC a happy (and thus benign) place by association.