Creative industries in China: four perspectives on social transformation

Abstract

In late 2004, the concept of the creative industries arrived in China. It was warmly welcomed in Shanghai and then subsequently adopted with some degree of caution in Beijing. In the years since, officials, scholars, practitioners, entrepreneurs and developers have exploited the idea of creative industries, and a range of associated terms, to construct an alternative vision of an emerging China. In 2009, Li Wuwei, the director of the Shanghai Creative Industries Association, himself a leading player in national political reform, released a book titled Creativity is Changing China (Chuangyi gaibian Zhongguo), subsequently translated as Creative Industries are Changing China in English. The paper investigates the uptake of the creative industries in China and asks: Can they really change China, or are they just rearranging the cultural landscape in some cities?

Keywords:

• China
• innovation
• creativity
• cultural policy

Notes

1. The Chinese word that expressed the idea ‘to create’ in the ancient texts was zuo: literally meaning ‘to make’ or ‘to cultivate’. In modern Chinese, the word ‘to create’ is chuang which is used as a verb in association with the morphemes zuo (to make) and zao (to make). As a noun, it is necessary to introduce the idea of applying some action or force (li): creativity is therefore chuangzaoli. The contemporary adjectival usage of chuangyi found in the expression creative industries is a neologism; chuangyi is rarely found in dictionaries. In the comprehensive New Age Chinese English Dictionary (Wu and Cheng 2000), chuangyi expresses the idea ‘to create a new concept of art; to break fresh ground in imaginative art’ (p. 237).

2. The zhonggong zhongyang guanyu shiwu guihua de jianyi advocated ‘perfecting cultural industries policy, strengthening the establishment and regulation of the cultural market and promoting the development of cultural industries’ (Zhang et al. 2004, p. 2).

3. The document was called The Statistical Classifications of Cultural and Associated Industries (wenhua ji xianguan tongji fenlei).

4. Literally ‘cultural construction’.

5. This dilemma is illustrated by the formation of the International Creative Industries Alliance (ICIA) in Beijing in December 2007, funded by the Gehua Cultural Development Group, a major state‐owned enterprise. In spite of having a new purpose built centre, the Beijing Creativity Centre (see Keane 2007), by the end of 2008, the centre remained virtually vacant as Gehua management reconsidered its strategic development.

6. In the Development Report of the Creative Industries in China 2007 by Zhang et al. (2008, p. 27 English version), recreation and entertainment includes: mass cultural activities, sports organisation, gymnasiums and stadiums and other sports, indoor recreation, amusement parks, body‐building recreation, other recreation, travel agencies, the scenic spots management, parks management and other excursion districts management.

7. Conversation with Dongcheng District cultural official, Communication University of China, 5 October 2008.