China's culture offensive hits a wall
By Antoaneta Bezlova
BEIJING - This year's Frankfurt Book Fair may have been more of an
embarrassment than prestige for its guest of honor - China - but the country's
cultural mandarins still believe that the future of cultural ideas belongs to
the Middle Kingdom and that the global financial crisis will play a role in
helping them achieve that.
Wu Wei - the woman behind Beijing's "going global" project for Chinese
literature - told the Southern Weekend, a popular newspaper, last week that the
economic downturn has focused global attention on China in just about every
aspect.
"In the West in particular, it has made many people talk about China's model
and what will happen when China 'rules the world'," she said. "But the West
knows little about China's culture and
ideas and ignorance breeds fear. It is the source of all kinds of 'threat' and
'collapse' theories. But this interest is also a chance for us to propagate our
ideas."
Beijing has exploited international attention to the full, raising its global
profile in politics and economic affairs and even attempting to export its
economic model. Leaving a mark in the world of cultural ideas, though, has
presented a tougher challenge.
For several years now, Beijing has battled to reverse its "cultural deficit",
where it imports 10 times more books than it exports. Now one of the world's
largest economies and trading powers, China has spearheaded a cultural
counteroffensive in a belief that cultural industry is the next step in its
transformation from global upstart to superstar.
As part of this attempt to raise the country's cultural profile abroad Beijing
has invested in hundreds of Confucian institutes that are teaching Mandarin
around the world and launching new foreign-language media outlets. In
publishing, Wu, as a senior official at the Information Department of the State
Council, has led a team of experts tasked with selecting the most appealing
titles to be translated and marketed around the world.
They spent nearly five years and invested US$15 million preparing for China's
debut at the Frankfurt Book Fair - referred to here as the "Olympics of the
publishing world" - which was held on October 14-18. The country was featured
as the guest of honor - a choice that pleased Beijing in a year marking the
60th anniversary of the founding of the communist republic.
But to the cultural officials' dismay, the event was marred with controversy
and spats over human rights and press freedoms.
Two conflicting images of China squabbled for limelight at the fair - one, of
the state-sponsored written word, put forward by Beijing, and the other of
China on the fringe, presented by dissidents living abroad and fighting for
their voices to be heard.
Xi Jinping, Chinese vice president and seen by some people as a likely heir to
party chief Hu Jintao, led the official delegation of 50 state-endorsed writers
and 600 artists. They presented some 100 translated books - the first fruits of
Beijing's "going out" project for Chinese literature.
These included two volumes by former party chief Jiang Zemin - one on China's
foray into the information technology industry and another on the country's
energy policies. Fiction titles included best-selling works such as Jiang
Rong's Wolf Totem and Yu Hua's Brothers. Beijing, however, was
clearly uncomfortable with allowing anyone outside of the state umbrella to
speak for China. Despite an invitation extended by the fair organizers, Beijing
banned author Liao Yiwu from attending the event.
After serving a four-year prison sentence for writing poetry about the 1989
Tiananmen massacre, Liao has remained under surveillance by police, who refused
to lift his travel ban. Liao's book on China's underprivileged, The Corpse
Walker, as well as his essays about the survivors and victims of last
year's earthquake in Sichuan, have reportedly rankled censors at home.
Still, there was a lot the official Chinese delegation could not control.
Author-in-exile Bei Ling and writer Dai Qing, whose books about the Tiananmen
pro-democracy movement and the Three Gorges Dam - the world's largest dam,
which has generated much controversy at home and abroad - are banned on the
mainland, represented dissident China. Envoys of Tibetan exiled leader the
Dalai Lama and Uyghur pro-independence advocate Rebiya Kadeer, condemned by
Beijing as a terrorist, were also present.
Beijing could not prevent the foreign media from zooming in on its intolerance
of free speech and criticizing the communist party. When German magazine Der
Spiegel ran a feature on the fair, headlined "China, the Unwelcome Guest",
Chinese delegates protested that European media and political circles were
biased.
China's clout, though, was felt behind the scenes. Bei Ling and Dai Qing were
barred from making speeches at the closing ceremony. An outcry from the public
and the media forced the fair organizers to fire the project manager for
striking off the names of the dissident writers from the list of speakers at
the last moment.
Beijing put a positive spin on the outcome of the fair, despite the
embarrassment caused by the tug-of-war between the official Chinese delegation
and the dissident lobby. The country's sprawling pavilion at Frankfurt -
featuring scrolls with different styles of calligraphy and an engraved "ink
pool" - was described by the media here as the "place to be".
"This is an achievement of immense pride for us," Li Pengyi, a delegation
member and vice president of the China Publishing Group, told reporters at the
end of the fair. "One can say we are going home with two bumper harvests - one
for the Chinese culture in general and one for China's copyright trade.”
To continue raising the country's cultural profile abroad even in the middle of
the current economic downturn, Chinese officials have decided to offer free
books to about 100 libraries around the world, according to Wu Wei.
At a book fair at Ditan Park in Beijing, some of the crowd have heard about
Beijing's reception in Frankfurt.
"Foreigners always seek to embarrass China," said student Zhang Ziying. "With
so much prejudice, how can they like any of our books?"
But Lin Xuecong, who introduced himself only as a "book lover", says there is
little worthy that is being written in China these days. "It is not about who
are the authors of these books. It is about whether they can touch your heart
and mind."
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