MCLC: Hu pushes back against Western culture

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: kirk (denton.2 at osu.edu)
Subject: Hu pushes back against Western culture
***********************************************************

Source: NYT (1/3/12):
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/04/world/asia/chinas-president-pushes-back-a
gainst-western-culture.html

China¹s President Pushes Back Against Western Culture

By EDWARD WONG 

BEIJING ‹ President Hu Jintao of China has said that the West is trying to
dominate China by spreading its culture and ideology and that China must
strengthen its cultural production to defend against the assault,
according to an essay in a Communist Party policy magazine published this
week.

Mr. Hu¹s words signaled that a major policy initiative announced last
October would continue well into 2012.

The essay, which was signed by Mr. Hu and based on a speech he gave in
October, drew a sharp line between the cultures of the West and China and
effectively said the two sides were engaged in an escalating culture war.
It was published in Seeking Truth, a magazine founded by Mao Zedong as a
platform for establishing Communist Party principles.

³We must clearly see that international hostile forces are intensifying
the strategic plot of westernizing and dividing China, and ideological and
cultural fields are the focal areas of their long-term infiltration,² Mr.
Hu said, according to a translation by Reuters.

³We should deeply understand the seriousness and complexity of the
ideological struggle, always sound the alarms and remain vigilant and take
forceful measures to be on guard and respond,² he added.

Those measures, Mr. Hu said, should be centered on developing cultural
products that can draw the interest of the Chinese and meet the ³growing
spiritual and cultural demands of the people.²

Chinese leaders have long lamented the fact that Western expressions of
popular culture and art seem to overshadow those from China. The top
grossing films in China have been ³Avatar² and ³Transformers 3,² and the
music of Lady Gaga is as popular here as that of any that of any Chinese
pop singer. In October, at the annual plenum of the party¹s Central
Committee, where Mr. Hu gave his speech, officials discussed the need for
bolstering the ³cultural security² of China.

³The overall strength of Chinese culture and its international influence
is not commensurate with China¹s international status,² Mr. Hu said in his
essay, according to another translation.

³The international culture of the West is strong while we are weak,² he
said.

Mr. Hu did not address the widespread assertion by Chinese artists and
intellectuals that state censorship is what prevents artists and their
works from reaching their full potential. Last week, Han Han, a novelist
and China¹s most popular blogger, discussed the issue in an online essay
called ³On Freedom.²

³The restriction on cultural activities makes it impossible for China to
influence literature and cinema on a global basis or for us culturati to
raise our heads up proud,² Han Han wrote.

The publication of Mr. Hu¹s essay and other articles in Seeking Truth on
bolstering China¹s cultural power signaled that this would be a central
initiative in 2012, which is a transition year for the Chinese leadership
as seven of the top nine party members step down from the Standing
Committee of the Politburo. Mr. Hu appeared keen to enshrine the culture
drive as a final defining moment of his decade-long tenure at China¹s helm.

The Central Committee meeting in October established the ideological
foundation for a tightening of a cultural sphere that is only now
beginning to unfold. Right after the meeting, officials announced a
sweeping new policy
<http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/01/world/asia/censors-pull-reins-as-china-t
v-chasing-profit-gets-racy.html> to wipe scores of so-called entertainment
shows off the air. That took effect on Sunday. Television stations have
been racing to come up with new programs that will be deemed ³socially
responsible² by the censors.

Last month, officials in Beijing and other cities ordered Internet
companies to ensure that people posting on microblogs, called Sina Weibo
in Chinese, had registered their accounts using their real names
<http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/17/world/asia/beijing-imposes-new-rules-on-
social-networking-sites.html>, though they could still post under an
alias. Officials have been putting pressure on executives and editors
running the microblog platforms to self-censor, and many microblog users
say the microblogs have been getting less interesting.

At the same time, China has been making a push to increase its cultural
influence abroad, or its ³soft power.² The government has opened up
Confucius Institutes around the world to aid foreigners in learning
Chinese. The state is also lavishing financing on opening operations of
large state-run news organizations, including Xinhua, the state news
agency, and China Central Television in cities around the world. Officials
from those organizations say they hope their version of the world events
becomes as common as those from Western news organizations.