Can culture be China's next export?

As China's economy has continued its double-digit growth, entrepreneurs are beginning to ask if the country's rich cultural heritage backed by 5,000 years of history would be translated into products of universal appeal?

The aspiration was reinforced by the growing popularity of Chinese language studies, award-wining Chinese movies, artists rising to international acclaim and closer exchanges with cultural circles abroad.

The government has embarked on a massive drive to popularize the language. China has announced plans to set up 100 Confucius Institutes around the world to help foreigners learn the official language, Mandarin, and Chinese culture.

To those who admire Chinese culture, a firm grasp of the language is the key to its understanding.

The Ministry of Education says 40 million people are learning Chinese the world over, but predicts the figure will hit 100 million by 2010. In China alone, the number of foreigners studying Mandarin has grown from 36,000 ten years ago to 110,000 this year.

With cultural glamor and language popularity, a nation can gain prestige and consolidate its position as a global player, says Xu Lin, head of the National Office for Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language.

TOYS, GARMENTS MORE POPULAR THAN BOOKS

However, the reality of China's cultural influence is far from being prestigious. Experts say the popularity of Mandarin is largely driven by economic profit rather than the appeal of culture itself. The country's heavy deficit in cultural trade demonstrates the real situation.

As the world's largest publisher of books, magazines and newspapers, China has failed to make its publications as popular as its toys, garments and electronic products.

Each year, China imports foreign publications worth of hundreds of millions of dollars. But its exports are scarce.

Most of its books were bought by publishers from Southeast Asian countries and Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan. No obvious presence was seen in the Western market.

Books exported are often on traditional Chinese culture, such as qigong and Chinese herbal medicine. "The presence of books on contemporary Chinese society and culture is still rare," says Wei Yushan, deputy director of the China Publishing Sciences Institute.

Even in Asia, where Chinese culture has had a historic influence on many countries, the cultural role is overshadowed by Japan and the Republic of Korea, who have risen as the pop-culture trend-setters.

Japan and South Korea's cultural industries account for 13 percent of the international culture market, while China and all the other Asian countries make up just six percent, according to the Ministry of Culture.

A national project to popularize books of China was launched in 2004 with subsidies from the government to local publishers who translated Chinese works into foreign languages.

The government's efforts have helped reduce the copyright deficit to 1:8.6 in 2004 from 1:15 in 2003, according to the General Administration of Press and Publication.

The potential was glimpsed last year when Penguin Books set a Chinese record with its purchase for 100,000 U.S. dollars of the worldwide English rights for Jiang Rong's literary bestseller, "The Wolf Totem."

MOVIES WIN ACCLAIM

This year also saw a feast of films as China's movie industry grew rapidly. The number of Chinese films produced in 2006 is expected to reach a record 330.

Three big-budget films by award-winning directors, all martial arts epics -- Chen Kaige's The Promise, Feng Xiaogang's The Banquet and Zhang Yimou's Curse of the Golden Flower -- all captured public attention.

In September, director Jia Zhangke took home this year's Gold Lion award for best movie with Still Life from the 63rd Venice Film Festival.

Another winner, Zhang Yuan scooped an award at the Berlin International Film Festival 2006 for his movie Little Red Flowers.

Later director Zhang Jiarui won the Best Film award at the 30th Cairo International Film Festival for The Road.

Low-budget movies, such as Ning Hao's black comedy Crazy Stone and Chen Daming's One Foot off the Ground, also won critical and box office success.

Experts say Chinese movies have begun breaking away from the traditional planning mechanism and made an increasingly powerful punch on the international stage.

Commercial films also helped the Chinese box office break free from 10 years in the doldrums. Before 2003, home-made movie box office takings sat on a constant one billion yuan (128 million U.S. dollars).

In 2004, Chinese films pulled in 1.5 billion yuan (192 million U.S. dollars), rising to two billion yuan (256 million U.S. dollars) in 2005 with 1.6 billion yuan (205 million U.S. dollars) coming from overseas.

This year, with eight Chinese films boasting budgets exceeding 100 million yuan (12.8 million U.S. dollars), takings are expected to hit a record 2.6 billion yuan (333 million U.S. dollars).

However, experts warn that despite the seeming "prosperity" of China's movie industry, the films themselves remain outside the mainstream theaters of the Western market.

From 2000 to 2004, China imported 4,332 film and TV products, but very few Chinese movies were sold abroad.

Zhang Yu, general manager of China Arts and Entertainment Group, said China is not sophisticated in developing and marketing its cultural products.

"The market share of Chinese cultural products in the United States is close to zero," he said. "Most exported Chinese TV plays are old fashioned and poorly packaged by international standards, which are doomed to be failures."

Many experts also blame the industry for a lack of creativity. "Low quality, outdated ideas and the repetition of similar stories... have reduced Chinese movies' competitiveness in the international market," said Yin Hong, a professor with Qinghua University.

TRYING TO EXPORT TV PROGRAMS ALONG WITH TV SETS

With Beijing due to host the 2008 Olympic Games, the next few years are perceived as an opportunity for the country to show that it is more than just the world's largest manufacturing workshop.

"It is high time to make ourselves better understood by the world," Du Ruiqing, a scholar with the Xi'an International Studies University, said.

Scholars have urged the government to seize the opportunity to refurbish its global image with more cultural products representing modern China.

"It is fair to say that both China and the whole world are in the process of getting used to China's new role," Zhang Yiwu, a professor with the Beijing University, said.

"How to make the world see China's vitality and glamor is a challenge faced by the country," Zhang said.

Early this year, the government announced its ambition to increase cultural influence in the 11th five-year (2006-2010) plan of cultural development, pledging to actively participate in international cultural cooperation and competition, expand cultural trade and increase its cultural presence.

The government has pledged to adopt favorable policies to promote the development of nine cultural industries, including film and TV production, publication, advertising and animated cartoon production.

It also says it will further explore channels for cultural exchanges and communication and "make use of all resources" to promote the influence and competitiveness of Chinese cultural products.

"China doesn't intend to become a superpower," said Zhao Qizheng, former head of China's State Council Information Office. "But as one of the ancient civilizations, it will become a 'hardware workshop' if it only exports TV sets without TV programs."

Source: Xinhua