The Covid-19 crisis and ‘critical juncture’ in cultural policy: a comparative analysis of cultural policy responses in South Korea, Japan and China

ABSTRACT

This paper reflects on how cultural policies in South Korea, Japan and China respond to the Covid-19 crisis. It conceptualises the current period as a historically significant moment by exploring the notion of ‘critical juncture’. Then, it presents an empirical analysis of what has actually happened in cultural policies in the three countries by investigating key events, debates, actors and decisions made in 2020. In Korea, the pandemic functions as a force of ‘policy acceleration’ by legitimising and furthering the existing development in cultural policy. In Japan, it triggered ‘policy movement’, where artists emerged as institutional entrepreneurs who fundamentally contest Japan’s non-interventionist cultural policy and ask for policy reform. In China, cultural policy is ‘locked-in’ as the party-state appropriated the crisis in its ideological terms. Despite the lack of visible transformative changes (yet), the consequences of the pandemic are critical enough to determine the future direction of cultural policy.

KEWORDS:

• Cultural policy
• Covid-19
• East Asian cultural policy
• artists
• critical juncture

Introduction

Since early 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic has severely threatened the livelihood of the arts and culture, leading to urgent calls for active (re)making of cultural policy. Unlike the 1997 Asian financial crisis and the 2007–8 global financial crisis, against which policymakers quickly rebranded culture as a saviour of post-industrial economy and a symbol of resilience, the Covid-19 crisis has turned the arts and the cultural industries into one of the most ‘vulnerable’ sectors. This puts cultural policy everywhere under a serious ‘common pressure’. Taking the crisis as an important setting for comparative research, this paper analyses and reflects on how cultural policies in South Korea, Japan and China are responding to it. Especially, we are keen to examine if the crisis is engendering a ‘critical juncture’ in cultural policy, that is, a brief period of significant change in which the existing discourse and structures of the policy are seriously challenged and different potentialities of policy development are made possible (Capoccia 2016; Capoccia and Kelemen 2007).

Such junctures (for example, the post-war period for Western democracies or the Asian 1997 financial crisis for some East and Southeast Asian countries) are usually identified retrospectively. Yet, the available writings on Covid-19 and cultural policy tend to regard the current period, explicitly or implicitly, as a significant moment in which ruptures have emerged in the dominant ways of doing cultural policy unravelling its existing structures, institutions and relations (Meyrick and Barnett 2021, 1). Aspiring for fundamental reshaping of cultural policy, commentators demand it to reorient from economic values towards public values and to demonstrate more care for the cultural sector and its workforce (Banks 2020; Banks and O’Connor 2021; Joffe 2021; Meyrick and Barnett 2021; Serafini and Novosel 2021). Keen to ‘reimagine [the creative economy] more progressively’ and explore ‘a possible new world’ (Banks 2020, 651–2), they themselves are engaged in the process of symbolic interpretation that defines the pandemic as a ‘historical event’ (Sewell 1996). Against this backdrop, we are conscious of the gaps between the normative discursive potentialisation of the pandemic as a historical event and its actual occurring and consequences (Koselleck 1989, 312). This motivates us to present an original research that combines conceptual articulation of the pandemic as a historically significant event with thorough empirical analysis of how it has been actually affecting cultural policies in three East Asian countries.

First, we explore the concept of ‘critical juncture’ and ‘historical event’ to make sense of the Covid-19 crisis in which the existing cultural policy is put under intense scrutiny, its problems revealed, and active discussion on possible alternatives may take place. Second, we investigate how the pandemic has impacted the field of cultural policy in South Korea, Japan and China by looking into key events, actors, debates and decisions made between January and December 2020. The countries are selected as cases with which we can observe dissimilar dynamics of policymaking during this critical period: ‘policy acceleration’, ‘policy movement’ and ‘policy locked-in’. We argue that, in South Korea, the Covid-19 crisis works as an important accelerating juncture in cultural policy, where the existing policy discourse and organisational arrangement – especially those about artist welfare and social safety – are further legitimised and relevant policy measures are developing. A potentially more critical juncture is occurring in Japan: an unprecedented movement driven by cultural practitioners is fundamentally contesting the country’s non-interventionist tradition of cultural policy, demanding structural changes in the policy and expansion of state cultural support. In China, the party-state monopolises not just policy discourse, agenda and actors but also the meaning-making of the Covid-19 crisis itself, blocking any challenge to its cultural policy. The Covid-19 crisis further motivates the locking-in of the policy whilst local rescue packages are given to cultural enterprises and artists in the formal cultural sector are mobilised for the ‘national battle’ against the pandemic. In conclusion, we will consider the implications of these different dynamics for the ‘futuring’ of cultural policies in the three countries.

For this research, we have consulted the following resources: Covid-19 related press releases and policy documents published by key organisations such as the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, the Korean Film Council, the Seoul Foundation of Arts and Culture and the Korea Artist Welfare Foundation (South Korea); the Cabinet Office, the Agency for Cultural Affairs, the Ministry of Economy Trade and Industry and the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (Japan); and the State Council, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, the National Radio and Television Administration, the China Film Administration and the China Federation of Literary and Arts Circle (China). In addition, we referred to national newspapers: Chosun and Hangyoreh (South Korea); Asahi Shimbun and Yomiuri Shimbun (Japan); and People’s Daily and Guangming Daily (China). As cultural policy discussion is lively in Bijutsu Techo magazine in Japan, we also looked at relevant comments there. In addition, we attended or viewed a recording of the following online forums: ‘Covid-19 Arts Forum’ organised by the Korean cultural ministry and its agencies (South Korea, 12 December 2020); ‘Art Platform Japan Webinar Series’ organised by the Agency for Cultural Affairs (Japan, August to December 2020) and ‘Post-Covid-19 Arts and Arts Management Development Forum’ organised by Shanghai Theatre Academy (China, 23 May 2020).

Cultural policy, crisis and critical juncture

Cultural policy is a product of history and specific socio-political contexts of a given society. Cummings and Katz (1987, 5) note that cultural policy is moulded by a ‘unique combination of events, socio-political factors … and traditions of cultural patrimony’. Similarly, Toepler and Zimmer (2002, 32) see cultural policy as ‘shaped, mediated, and channelled by the history, tradition, and institutional arrangements of any given country.’ More recently, Betzler et al. (2020), in relation to the Covid-19 crisis, demonstrate that cultural policy responses in five small- and medium-sized European countries are determined by contextual factors such as the existing priorities of public policy, economic circumstance before the pandemic and the intensity of self-employment in society.

The historical and contextual specificities grant cultural policy institutional characters. The term institution has many different meanings but, within the public policy context, it can be broadly understood as ways of governing the state, running the government or making public policies, encompassing both formal and informal relationships and rules affecting thinking, behaviours and decisions of actors involved (Cairney 2020; Dacin, Goodstein, and Scott 2002; Mahoney and Thelen 2010; Parsons 1995; Peters 1999; Scott 2021; Skokpol 1995). When it comes to the institutional arrangements of contemporary cultural policy, the two most important components tend to be the discourse regarding state cultural support and the organisational arrangement through which the support is implemented. The former concerns the legitimacy, goals and values of cultural policy; and the latter, encompassing organisations, budgets, programmes and projects, provides a structure and regularity to policy actions. The institutional arrangement guides agenda-setting and decision-making by helping actors make sense of policy issues and identify potential solutions within the existing discursive and structural constraints – e.g. by binding their imaginations to the dominant discourse and limiting their choices to the available inventory of policy options. This leads to the stability and continuation of policy over time and put cultural policies in different societies on dissimilar historical trajectories despite the tendency of policy transfer and convergence.

Nevertheless, cultural policy does change (Cairney 2020; Capoccia and Kelemen 2007; Mahoney and Thelen 2010). Under indigenous or exogenous pressures, its existing discourse, practices and organisational arrangement may weaken, be questioned and give way to new ones. From an historical and long-term perspective, therefore, policy stability not only coexists with incremental changes but is also punctuated by transformative changes occurring at key moments (Parsons 1995, 204; Peters 1999, chapter 4). Here, the stability does not necessarily mean that all actors support the dominant institutions or the latter work perfectly; rather it refers to a state in which the dominant ways of doing policy are maintained, having resisted the pressures to change. During a relatively short period of ‘critical juncture’, the existing institutional arrangement becomes dislocated and significant change is possible (Capoccia 2016; Capoccia and Kelemen 2007). At such a juncture, policy monopoly by dominant actors declines, the existing institutions are intensely criticised by the media and other actors, and new actors (‘institutional entrepreneurs’)¹ emerge with new (‘more appropriate’) ideas, agendas and solutions to policy problems (Dacin, Goodstein, and Scott 2002; Hardy and Maguire 2008, 261). Actors’ choices and decisions made during this period may have consequential effect on the future development of the policy. The idea of critical juncture resonates with that of ‘historical event’. A historical event is understood in terms of its effect on structures of society via transforming exiting cultural schemas, resource distribution and power relations (Sewell 1996). Indeed, the pandemic is an historical event of our times, and many commentators believe that it presents a historical choice point not just in cultural policy but also in neoliberal capitalist economy (Banks 2020; Banks and O’Connor 2021; Meyrick and Barnett 2021). Some of them note that the change is overdue, pinpointing the structural and historical roots (the precarity of cultural work and the instrumental cultural policy) of the current hardship (or ‘low immunity’) of the cultural sector even before the pandemic (Banks 2020, 650; Comunian and England 2020; Eikhof 2020).

Both the concepts of critical juncture and historical event highlight the possibility of transformative change but also remind us of the persistence of existing institutional arrangements (or structures). They allow us to theorise policy change without ignoring the institutional rigidity of the existing policy arrangement. For example, in distinguishing historical events from uneventful happenings, Sewell (2005: chapter 7) stresses that those events can only be recognised as such with the terms provided by the structure. We find both notions relevant but take ‘critical juncture’ as our core concept while sometimes referring to historical event interchangeably. ‘Historical event’ highlights the process of the ‘making’ of history, studying – retrospectively – how certain events became transformative of the structures of society. On the other hand, the idea of ‘critical juncture’ is more useful when discussing the opening up of a historically important moment. Since we are still living amidst the Covid-19 crisis, we find the latter’s temporal emphasis (a point in the history; the year of 2020 in the case of our research) useful; and we are also interested in the possibility of an ‘uneventful’ happening (i.e. the happening resulting in no discernible change) becoming an important ‘juncture’. Another merit of taking critical juncture as our core concept is its attention to policy actors and their agency (embedded agency to be precise) as potential change-triggers. It also helps us to decide what to look at: the historical and contextual specificity of cultural policy, key actors, policy options available to them, newly emerging actors and their proposals, actions taken or not taken, and the potential consequences of the actions (and non-actions) (Capoccia 2016).

There can be many different types of critical junctures in cultural policy such as the creation of nation state, regime change or political movement. ‘Crisis’ is one type of critical juncture. Yet, in the East and Southeast Asian contexts, it is more than a historical occurring. Often discursively formulated and collectively imagined, ‘crisis’ (from the influx of Western ideology, the decline of traditional way of life, the problematics of colonial legacies to national identity crisis) has been part of the core narrative of cultural policies in the region. In this narrative, protecting and supporting local culture is typically projected as a potential solution to the crisis. The tendency to seek ‘cultural solution’ was notable in the aftermath of 1997 Asian financial crisis: culture was quickly rebranded as a national saviour which would fuel a post-industrial economy, and that was the beginning of cultural (creative) industry policies in the region. (Barker and Lee 2018; Parivudhiphongs 2018; Lee 2019, chapter 5). In the case of South Korea, policy decisions taken in the post-1997 period have had enduring effects, marking a new era of cultural policy. However, amidst severe damages caused by the pandemic, Asian policymakers cannot simply recycle the same old ‘culture-crisis’ narrative. Clearly, this crisis is a different one. It greatly affects existing public, social and economic institutions nationally and globally, leading to critical junctures in many policy areas and, hence, opens up a potential juncture in cultural policy as well. In the following sections, we will reckon what has been happening in this opening in the three countries, and what does this mean for the future development of their cultural policies.

Incremental but important juncture – reaffirming ‘the social’ in cultural policy (South Korea)

South Korea is a new patron state, where state responsibility in cultural promotion and the government’s active making of cultural policy are taken for granted (Lee 2019). Although the government’s attention to the economic impact of culture prevails (Kwon and Kim 2014; Lee 2020), the recent decade has seen the emergence of a new, ‘social’ domain of cultural policy: artists’ jobs and welfare. This way of policy development was a countermovement to the overt economisation of culture; it concerns social conditions (reproduction of artists) for more sustainable development of cultural economy (Polanyi 2001[1944]). It is this new domain of cultural policy that quickly became the centre of South Korea’s response to the Covid-19 crisis.

If the 1970s saw the initial formation of the policy under an authoritarian government, the several years from 1987 and the aftermath of the 1997 financial crisis were two critical junctures: the former saw the democratisation of cultural policy; and the latter the institutionalisation of state investment in cultural industries. During these periods, there emerged new discourse (e.g. ‘the autonomy of the arts’ to ‘content industries’), agencies, types of funding, and ways of doing cultural policy (e.g. ‘artist-led funding decision’ to ‘cultural investment via the financial market’) (Lee 2019). The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism (MCST) and its sectoral agencies such as the Arts Council Korea, the Korean Film Council and the Korea Creative Content Agency are key policymakers. But the recent years have seen the arrival of new but influential agencies such as Korea Arts & Culture Education Service, Korea Artist Welfare Foundation, Regional (or Local) Cultural Foundations, Regional Culture and Development Agency, Korea Arts Management Service and so on. Similarly, cultural peak organisations have diversified: from the dominance of two national associations (Yechong and Minyechong) to the mushrooming of various associations, artists unions, collectives and activist organisations.

Artist unions and cultural activist groups were particularly vocal in demanding artist-centred cultural policy. This started with the tragic incidents of poverty-stricken artists’ deaths that triggered intense debate on state responsibility (Chosun Ilbo 2011; Hankyoreh 2015). The self-organised artists and cultural activists played roles of ‘institutional entrepreneurs’ in exploring the social domain of cultural policy, leading to the introduction of a new sets of policy focused on artist bursary, social safety and job creation. The definition of ‘artist’ is broad and includes those who work in the cultural industries. In 2012, the Korea Artist Welfare Foundation (KAWF) was set up to support artist welfare: giving artist bursaries (e.g. 5,502 artists in 2019; approximately 15,000 artists in 2020); subsidising artists’ monthly contributions to industrial accident insurance, national pension and the newly introduced artist employment insurance; and creating jobs for artists (problem-solving projects at commercial companies). Equally important is the Korea Culture & Arts Education Service’s (KACES, since 2005) ‘Supporting Art Instructors’ programme that annually provides thousands of artists with teaching jobs at schools: 5,098 artists were hired in 2020 in this way (KACES 2020). The introduction of artist employment insurance (2020) is the latest development in this area. Importantly, this pre-Covid evolution of cultural policy, which can be seen as gradual ‘layering’ of new institutions on the top of old ones (Mahoney and Thelen 2010, 16–7), determined the shape of the Korean government’s initial responses to the pandemic.

When the virus infection rate soared in February 2020, many cultural events, organisations and venues were instantly affected (Chosun Ilbo 2020; Hankyoreh 2020; Yechong 2020). The cultural ministry promptly announced an emergency package on 20 February, expanding artist loans and bursaries via KAWF and introducing new measures such as supporting disinfectant facilities in performing arts venues and some compensation for financial damage (MCST 2020a). In later March, the ministry and the KACES launched a small-scale funding programme to award plans for online arts education, creating extra funding for artists (MCST 2020b). Between April and June, however, there was no breakthrough due to the lack of extra budget provided to the ministry. For example, in April, the ministry and the film council announced a small-scale emergency funding (US$14 million) for the film industry (MCST 2020c) yet it made no visible difference. Commercial cultural businesses in general hardly received substantial extra funding as they operate for profit. Meanwhile, regional and local cultural foundations started offering immediate assistance to local artists. Despite the small scale, their programmes were warmly welcomed by the cultural sector (Covid-19 Arts Forum 2020). In particular, the relatively well-resourced Seoul Foundation of Arts and Culture (SFAC) has been active, funding arts organisations and creating jobs for artists and independent cultural managers in the Seoul metropolitan city (SFAC 2020).

In early July 2020, the cultural ministry was finally provided a supplementary budget of 346.9 billion won (US$294 million), and its agencies could take further measures, again, by expanding their existing funding schemes and introducing some new ones (Seoul Shinmun 2020). The measures include: artist bursaries; creating 3,500 jobs in the performing arts sector; commissioning public art projects to create 8,500 jobs; producing online arts (2,700 jobs); digitising catalogues, drama scripts and local cultural heritage; hiring 2,000 people to research cultural resource for future cultural education; and 3.4 million discount vouchers for audience (MCST 2020d). Similarly, the Korean Film Council updated its emergency programme by extending support to cinemas, indie film production, screening, distribution and marketing (KOFIC 2020). At the same time, the ministry and its agencies including the Arts Council Korea and the KAWF began organising seven sessions of the ‘Covid-19 Arts Forum’, in association with UNESCO’s #ResiliArt campaign from July to December. This was a public open forum (online) attracting various stakeholders, especially cultural campaign groups. Its thematic sessions surveyed the impact of Covid-19 and discussed what kind of policy actions are needed. Whilst different participants put forward different agendas, the key themes were: firstly, the globally common issues such as the hardship of the sector, the importance of artist welfare and social safety and the need for direct support for artists’ living, further need for localised cultural policy and the need to articulate cultural value (especially social values of the arts); second, more locally specific issues such as artist rights, problems with artificial job creation and the limitation of demand-side policy such as discount vouchers (Covid-19 Arts Forum 2020).

Korea’s response to the crisis has so far been built on the cultural policy evolution in the 2010s. The emergency support was quickly delivered because potential policy options were already available from the above public agencies and their programmes, especially those concerning the reproduction of artists’ labour, in addition to usual project funding schemes in the area of the arts, film and content industries. In this sense, instead of being a disruptor to the institutions of cultural policy, the Covid-19 crisis is more like a ‘testbed’ where the existing policy discourse and policy measures are validated and an ‘an accelerator’ of policy development (Rosa 2015): e.g. the Arts Council Korea which typically provides project funding now acknowledges ‘the need to expand direct support for artists [artists’ living]’ … to see ‘artists as human being’) (Covid-19 Arts Forum 2020).

The Covid-19 crisis has created an important incremental juncture in the Korea cultural policy. Whilst reinforcing the existing institutions, it is making politicians, the media and the broader cultural sector see the need for stronger protection for artists and cultural producers especially via the enactment of a new law on artists’ rights and also expanding the organisational arrangement in this area. So, the campaign for such a law is likely to gain new momentum. Meanwhile, there emerges a consensus that the provision of further support for the arts and culture should come with a new articulation of their ‘values’: indeed, the director of arts policy in the cultural ministry sees the contemplation on the roles of the arts as one of the ministry’s key agendas for the near future (Covid-19 Arts Forum 2020). If public funding before 2020 was taken for granted by the Korean society’s traditional belief in the state’s cultural responsibility and the economic values of culture, the post-2020 policy discussion will pay increasing attention to rearticulating cultural values from social perspectives and highlighting social need to support artists’ livelihood.

Yet, the problem is that the rescue package was designed so quickly without careful consideration on if those artificially and temporarily created jobs produce meaningful outcomes and, more crucially, how the huge shortfall in the emergency support could be filled: e.g. the film industry had lost 994.8 billion won (US$843.1 million) and the performing arts and exhibition sectors 264.6 billion won (US$224.3 million) during the first three quarters of 2020 (Hangukgyeongje 2020). Without cross-sectoral mega schemes such as the UK’s Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme and Self-Employment Income Support Scheme, the cultural ministry’s (and its agencies and the local cultural agencies’) emergency support is likely to be the only support that the Korean cultural sector can possibly access. Despite the sophisticated web of agencies and the existence of multiple programmes, therefore, the current emergency provision is very far from being a safe buffer for the cultural sector. The cultural ministry is increasing its investment in the cultural industries via the venture capital market as before (Lee 2021; MCST 2020f), yet it is hard to know how this will work when all kinds of market are not functioning properly. As usual, the ministry is keen to expand its role as a patron and its budget will increase in 2021 by 5.9% (MCST 2020e). However, this hardly offers any clear answers to the urgent questions on how those struggling artists, organisations and businesses can survive for the next six or twelve months (Table 1).

Table 1. The timeline of cultural policy responses in South Korea

Date (2020)	Key actors, decisions and activities	Note
18 February	Introduction of socially distanced seating at cultural venues	Pandemic control
20 February	Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism (MCST)’s emergency package for performing arts: artist loans and bursaries (via KAWF); disinfectant facilities; legal advice; compensating for financial damage.	Funding, bursaries, etc.
20 March	Yechong released a report: 2,500 arts events affected; damage worth 60 billion won.	Lobby
26 March	MCST launched ‘arts & cultural education everywhere’ (via KACES).	Job creation
6 April	Seoul Foundation of Arts and Culture (SFAC) launched an emergency programme for artists and freelance cultural managers.	Funding, bursaries & job creation
12 April	SFAC online forum on emergency support for the arts	Policy discussion
21 April	MCST’s support for the film industry: reduced levy on cinema tickets and support (17 billion won; US$14 million) for delayed production/screening, training for 700 film professionals who had lost jobs, and film discount vouchers (via Korean Film Council).	Levy relief, funding, job creation & boosting consumption
7 May	SFAC launched bursaries for freelance workers (including artists).	Bursaries
28 May	Yechong and Minyechong met cultural minister and called for an extra budget for the cultural ministry.	Lobby
5 June	SFAC launched grants for organisations with a performance planned for the second half of 2020.	Funding
3 July	MCST was given an extra budget (346.9 billion won; US$294 million).
8 July	MCST and its agencies started organising 7 online forums between July and December.	Policy discussion
8 July	MCST’s emergency package for the second half of 2020: bursaries for 7,725 artists (via KAWF); creating 3,500 jobs in performing arts (via various artform associations); commissioning 8,500 visual artists (via 228 local authorities); online arts (2,720 artists) and digitalising art catalogue/play scripts (310 people funded via Arts Council Korea); hiring 2,000 people to research for cultural education (via KACES); performing arts & exhibition discount vouchers (1.8 million and 1.6 million vouchers respectively)	Bursaries, job creation & boosting consumption
9 July	Korean Film Council announced: levy on cinema tickets delayed; support for disinfection activities, indie film production, screening, training, re-start of delayed film production, distribution and marketing, SME & indie cinemas, marketing, etc.	Funding, paid training & bursaries
8 July	Yechong and Minyechong’s joint statement: welcoming the supplementary cultural budget; and calling for a policy framework for emergency support.	Lobby
9 July	Seoul district councils launched emergency support for 254 performing arts organisations.	Funding
10 July	MCST and the Regional Culture & Development Agency announced grants for online arts activities.	Job creation
25 August	SFAC decided to hire/dispatch 163 personals to small theatres.	Job creation
27 August	MCST, Arts Council Korea and 17 regional cultural foundations announced emergency support for online content production: 2,700 artists, start-ups, social ventures, co-ops, etc. (as part of the July emergency package)	Job creation (as the Ministry proposed in July)
30 October	Korea Film Council issued film discount vouchers (as part of the July emergency package).	Boosting consumption
2 December	SFAC’s online forum on arts policy	Policy discussion
9 December	MCST and its agencies held the final, conclusive forum on post-Covid arts policy.	Policy discussion
11 December	Artist Employment Insurance scheme began	Unemployment benefit

Complied by the authors based on the relevant press releases and notices by the MCST, SFAC and Yechong as well as various news reports (February-December 2020).

Leading to a potential critical juncture: the ACA and artists’ campaigns (Japan)

The Covid-19 brought about new policy discussions led by diverse artists’ groups and a large-scale emergency package by the Agency for Cultural Affairs. This could potentially transform the cultural policy in Japan largely characterised by a ‘liberalist’ approach that prioritises autonomy of the art sector and minimalist state intervention (Kawashima 2012, 2014, 2017a; Noda 2014). To distinguish itself from the oppressive militarist regime, the governments in the post-war Japan even avoided using the term ‘cultural policy’, which implies the centralised role of the state. Consequently, it resulted in state non-interventionism and the limited budget for culture (Kawashima 2017b). It is against this background that the Covid-19 crisis suddenly and abruptly unsettled the Japanese cultural policy with the country’s artists and cultural practitioners beginning to organise themselves to demand stronger support from the state.

The latest turning point for the policy before the pandemic was the 1990s and the 2000s, when the arrival of government of Democratic Party and the Great Earthquakes brought about a series of new legislation and institutions, i.e. incremental but important policy changes (Kawamura and Ito 2018; Matsumoto 2011). For example, the Basic Act for the Promotion of Culture and the Arts in 2001 (later amended as the Basic Act for Culture and the Arts in 2017) articulated the responsibilities of the state in promoting cultural activities, including media industries, traditional arts and intangible culture (Kawamura and Ito 2018). Currently, public cultural support involves diverse public institutions: the Agency for Cultural Affairs (ACA), an external bureau of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology; the Creative Industry Department in the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI); the Japan Foundation for Regional Art-Activities institutionalised by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications; and the Japan Foundation supervised by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Like elsewhere, the discourse of the creative industries has recently drawn special attention from policymakers and academics (Kawashima 2018; Morgner 2018; Otmazgin 2012; Valaskivi 2013).

The problem of the current institutional setting is the absence of a central organisation and clear division of resources for supporting culture. While the ACA serves as a central institution supporting the cultural sector, its budget and scope are noticeably constrained. Policy advocates repeatedly pointed out the share of the ACA’s in the government budget being much smaller than those of its counterparts in Western Europe and South Korea (Kawamura and Ito 2018). Moreover, in the terrain of commercial and popular culture, the ACA’s programmes are overshadowed by the creative industry policy and the Cool Japan initiative by the METI. To enlarge the scope and budget of the ACA, policy advocates launched in 2017 a campaign for the creation of new Ministry of Culture, which would be an independent ministry orchestrating public aid for the broader cultural sector. They frequently described the 2020 Tokyo Olympics as a critical moment for building a ‘cultural nation’ (Bunka Rikkoku). Ironically, however, it was not the Olympics but the Covid-19 crisis that is opening up a potential juncture in institutional rearrangement of cultural policy.

The pandemic hit the Japanese cultural sector severely. For example, the revenue of the performing arts shrunk by 79.3% and the total economic loss reached to 498,900 million JPY (approx. US$ 4,989 million) in 2020 (Arts and Culture Forum 2021). However, the ACA responded in a controversial way that showcased both its limitations and contributions. From early February 2020, artists immediately started calling for governmental support compensating the financial loss caused by the pandemic and the closures of cultural facilities (Save-Our-Space 2020). Nevertheless, there was little emergency aid from the ACA in this period except for minimal support for disinfection and tax deduction (ACA 2020a). In March, the president of the ACA officially published a sympathetic statement commenting that ‘I believe the art and culture is essential to revitalise Japan in this challenging moment’ (ACA 2020b). However, his emotional statement made cultural workers rather disappointed as it contained no specific emergency package (Bijutsu Techo 2020a).

In the absence of the ACA’s substantive support, some municipal governments promptly introduced policy packages for the cultural sector. For instance, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government (TMG) launched an initiative to offer financial aid for creators who generated media works to ‘provide opportunities for people to explore the fun of arts’ (TMG 2020). The Kyoto City Government also provided financial support for local artists with public money as well as donation raised from its crowdfunding initiative (Kyoto City Government 2020). These examples demonstrate the merits of localised cultural policy responding to the crisis swiftly and flexibly. At the same time, there are limitations too. The amount of aid in Tokyo is minimal and inadequate to support artists’ maintenance (0.1 million JPY or US$1,000 per person) and the reliance on crowdfunding in Kyoto highlights the lack of revenue in the city government itself.

Only in June, when a second supplementary budget was confirmed, did the ACA begin providing policy packages for the cultural sector. Interestingly, although the ACA has responded to the crisis haltingly, its eventual packages has been relatively substantial. The financial support amounted to approximately 66 billion JPY (equal to half of the ACA’s annual budget; approximately US$660 million) and it comprehensively covered freelancers, small and medium organisations and cultural facilities, including museums and concert halls (ACA 2020c). The emergency aid will expand further, as the ACA is planning to provide an additional 37 billion JPY (approximately US$370million) from the third supplementary budget (ACA 2020d). Meanwhile, there are public emergency schemes including those offered by METI, such as subsidies and loans for small businesses, but they do not provide aid to the cultural sector.

For realising the ACA’s package, the cultural associations and artists played a crucial role in the agenda-setting and policy discussion. As early as February, group of musicians launched a campaign called ‘Save-Our-Space’ in order to lobby members of parliament and submit a petition in support of the music industry. In March, the association also ran an online questionnaire to investigate the financial hardships artists were facing and initiate policy discussion (Save-Our-Space 2020). Later, in April and May, similar campaigns emerged from the film (Save-the-Cinema) and the theatre industries (The Project for the Emergency Aid on the Theatre Industry). These campaigns organised online-event series and published statements urgently calling for support and compensation from the government (Save-the-Cinema 2020).

The pivotal moment was when all three of these industries mounted a joint campaign called ‘#We-Need-Culture’. This led the policy discussion by submitting petitions, initiating online discussion and publishing a collective policy proposal in May (#We-Need-Culture 2020a). The proposal includes the establishment of public foundation to offer recovery aids as well as the expansion of the ACA’s support. Even after the ACA’s emergency package started, #We-Need-Culture held follow-up research and seminars so that it provided critical feedback on the package (#We-Need-Culture 2020b). Their comments include that the massive amount of paperwork is demanded in the application process and that the fund cannot be used for sustaining artists’ maintenance and covering their living expenses (ACA 2020e). The collective action by #We-Need-Culture should be seen as a significant new movement because artists in Japan used to be described as neither enthusiastic about nor effective at lobbying for public support (Nara International Film Festival 2020).

In addition to the advocacy groups from the cultural sector, other institutions have provided insightful survey reports that have attracted public interest and opened up policy discussion. For instance, based on its large-scale survey, private consulting company K3 pointed out that more than 80% of artists had suffered from the pandemic (K3 Corporation 2020). Furthermore, in June, a private foundation called ‘Platform for Arts and Creativity’ conducted a public-opinion research to reveal that more than 50% of Japanese citizens believed that the government should aid the cultural sector (PAC 2020). These surveys were repeatedly quoted in national newspapers and directly used as source for legitimatising the public aid (Yomiuri Shimbun 2020).

Overall, the series of policy actions and discussion can be regarded as an opening of juncture in Japan’s cultural policy leading to the potential institutional rearrangement; here, artists and cultural producers are acting as institutional entrepreneurs who are agents of institutional change. First, the ACA came to be a central institution offering the aids for the cultural sector. Under the unprecedented pressure, the ACA for the first time provided substantive funding and support to cultural organisations and workers. The media coverage and statements from artists’ campaigns also spotlight the ACA as a most significant and spotlighted agency responding to the Covid-19 crisis. Artists’ campaigns focus on the ACA’s initiatives whereas they pay little attention to the financial supports from the METI and other institutions. Major art magazines including Bijutsu Techo also highlight the ACA as a central institution for discussion and follow its activities and statements in detail (Bijutsu Techo 2020b, 2020c, 2020d, 2020e).

The second and more significant trend was the active engagement of artists as policy entrepreneurs. Of course, they have lobbied for expanding governmental support for cultural sector even before the pandemic (e.g. filmmakers participating in Save-the-Cinema had advocated for public aid for independent cinema) (Independent Cinema Guild 2012). Nevertheless, 2020 could be a critical moment as artists from different sectors collectively and immediately launched new initiatives to negotiate with the government and proposed institutional reforms including the creation of a ‘recovery foundation’ (geijutsu-bunka fukkou kikin). Recognising the impacts of such new initiatives, a musician from Save-Our-Space commented in Asahi Shimbun that ‘something new is happening […] we recognised that even small businesses can now convey their opinions toward the government [through those campaigns]’ (Asahi Simbun 2021). The online questionnaires and webinars organised by the ACA enables artists to interact with policymakers and express their expectations (ACA 2020f, 2020g). Through these campaigns and publications, the hardship of artists came to be covered in national newspapers broadly, which made them more negotiable and influential actors. Such active engagement of artists differentiates the Covid-19 crisis from other potentially significant junctures such as the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, which was driven by the government in a top-down approach (refer to Ikeda 2017 for the development of the night-time economy targeting the Olympic visitors).

Meanwhile, it should be also pointed out that perhaps these trends could also be just temporary reactions to the extraordinary crisis. The ACA responded to the crisis by offering additional budgets without institutional reform as advocates had expected. More importantly, the pandemic exposed the vulnerable status of cultural workers and cultural organisations. In the early stage of the pandemic in February, cultural activities were viewed as ‘non-necessary, non-urgent’ (Asahi Simbun 2020) and cultural facilities were closed without compensation. The latest questionnaire published by the theatre industry quotes comments from artists suffering from hardships and the lack of confidence about their values including ‘I feel myself as “non-necessary, non-urgent” and I have no values to exist’ (NHK 2021). In this circumstance, the central justification for the cultural policy has so far been ‘survival under the challenging moment’ and it has not (yet) engendered firm legitimatisation of state cultural support. Without serious discussion on the value of culture and social consensus about why culture matters and deserves special aid, the emerging possibility of potentially substantial development of cultural policy and expansion of the ACA’s remit could possibly evaporate immediately after the crisis passes (Table 2).

Table 2. The timeline of cultural policy responses in Japan

Date (2020)	Key actors, decisions and activities
20 February	Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare called for reconsideration of organising events.	Pandemic Control
26 February	Cabinet Office published an official statement to request the cancellation of sports and cultural events.	Pandemic Control
24 March	The government held a public hearing to investigate the impacts of Covid-19 on the national economy.	Lobby
25 March	Representatives of the music industry (Save-Our-Space) held a meeting with MPs.	Lobby
27 March	The President of the ACA issued a statement expressing sympathy for the cultural sector.	Policy discussion
29 March	The cultural sector and media problematised the lack of policy proposals in the statement above.	Lobby
	Save-Our-Space launched an online campaign to collect the voices of musicians and submit a petition.	Lobby
1 April	Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare launched emergency aid for which artists can also apply.	Funding
7 April	The Prime Minister declared the state of emergency to restrict cultural activities.	Pandemic Control
10 April	The working group of cultural policy/cultural-economic academics published a policy proposal.	Policy discussion
15 April	K3, a private consulting company, published a report on a questionnaire and interviews with cultural workers.	Policy discussion
	Filmmakers launched a new campaign, Save-the-Cinema, and published a petition for emergency funding for the cinema industry.	Lobby
27 April	Kyoto City Government began emergency aid for local artists.	Funding
29 April	Tokyo Metropolitan Government announced emergency aid.	Funding
1 May	ACA published a policy plan to support cultural facilities, including museums, theatres and concert halls.	Funding
	A group of theatre companies established a new campaign called the Project for the Emergency Aid on the Theatre Industry.	Lobby
21 May	Three art campaigns (Save-Our-Space, Save-the-Cinema and the Project for the Emergency Aid on the Theatre Industry) established a joint-policy initiative, #We-Need-Culture, and released an official statement to seek public aid and the creation of an emergency-support foundation.	Lobby
22 May	#We-Need-Culture held a meeting with MPs.	Lobby
11 June	‘Platform for Arts and Creativity’, a private foundation, conducted and published research on public opinion about emergency aid for culture.	Policy discussion
24 June	ACA launched an emergency policy package to support artists and the cultural sector: including freelance artists, arts organisations and cultural facilities.	Funding
1 July	Contemporary artists established a new initiative, ‘Art-for-All’, and started a petition.	Lobby
10 July	ACA started to receive applications for new emergency aid.	Funding
7 August	ACA launched a webinar series on the post-pandemic art sector.	Policy discussion
13 August	The Project for the Emergency Aid on the Theatre Industry issued an official statement critically examining the ACA’s emergency package.	Lobby
14 October	#We-Need-Culture published a statement proposing the revision and improvement of the ACA’s policy.	Lobby
15 December	ACA released a new plan to use supplementary budget for the emergency aid including approximately 30 billion JPY related to Covid-19.	Funding
25 December	ACA released a summary of its online survey. The key findings include artists’ demand for funding to be used for their living expenses.	Policy discussion

Complied by the authors based on the relevant press releases and notices by the Cabinet Office, the ACA, the METI as well as various news reports (February-December 2020).

Missed juncture: the resilience of the statist cultural policy regime (China)

Contemporary cultural policy in China is characterised by the party-state’s dual emphasises on the political and economic functions of culture (Tong and Hung 2012). The party-state has made use of the growing cultural market and creative industries to maintain its hegemony in the political-symbolic realm (O’Connor and Gu 2020). Unlike in South Korea and Japan where the pandemic triggered new cultural policy discussions, in China, the government responded to the crisis by invoking the propaganda and ideological roles of culture and offering extra support to cultural enterprises, thereby reinforcing the country’s statist cultural policy regime.

China’s cultural sector was incorporated into the party-state apparatus in the 1950s and it served as an ideological vehicle for class struggle. The inception of the economic reform in 1978 became a critical juncture as it (re)introduced the market into the cultural sector (Keane and Zhao 2014; Shan 2014). In 2002, the government officially divided the cultural sector into two categories: public cultural institutions (wenhua shiye) providing cultural service and cultural industries (wenhua chanye) geared to pursuing profits (Zhang 2006). The rise of the ‘cultural industries’ discourse has not undermined the political relevance of culture (Fu 2004; Su 2015). From Hu Jintao’s call to build ‘cultural soft power’ to Xi Jinping’s emphasis on ‘telling China’s story well’ and asserting ‘cultural confidence’, culture has been seen as an essential means to the realisation of the ‘great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation’ under the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

The inseparable culture-ideology link is reflected in the integration of culture with the party-led ‘propaganda system’ with CCP’s Propaganda Department (CCPPD) as the central agency supervising other key state agencies such as the Ministry of Culture and Tourism (MOCT) and the National Radio and Television Administration (NRTA). The CCPPD is responsible for overseeing the party’s overall policies on propaganda, ideology and culture (Shambaugh 2007). After 2018, the previous state agencies, China Film Administration (CFA) and the National Press and Publication Department (NPPD), have been incorporated into the CCPPD reflecting the CCP’s tightening ideological grip of culture. The MOCT and the NRTA are under the dual leadership of the State Council and the CCPPD. The MOCT is in charge of the public cultural institutions, cultural industries and the tourism industry and the NRTA the radio and television industries as well as online audio-visual service. The establishment of the MOCT in 2018 also reflected the government’s emphasis on the idea of ‘culture plus’ to integrate culture with technology, internet, tourism, finance and so on. Cultural workers’ associations are also part of the party-state cultural apparatus. For instance, the China Federation of Literary and Art Circles (CFLAC), the largest artists’ associations in China, is led by the CCP. Many other major associations are either led by the MOCT or the NRTA.

The state-dominated cultural system leads to unequal distribution of resources within the cultural sector that is made up of three main groups: state-sponsored cultural institutions including public cultural institutions and state-owned cultural enterprises (SCEs); non-state-owned cultural enterprises; and freelance artists (Yu 2020). State-sponsored cultural institutions, as the most powerful groups, are backed by state funding (less so for SCEs) and in a better position to compete for national funding schemes such as the China National Arts Fund and the Special Fund for the Development of the Cultural Industries. Falling between the official high-cultural sector and mainstream cultural industries, the freelance artists are marginalised and receive little attention and support from the government (Gu, Domer, and O’Connor 2021, 70; O’Connor and Gu 2020). This hierarchy was further reinforced in times of crisis.

Ever since the outbreak of Covid-19, the Chinese government has framed the fight against the pandemic as a ‘people’s war’ (renmin zhanzheng), a ‘total war’ (zongti zhan) and a ‘battle’ (zuji zhan) in which that the whole country should be mobilised and united to fight (People’s Daily 2020). Underpinned by the ‘war against pandemic’ discourse, China’s cultural policy responses to Covid-19 can be divided into three categories: pandemic control, mobilisation and stimulus and relief.

The MOCT (2020a) issued a notice on 22 January 2020, right before the Wuhan lockdown, to urge the local governments to strengthen the epidemic prevention and control measures of cultural venues. By the end of January, all public cultural activities had been suspended. The NRTA (2020a), on the other hand, convened a party committee meeting on 26 January to coordinate and mobilise the television and radio sectors to strengthen propaganda for pandemic prevention and control. All satellite television stations were to increase news coverage on the pandemic and cut down entertainment programmes. Major television stations launched special pandemic news programmes during prime time, emphasising the sacrifice of the health workers and the nation-wide efforts to stamp out the pandemic.

By early February, the central government had formulated policy guidelines to introduce general financial and tax measures to support businesses especially small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Various local governments subsequently rolled out stimulus and relief policies targeting cultural industries and cultural enterprises specifically (Luan 2020). On 12 February, the Zhejiang province became the first local authority to unveil local Covid-19 policies for the cultural sectors. According to Xiong, Wang, and Lin (2020, 26)’s calculation, by the end of February, a total of 283 policy documents had been issued by 14 ministries, 28 provinces and over 236 municipalities in response to Covid-19 and, among them, 17 documents were culture-specific.

The specific stimulus and relief packages for the cultural sectors were funded by local governments, the total size of which is hard to estimate. The policy measures can be broadly categorised into four areas: cost relief, financial aid, credit support and service support. Cost relief measures included temporary reduction and suspension of rents of state-owned properties and tax, utilities and administrative payments. Financial aid was delivered through refunding contributions for social insurance, subsidising employees’ training and other forms of grants. Credit support mainly consisted of the provision of low-interest or interest-free loans and credit guarantee schemes for cultural enterprises. The local governments also simplified administrative procedure for grant/aid applications and provided support to facilitate the upgrade and digitisation of cultural services and products. All these measures were focused on cultural enterprises not individual cultural workers.

At the same time, the central government continued to focus on the propaganda front. In early February, the NRTA (2020b) launched a public welfare campaign called ‘United to Fight the War Against Pandemic Together’ to donate 180 selected television programmes to all levels of television stations for broadcasting from February to August. In the official notice, the NRTA (2020b) stated that the purpose of the campaign was to ‘consolidate positive energy through quality programmes and to inspire people with a determination to win the battle against pandemic.’ The CFLAC also started to mobilise cultural workers to become the key ‘combatants’ in the battle (Zhongguo Yishu Bao 2020). Its member associations have launched various ‘arts wars’ (wenyi zhanyi) such as ‘literature war’, ‘music war’ and ‘fine arts war’ to collaborate with local governments and their Propaganda Departments to promote and produce artworks reflecting the spirit of the fight against the pandemic, glorifying the heroes and enhancing national solidarity.

By the end of February, the central government had already turned its focus to the preparation for the resumption of work. The MOCT (2020b) issued guidelines on 25 February to stipulate the criteria for the reopening of public cultural facilities. Two days later, it issued a notice to urge local departments to coordinate with the local branches of the People’s Bank to increase lines of credit for cultural SMEs (MOCT 2020c). In March, the NRTA (2020c) issued a notice reiterating the importance of supporting the propaganda and public opinion guidance work for the pandemic prevention and control. It specified that the NRTA would priorities the funding support for television programmes, short videos and advertisement focusing on the pandemic. It would also sponsor the export of such programmes to tell and promote China’s anti-pandemic story abroad.

In early May, the State Council gave the green light to the reopening of indoor venues such as libraries, museums, cinemas and theatres. On 12 May, the MOCT (2020d) issued the relevant guidelines and required that all performance venues should not exceed 30% of the normal capacity. On 14 May, the CFA (2020a; 2020b) announced the long-awaited relief measures for the film industry. They were mainly tax measures including the temporary suspension of the fee for ‘Cultural Service Construction’, of the value added tax on cinema revenue and of contributions for ‘Special Funds for the Development of the Film’.

On 16 July, the CFA announced that cinemas in the low-risk regions could gradually reopen from 20 July, almost half a year after they were required to close in January. The MOCT (2020e) issued updated guidelines on 14 August raising the maximum percentage of seat capacity from 30% to 50%. It was further increased to 75% on 18 September, signifying that the cultural life was finally getting back to normal (MOCT 2020f). A day before, Heroes in Harm’s Way, the first state-sponsored, pandemic-themed television drama was aired by the China Central Television (CCTV) during prime time. The production of the drama had been approved by the NRTA in May.

The brief sketch above shows that China’s cultural policy responses to Covid-19 did not deviate from the existing institutional and discursive frameworks. The government’s dual emphasises on the economic and political functions of culture have been reflected and reinforced in the process: its top priorities were to prevent the spread of the pandemic, save the cultural enterprises and revitalise the cultural industries and ensure that the cultural sector delivered the positive images and messages about the government’s fight against the pandemic and guided the public opinion in a ‘correct’ way with the primary purpose of maintaining social order and political security.

The crisis did not undermine the government’s capacity for cultural governance either. The government demonstrated its capacity to adapt to changes, mobilise, coordinate and regulate cultural organisations swiftly. The MOCT was responsible for setting regulations and formulating general guidelines on supporting the cultural sector. The local governments then worked out the concrete stimulus and relief measures encapsulating the key focuses identified by the MOCT and other ministries, such as ‘SMEs’, ‘financial tools’, ‘travel assurance fund’ and ‘refund of social insurance’. The NRTA, on the other hand, played an important role in guiding the propaganda and ideology work to steer the dissemination, production as well as export of programmes featuring the Chinese anti-pandemic stories by supervising different levels of television and radio stations in the country. The crisis also reinforced existing policy efforts to facilitate the integration between culture and finance and the development of digital creative industries.

On the other hand, the disruption failed to challenge the existing hierarchy in the cultural sector with the freelance cultural workers as the biggest losers as no allowances were offered to individuals. The state-sponsored cultural institutions were protected, and the basic income of their workers guaranteed. Non-state-owned cultural enterprises, the major beneficiaries of stimulus and relief packages, did not find all measures helpful. For instance, the special rental arrangements were mostly applicable to those renting state-owned properties only, which constituted only a small fraction of the non-state cultural enterprises (Dong and Wu 2020, 137). The indie cultural sector, on the other hand, was largely left unattended and further marginalised (Gu, Domer, and O’Connor 2021).

The crisis did prompt some discussions within the cultural sector about the importance of developing non-state-sponsored cultural social enterprises and of promoting the social values of arts (Yu 2020). It, however, left little room for the emergence of new policy entrepreneurs and for public discussions on the existing rationales for and goals of cultural policy.

On 8 September, the Chinese government held a national ceremony to commend ‘role models’ in the war against the pandemic and pronounce the advantages of the CCP leadership and the Chinese system (Guangming Daily 2020). The cultural industry sector was subsequently reported to experience growth in 2020 (NBSC 2021). From heroic fight to speedy recovery, the Chinese government has succeeded in framing the crisis as another ‘great China’s story’ to share with the world (Table 3).

Table 3. The timeline of cultural policy responses in China

Date (2020)	Key actors, decisions and activities	Note
22 January	MOCT and National Cultural Heritage Administration (NCHA) jointly issued the ‘Notice on Doing a Good Job of Efforts to Prevent and Control the Novel Coronavirus Pneumonia Epidemic’	Pandemic control
26 January	The Director of the NRTA convened a party committee meeting to urge subordinates to focus on their political missions and to strengthen propaganda and public opinion guidance work for pandemic prevention and control.	Mobilisation
31 January	The Artists’ Committee and the Producers’ Committee of the China Federation of Radio and Television Associations, led by the NRTA, suspended all film and television production	Pandemic control
10 February	NRTA launched the ‘United to Fight the War Against Pandemic Together’ campaign	Mobilisation
12 February	Zhejiang government was among the first to issue policies to support cultural and tourism enterprises.	Funding; tax relief; financing; subsidised training; boosting consumption
25 February	MOCT issued guidelines on the reopening arrangement of tourist attractions and public cultural facilities and stipulated their reopening in high-risk regions had to be suspended.	Pandemic control
27 February	MOCT issued guidelines for furthering monetary policy support to cultural and tourism SMEs.	Financing
13 March	NRTA issued the ‘Notice on Coordinating Pandemic Prevention and Control and Fostering Policies for the Steady Development of the Television and Radio Industry’.	Pandemic control; support and relief
26 March	24 ministries and agencies including MOCT issued guidelines for enhancing domestic consumption market. Measures include upgrading cultural and tourist products and integrating of on/offline consumption.	Boosting consumption
12 May	MOCT issued guidelines regarding the reopening of performance venues and required that they should not exceed 30% of the normal capacity. Due to the strict regulation, many performance venues decided not to resume work.	Pandemic control
13 May	Ministry of Finance (MOF) and CFA announced that they would exempt the contributions for ‘Special Funds for the Development of the Film’.	Tax relief
	Ministry of Finance (MOF) and State Taxation Administration issued tax support policy for the film industry: exempt value added tax of those providing film screening service; extend the loss carryover period; exempt the fee for ‘Cultural Service Construction’.	Tax relief
16 July	CFA announced that cinemas in the low-risk regions could gradually reopen from 20 July.	Pandemic control
14 August	MOCT raised the maximum percentage of seat capacity of performance venues to 50%.	Pandemic control
25 September	MOCT raised the maximum percentage of seat capacity of performance venues to 75%.	Pandemic control

Compiled by the authors based on the relevant press releases and notices by the State Council, the CFA, the MOCT, the NRTA as well as various news reports (January-October 2020).

Conclusion

Comparison of cultural policies in the three Asian countries during the first year of the pandemic is a useful way to identify their distinct patterns and future directions. In South Korea, the pandemic functions as a force of ‘policy acceleration’ by legitimising the country’s existing cultural policy and stimulating their further expansion. In the case of Japan, perhaps this paper serves as an initial tracing of remarkable policy change. The pandemic triggered ‘policy movement’: the quick formulation of advocacy coalition of artists in varying fields and their potential roles as institutional entrepreneurs is truly remarkable. So is the unprecedented expansion of the ACA’s budget and influence. Yet, the emergency package itself – despite its substantial scale – does not necessarily tackle the government’s non-interventionist attitude and the precarity of artists from a longer-term perspective. If the coalition of artists and cultural producers want to take the Covid-19 crisis as a trigger of institutional change in cultural policy, the current campaign should amount to an ACA reform, which would have enduring, structural effects. In both South Korea and Japan, pandemic has been opening up new discussion on the values of culture. The sudden need for the increased state intervention comes with calls for more explicit articulation of cultural values and thus purpose of cultural policy itself. This is leading to a new 'discursive juncture' in policy discussion. In this way, the pandemic has produced a key moment for reflection, which might eventually result in potential changes of cultural policy.

In China, cultural policy is ‘locked-in’: it is frozen in the existing ideology and the top-down policymaking. The pandemic prompted policymakers, cultural enterprises and workers to envisage novel strategies to cope with the challenges – yet firmly within the parameter set by the party-state. The party-state quickly rearticulated the crisis in the existing policy regime thereby closing the space for reflection on the alternative potentiality of cultural policy. Non-governmental actors are denied direct access points to policy discourse and decision-making; they are deprived of an opportunity to become potential institutional entrepreneurs and propose new ways of thinking or doing cultural policy. Our research shows how much cultural policy is embedded in its own past and trajectory and tied to the country’s political regime; and how unexpected external shocks such as the Covid-19 pandemic can be appropriated in ideological terms of the regime and even ‘absorbed’ by it. The case of Japan vividly shows the importance of institutional entrepreneurs, or agents of institutional change, in creating a space for critical juncture in cultural policy. Although the government’s response seems slow, artists and cultural practitioners’ organised campaigns and activities help to envisage new and alternative cultural policy. This encourages us to rethink the case study on Chinese cultural policy as it can be ‘the study of what happened in the context of what could have happened’ (if diverse voices from non-state actors were allowed and heard) (Berlin 1974, 176 cited in Capoccia 2016, 92).

The Covid-19 has opened up a potential critical juncture – a short period of significant disruption and transformation – in cultural policy. In this opening, we observe that dynamics between the potentiality of change and the specific historical structures of cultural policy vary across the three countries. While only the experience of the Japanese cultural policy seems close to the above definition of ‘critical juncture’, our research finds that the pandemic considerably affects cultural policies in other countries without necessarily inducing radical changes. It has speeded up the existing policy development and intensified it (South Korea), engendered a new discursive turn in cultural policy (South Korea and Japan) or solidified the power of the dominant ideology and actors (China). Hence, we argue that despite the lack of very visible transformative changes (yet), these consequences of the pandemic in all three countries still look ‘critical’ enough to determine the future direction of their cultural policies.

This paper is the first scholarly writing that both conceptually and empirically explores the Covid-19 crisis as an important historical juncture in cultural policy. We call for research that further articulates this historical juncture that occurs differently and results in different consequences depending on the political, institutional and sociocultural context of the given country. Finally, the pandemic makes us realise the presence of the huge ‘not-knowing’ in cultural policy if not all fields of public policy. Given that we do not know when the crisis will end and what potential future pandemics and environment crises will face us nationally or globally, cultural policy as a management of cultural sustainability of society is becoming even more important. Whilst making cultural policy fit for the unknown future is a very difficult task, we argue that the not-knowing might be best tackled when there is diversity in policy ideas and actors and, hence, active envisioning of potential futures of the policy is made possible.

Disclosure of potential conflicts of interest

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

Acknowledgments

We thank Justin O’Connor for his insightful comments on an earlier draft of this paper. The suggestions from two peer-reviewers were also helpful.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Hye-Kyung Lee

Hye-Kyung Lee is Reader in Cultural Policy at the Department of Culture, Media and Creative Industries, King’s College London, UK. Her publications include Cultural Policies in East Asia (2014), Cultural Policy in South Korea: Making a New Patron State (Routledge 2019), Asian Cultural Flows (Springer 2018) and Routledge Handbook of Cultural and Creative Industries in Asia (2019). She co-edits Cultural Trends. Email: [email protected]

Karin Ling-Fung Chau

Karin Ling-Fung Chau is a PhD candidate in the Department of Culture, Media and Creative Industries, King’s College London. She was a part-time lecturer in the Global Creative Industries Programme at the University of Hong Kong. She is the co-author of Tradition and Transformation in a Chinese Family Business (with Heung Wah Wong, Routledge 2020).

Takao Terui

Takao Terui is a PhD researcher at the Department of Culture, Media and Creative Industries, King’s College London, UK. He obtained MA in International Cultural Policy and Management at the University of Warwick. He is leading the ‘Bringing Asian Perspectives into the CMCI Education’ project funded by KCL Race, Equity and Inclusive Education Fund.

Notes

1. This term refers to actors who ‘deploy the resources at their disposal to create and empower institutions’ which they think appropriate and aligned with their interests. Institutional entrepreneurs have active agency and have power to ‘shape the character of institutions and institutional change’ (Dacin, Goodstein, and Scott 2002, 47).