Chinese Maker Culture – co-opting digitally mediated making for nation building

ABSTRACT

The converging agendas in supporting cultural creativity and digital innovation became evident in the development of creative economy in China. Maker culture has become a key concern for public policy in China, driven by a demand for individualised creativity and the need to co-opt such creativity for nation building. Critics of maker culture have argued that it re-enforces a new global hegemony, one that prioritizes the values of the developed West over Chinese socialist and Confucius values. Applying the concept of ideoscapes, I explore the interpretation and the mediation of the Western creative discourse by Chinese makers and their unique social practices. This article shows the local adaptation of liberal democracy. In the push for a national maker culture strategy, amateur makers as well as professional technology activists work with the state to re-define ‘keywords’ for the operationalisation of Western creative discourse in very different context.

KEYWORDS:

• DIY citizenship
• global cultural flow
• Chinese maker culture
• creative subjectivity
• digital cultural policy

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. This technical breakthrough was well documented by a series of publications on innovation and entrepreneurship in the sector. Cf. ‘Handbook of East Asian Entrepreneurship’ (Yu and Yan 2015) by Tony Fu-Lai Yu and Ho-Don Yan. Routledge.

2. This is evident in Chinese Premier Li Keqiang’s signatory policy ‘Made in China 2025’ aiming at improving consumer goods quality through a digital strategy. https://english.www.gov.cn/2016special/madeinchina2025/.

3. At the time of the interview, Hax will take 8% share of their backed IPO companies.

4. Chinese media giant Sohu launched the first ‘China Maker White Paper’ in 2013, providing the definition, development model of maker culture in the West and opportunities for China. The term ‘Makers’ became well-known as a result of this report. Sohu later joined other Chinese media corporations to promote ‘the Age of Makers’. https://it.sohu.com/20131028/n389076096.shtml.

5. The State Council announced on September 26, 2015 that the government will allocate further funding and support platforms to promote an ecosystem modelled on ‘maker culture’. Crowd-sourcing and crowd-funding are two of its signature policy pieces. Premier Li Keqiang, has been nick named ‘Maker Li Keqiang’ for promoting the maker model at the state level. This has resulted in an exponential growth of makerspaces across China. This policy was known internationally through Li’s speech at Davos Forum in 2016. https://web.archive.org/web/20160202213554/http://finance.china.com.cn/news/special/2015xjdws/20150910/3335455.shtml.

6. Li Keqiang, executive meeting of the state council.

On June 17, 2015. https://www-gov-cn.translate.goog/zhuanti/2016/MadeinChina2025-plan/index.htm?_x_tr_sch=http&_x_tr_sl=zh-CN&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=sc

7. Maker culture development policy normally refers to the national policy ‘Made in China 2025’, announced by the State Council in 2015, as a blueprint for China’s ambition to become a technological superpower by 2049. Maker culture has featured heavily as a prototype for it addresses three key strategic emphasis of global manufacturing, innovation and consumer culture. http://www.gov.cn/zhuanti/2016/MadeinChina2025-plan/mobile.htm. Provincial and municipal government has responded to the national policy by developing local policies. In this case study, I will focus on Shenzhen’s policy - ‘several measures of Shenzhen City to promote the development of makers’ (2015) http://www.gd.gov.cn/zwgk/wjk/zcfgk/content/post_2531551.html.

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the Australian Research Council [DP170104255].

Notes on contributors

Xin Gu

Xin Gu is Senior Lecturer at the School of Media Film and Journalism, Monash University. She is an Expert appointed by UNESCO 2005 Convention on the Protection and Promotion of Expression of Cultural Diversity. Her recent publications include Red Creative and Re-imagining Creative Cities in Twenty-First Century Asia.