Cultural Politics and Audiovisual Media within China 2

1. THE INTERNATIONAL AND THE NATIONAL

INTERNATIONAL LEGISLATION OF CULTURAL DIVERSITY

The 2001 UNESCO Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity[1] and the 2005 UNESCO’s Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions[2] (passed by 185-2, with 4 abs), initially proposed by Canada-led International Network on Cultural Policy (INCP)[3], has promoted the idea of cultural diversity, sometimes referred to as ‘the right of culture’, as a principle of world communication[4] (Madger, 2006: 169-173). Article 4 reads:

‘Cultural diversity’ refers to the manifold ways in which the cultures of groups and societies find expression. These expressions are passed on within and among groups and societies. Cultural diversity is made manifest not only through the varied ways in which the cultural heritage of humanity is expressed, augmented and transmitted through the variety of cultural expressions, but also through diverse modes of artistic creation, production, dissemination, distribution and enjoyment, whatever the means and technologies used.

(UNESCO, 2005)

It is explicitly claimed by UNESCO, especially through its 2001 Declaration, that the theory of the inevitable clash of cultures and civilisations proposed by Samuel Huntington (1996) was rejected. Rather, intercultural dialogue, ‘in the wake of the events of 11 September 2001’ (UNESCO, 2001), was actively proposed on the basis of biodiversity as well as humanity so as to avoid ethnical and cultural conflicts or wars. In other words, the link between diversity and humanity (or pluralism and humanism), is premised on the recognition of cultural diversity ‘for the full realisation of human rights and fundamental rights’, thus providing a framework for respect and tolerance, in a more sense of multiculturalism to ‘celebrate difference’ (Barker, 2003: 414). It is also exemplified by the measures of protecting the traditional heritage. Furthermore, it reaffirmed that ‘cultural activities, goods and services, mainly derived from cultural industries, have both an economic and a cultural nature’ (UNESCO, 2005) as a continuing way of French-proposed ‘cultural exception’.

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[1] It will be abbreviated as 2001 Declaration later in this dissertation.

[2] It will be abbreviated as 2005 Convention in this dissertation later.

[3] See more at the INCP Official Website: http://incp-ripc.org/index_e.shtml

[4] Madger (2006: 169) concludes that ‘the right to information’ and ‘the right to culture’ constitutes the core principles of world communication.

Cultural Policy & Measures

(Specific) State Subsidies, Screen Quotas, Broadcasting Time Quotas,

Measures of Protection & Promotion Enhancing Local Content, media diversity ( Ethnic Minority Media)

Cultural Diversity (aka. Diversity of Cultural Expressions)

Cultural Content

Vehicles

Cultural Identity (Language as central) Cultural Activities

Goods and Services

Inter-cultural Communications (Cultural Industry)

Economic & Cultural Nature

Cinema & Audiovisual Sector

Fingure 1.1 UNESCO’s Logic about Cultural Expressions, Cultural Identity and Cultural Industries

The standpoint expressed by China is clear. As China’s delegates to UNESCO remarked, ‘China holds a view with most countries like France and Canada, playing a significant role in promoting the establishment of Convention’[1]. This reaction, as a consequence of long-established alliance with France and Canada in terms of cultural domain, was based more than on the realisation of the importance of cultural diversity. In fact, culture, considered as ‘soft power’, has been always placed great emphasis with China’s domestically ideology constructing, patriotism educating, ethnic relationships and international image establishing. Despite this, a compromise was made. China’s commitments[2] in audiovisual sector, as an exchanges for entry into WTO, such as a continuing increase of ‘screen quota’ (from ten in 1995 to fifty in 2005), apparently pushed itself into a fierce competition, and especially an erosion of its domestic audiovisual industry (Lee, 2003: 14) and a challenge for its own cultural taste. Yet, for the latter one, it has long before been transformed by the street-flooded ‘pirate DVDs phenomenon’, which is often accused by the Hollywood studio in terms of revenues but ‘provide[s] unprecedented exposure for the Chinese to the cultural output of the West and shape their cultural tastes’, especially for the young generations (Kuo, 2001; Dai, 2002, quoted in Lee, 2003).

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[1] See official website of China’s Ministry of Culture, at http://www.mcprc.gov.cn/xwzx/whbzhxw/t20051024_17491.htm

[2] It should be noted that China, Mexico and Malaysia are countries both activated commitments in the audiovisual sector and as members of Canada-led International Work on Cultural Policy (Beale, 2002: 85; Madger, 2006: 165).

Emergence of Ethno-Cultural Diversity for China

As the Department of Canadian Heritage, for instance, defines, the concept of ‘diversity’ is ‘moving beyond language, ethnicity, race and religion, to include cross-cutting characteristics such as gender, sexual orientation, and range of ability and age’. Indeed, as Bhikhu Parekh (2006: 3-4) suggests, subcultural diversity[1], perspectival diversity[2], and communal diversity constitutes the most common forms that cultural diversity takes in modern society. For the latter one, he articulates that it is distinctively characterised by (more or less) ‘well-organised communities’, like long-established groups, newly-arrived immigrants, or indigenous groups, who are living upon ‘different systems of beliefs and practices’ (ibid.).

Similarly, as for the 2005 UNESCO Convention, one of the defining features of cultural diversity is the emphasis of ‘groups and societies’ in such a way that the central agent/player has been transformed from nation-states towards communities. Originally, Tomlinson (1991: 70-75) outlines the UNESCO’s conceptual ambiguities caused by ‘vacillat[ion] between the assertion and denial of national identities as cultural identities’, from the controversy between ‘for the cultural identity of all people’ as remarked in the opening addressing to ‘…threatens the cultural identity of the nations’ (UNESCO, 1982: 60). Indeed, as Schlesinger (1987) notes, this ‘conceptual confusion’ may lead to the ignorance of ‘various linguistic groups’ within or beyond the state, especially on the premise of ‘the centrality of language to culture’ (UNESCO, 1982). In the wake of this, the 2005 Convention emphasised the ‘groups and societies’, which signifies a ‘communal diversity’, as Parekh (2006) terms, although difficult to accommodate, requires more strengths to investigate and develop.

If we locate the concept of ‘communal diversity’ into the context of China, it will be another story or a narrow sense since the number of immigrants is small compared to its domestic population that is the largest in the world. Specifically, ethnic groups, in the case of China, are also differently defined according to Stalin’s definition (quoted in Mackerras, 2003: 2) as ‘a historically constituted, stable community of people, formed on the basis of a common language, territory, economic life, and psychological make-up manifested in a common culture’[3]. Despite the deficient application of the definition itself in China’s case, it seems sensible for us to adopt a concept of ‘ethno-cultural diversity’, rather than ‘communal diversity’, in the context of China that rarely has a large group of immigrants or aboriginal people.

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[1] Parekh (2006: 3) defines ‘sub-cultural diversity’ occurs as members share a broadly common culture but seek for their ‘divergent lifestyle’ rather than for an alternative culture, e.g. gays and lesbians.

[2] As Parekh (2006: 3) suggests, perspectival diversity is characterised by groups (like feminists, environmentalists) challenge the ‘very basis’ of the existing culture.

[3] This officially-adopted definition is deficiency especially applied to the case of Hui people and Manchu people who have been assimilated by the majority Han people in terms of language and Hui people also scatter throughout the country.

The Chinese Approach to the Inclusive and Ethno-cultural
Society

The ‘five-thousand-year’ Chinese culture, in a historical discourse, is officially or typically depicted as ‘inclusive’, ‘magnanimity’ and ‘tolerant’ in a dynamic and hybrid process[1]. It, originally based on the Han plain civilisation, has been preserved by the Han people and so-called ‘barbarian invaders’ who adopted a series of open policy to change themselves in some ways rather than destroying. On the other side, it has been promoted by absorbing alien elements, alongside with the ethnic hybridities caused by it own conquering, so-called ‘barbarian invasions’ as well as immigrations brought by ‘silk-road’ and marine trades (See, for example, in Fei, 1999).

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[1] There is also another saying that China, literally translated as ‘Central Empire’, regard that they are civilization centre surrounded by barbarians.

‘Fifty-six nationalities blossom as fifty-six flowers; Fifty-six brothers and sisters live in one big family.’ As described in this widely-known patriotic song of Loving China, fifty-six ethnic groups, of which the Han people are 91.59%, constitutes the ‘Chinese nation (Zhonghua Minzu) (Dikötter, 1997: 10) (National Bureau of Statistics of People’s Republic of China, 2004) or is described as ‘an intriguing demographic equation’ of ’55 minorities + the Han’ = the Chinese nation (Mullaney, 2004a). The official justification for this formula is based on the Chinese prominent Sociologist Fei Xiaotong (1999)’s theory of ‘Multi-factors in One body’, which is allegedly derived from Chinese philosophy of I-Ching (Huang, 2002) and his decades of study on the officially sponsored project of ‘Ethnic Classification’ (Mullaney, 2004a; Di, 2005). This will be explored in-depth in the followings

Constructing the Nationhood

Central to an inclusive society, as Ratcliffe (2004: 166) argues, it should be built on a ‘One Nation’ culture based on ‘a common-sense of nationhood accompanied by a respect for, and acceptance of, difference and diversity’. It seems rather difficult for countries, especially an immigration county, to image this picture. Chris Barker (1999: 4-6) points out the challenge of balancing the diversity and unity, by citing difficulties of South African’s construction of ‘Simunye’ (we are one) among racially and culturally people. Canada, notably, is the first and the only country that legitimatise the ‘multiculturalism’ (Solution Research Group, 2003). What’s China’s story? For China, it is characterised by two traits, firstly, of the notion of Chinese Nation and, secondly, of ‘depicting the ethno-cultural diversity’.

But, is it an ‘imaged’ national identity or a ‘utopia’? (Anderson, 1983; quoted in Gladney, 1994) A distinctive idea is from Su, especially through the Television Series River Elegy[1] (1989; quoted in Dikötter, 1997), who points out that the ‘Chineseness is seen primarily as a matter biological descent, physical appearance and congenital inheritance’, and ‘Chinese civilisation or Confucianism are thought to be the product of that imagined biological group’.

The notion, however, of ‘Chinese Nation’ as a homogeneous whole has been constructed, both politically and imaginarily, for a long history. For the political justification, Dr. Sun Yat-sen, who led the Revolution of 1911 that ‘abolished the feudal monarchy and give birth to the Republic of China’ (National People’s Congress of People’s Republic of China, 1982), changed his slogan of ‘Expel Manchu’, the ethnic minority ruler of last feudal Qing Dynasty, into ‘Five Ethnic Groups under One Union’ as one strategy to combine all the strength of all nationalities in China to resist imperialist intruders. People’s Republic of China adopts Dr. Sun Yat-sen’s concept of ‘Chinese nation’ and further provides the evidence of ‘all nationalities working together to resist imperialism and feudalism’ as the political justification. In Preamble of Constitution of People’s Republic of China, it declares, ‘The Chinese people of all nationalities led by the Communist Party of China with Chairman Mao Zedong as its leader ultimately, in 1949, overthrew the rule of imperialism, feudalism and bureaucrat capitalism’. In this sense, D. C. Gladney (1994) suggests that ethnic minorities have been playing the role of OTHER to the Han people who are subsequently ‘essentialised’, far beyond their ‘objective importance’. This is agreed by C. Mackerras (1995: 208) who furthers this point by locating this into the context of ‘the increasing nationalism[2] of China as a whole’ in the 1990s.

On the other side, ‘imaginary construction’ of China as ‘a homogeneous organic entity’ should also be attributed to the myths of ‘Descents from the Dragon, from the Yellow Emperor and from the Peking Man’ (Sautman, 1997: 76). This way was greatly challenged especially from the ethnic minorities’ perspectives. A tripod decorated with fifty-six dragons, representing fifty-six officially-recognised ethnic groups, presented in celebration of the fiftieth anniversaries of the UN, as Sautman (ibid.) notes, officially signified all the ethnic groups are ‘Descents from the Dragon’, which is contradictory given that ethnic minorities themselves have other ‘animal progenitors’. Striking examples come from ‘the wolf and dog among Mongols, the Monkey among Tibetans, the bear among Koreans’ and so forth. It is also the same case that the idea of ‘authentically Chinese’ or ‘fellow-descendents of the Yellow Emperor’ (ibid.) were rejected by those ethnic minorities, like Uygurs, Kazaks, and Kirgiz in Xinjiang, who do not ‘physically and culturally resemble the Han’. Another ‘unifying symbol’, culturally and officially portrayed as ‘an embodiment of the spirit and force of the Chinese nation’, is the Great Wall, which was employed as the negative barriers of resisting the ancient nomadic people (most of them now are recognised as ethnic groups in China). Gladney (1994: 8) critically points this out by referring to one picture published by Nationality Pictorial, portraying some ethnic minorities proclaiming that ‘I love Great Wall’.

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[1] This TV Series, broadcasted in 1989, critically reviewed the Chinese Civilisation, which is considered as the fuse of 1989 Students’ Pro-democratic Movements.

[2] ‘Nationalism of China as a whole’ refers to, in a narrow sense, patriotism which is especially based on the resistance to the imperialism invasion over centuries and nowadays is quite prevalent in the forms of anti-Japanese in the issue of history textbooks, Japanese PM’s visiting controversial Yasukuni Shrine and anti-American in the 1999 bombing of Chinese Embassy in Yugoslavia.