DOCSLIB.ORG

Film and the Chinese Medical Humanities

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Film and the Chinese Medical Humanities 5 The fever with no name Genre-blending responses to the HIV-tainted blood scandal in 1990s China Marta Hanson Among the many responses to HIV/AIDS in modern China – medical, political, economic, sociological, national, and international – the cultural responses have been considerably powerful. In the past ten years, artists have written novels, produced documentaries, and even made a major feature-length film in response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic in China.1 One of the best-known critical novelists in China today, Yan Lianke 阎连科 (b. 1958), wrote the novel Dream of Ding Village (丁庄梦, copyright 2005; Hong Kong 2006; English translation 2009) as a scath- ing critique of how the Chinese government both contributed to and poorly han- dled the HIV/AIDS crisis in his native Henan province. He interviewed survivors, physicians, and even blood merchants who experienced first-hand the HIV/AIDS ‘tainted blood’ scandal in rural Henan of the 1990s giving the novel authenticity, depth, and heft. Although Yan chose a child-ghost narrator, the Dream is clearly a realistic novel. After signing a contract with Shanghai Arts Press he promised to donate 50,000 yuan of royalties to Xinzhuang village where he researched the AIDS epidemic in rural Henan, further blurring the fiction-reality line. The Chi- nese government censors responded by banning the Dream in Mainland China (Wang 2014: 151). Even before director Gu Changwei 顾长卫 (b. 1957) began making a feature film based on Yan’s banned book, he and his wife Jiang Wenli 蒋雯丽 (b. 1969) sought to work with ordinary people living with HIV/AIDS as part of the process of making the film. He publicly invited members of HIV/AIDS communities to participate in making a film based on Yan’sDream and conceived of a related doc- umentary filmed on the set (Li 2016: 231). Some officials in the Health Ministry supported Gu’s proposal to combine a feature film with a documentary as integral parts of a broader multimedia HIV/AIDS public health education campaign in conjunction with the Film Bureau State Administration of Radio, Film, & TV. At the time, Gu’s wife Jiang Wenli was also a volunteer AIDS educator for the Min- istry of Health. This may explain their proposal as well as why three other AIDS educators/performers played roles in the film Qian( 2016: 228, fn39). Released in 2011, the resulting Love for Life (Zui ai 最爱) was the first feature- length movie to address the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Chinese popular culture. Its sympathetic portrayal of HIV+ characters attempts to counter the real-life stig- matization and discrimination against people living with HIV/AIDS in China. 84 Marta Hanson As part of this state-sponsored HIV/AIDS public health education campaign, Zhao Liang 赵亮 (d. 1971), one of China’s best-known independent documentary filmmakers, was invited to make the documentary.2 The resulting Together (Zai yiqi 在一起) combines footage of the making of Love for Life and interviews with the film’s HIV+ and non-HIV+ actors and extras with at-home interviews and online exchanges that Zhao Liang arranged through online social networks with people living with HIV/AIDS in China. Zhao Liang clarified the intent of this multimedia collaboration with an intro- duction to his documentary in Chinese and the following English translation: In 2009, director Gu Changwei reached out to the public, seeking HIV posi- tive people to participate in the making of the film Tale of Magic.3 By hav- ing HIV+ people working and living with members of his cast and crew, he hoped it would strengthen the public’s understanding of AIDS, and reduce discrimination against HIV positive people. We documented this process.4 Considered together, Dream of Ding Village, Love For Life, and Together offer a unique case study of the power of blending different cultural forms to tell new stories that have potential to improve epidemiological outcomes, affect social change, and possibly even transform individual lives.5 The following chapter first examines the Dream of Ding Village as a novelist’s direct response to the HIV–tainted blood scandal in rural Henan in the 1990s, secondly turns to Gu Changwei’s Love for Life as part of a government-supported public-health cam- paign, and thirdly discusses Zhao Liang’s documentary Together as navigating the related fine line between independent expression and government censorship. These artists gave ‘the fever with no name’ not just a name but also a history with multiple stories, subplots, and fictional characters as well as actual human faces and testimonies. As the medical historian Charles E. Rosenberg succinctly wrote, ‘In some ways disease does not exist until we have agreed that it does, by perceiving, naming, and responding to it’ (Rosenberg 1992: xiii, xxii). Once a dis- ease has been diagnosed, the disease concept itself can be used as a social diagno- sis of broader social ills that contributed to the disease’s manifestation and which the disease’s presence brings into sharper focus (Rosenberg 1992: xxii). Naming the fever in China as HIV/AIDS makes it newly visible as an epidemic with a unique history comprised of complex narratives. People can then use this history to diagnose the broader social, economic, and political problems that contributed to its emergence, exacerbation, and failures to adequately respond. The fever in the Dream The concrete road linking Ding Village with the outside world was built ten years ago, when everyone in the village was caught up in the blood-selling boom. As Grandpa stood at the roadside looking towards the village, a gust of wind seemed to clear his head and restore order to his muddled thoughts. Things he hadn’t understood before began to fall into place. For the first time since he’d left the The fever with no name 85 village early that morning to meet with the county cadres, the fog seemed to lift. There, standing at the roadside that linked Ding Village to the rest of the world, realization dawned on him. The realization that with clouds comes the rain. That late autumn begets winter’s chill. That those who had sold their blood ten years ago would now have the fever. And that those with the fever would die, as surely as the falling leaves. – The fever hid in blood; Grandpa hid in dreams. – The fever loved its blood; Grandpa loved his dreams. (Yan 2009: 7–8) So begins the Dream of Ding Village. The definite article ‘the’ refers to an unspec- ified fever that parallels the central protagonist ‘Grandpa’. The blood where the fever hides is analogous to the dreams within which Grandpa hides. What is this fever that loved blood as much as this Grandpa loved his dreams? The narrative continues in italics with the dream Grandpa had over several nights: the cities he’d visited – Kaifeng and Wei County, with their underground net- works of pipes likes cobwebs – running thick with blood. And from the cracks and curvatures of pipes, from the l-bends and the u-bends, blood spurts like water. A fountain of brackish rain sprays the air; a bright-red assault on the senses. And there, upon the plain, he saw the wells and rivers all turned red, rancid with the stench of blood. In every city and every township, doctors wept as the fever spread. But on the streets of Ding Village, one doctor sat and laughed. Bathed in golden sunlight, the village was silent and peaceful, its residents behind locked doors. But, day by day, the doctor in his white lab coat, his physician’s bag at his feet, would sit perched upon a rock beneath the scholar trees and laugh. Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha. The sunshine would be filled with the sound of laughter. A big loud belly-laugh, ringing out as clear as a bell, strong enough to shake the trees, and make the yellow leaves rain down, as surely as the autumn breeze. (Yan 2009: 8) The water in the plumbing infrastructure of Kaifeng and Wei county as well as ‘the wells and rivers’ have all turned to blood, implicating state governance in the widespread contamination of what was once clean water. It’s the same blood that has carried ‘the fever’ to ‘every city and every township’ through the ‘net- works of pipes’ in humans as well as cities. Everywhere else physicians weep in despair; only the doctor in Ding Village appears to have gone mad. This short dream sequence signals the nightmare that will weave through the novel. As soon as Grandpa awakens, he is summoned to meet with the local ‘big- wigs’ or county officials. Because Ding Village’s mayor has died from the fever, Grandpa remains the only senior person in the village left to deal with the out- side world. He learned several things from this meeting about the fever that has 86 Marta Hanson ravaged Ding Village. First, and likely most important, ‘was that the fever wasn’t really a fever at all. Its proper medical name was Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome, or AIDS’ (Yan 2009: 9). The scandal behind the Dream This fictional opening matches well the historical reality in Henan province of the 1990s that Chinese villagers had no idea what was the ‘strange illness’ or ‘name- less fever’ that was killing them (Gittings 2001a: 15; Renwick 2002 377 fn2). After the post-Maoist ‘reform and opening’ policies in the late 1970s unraveled the com- mune system underlying the rural healthcare system, the state had to develop new ways to generate revenue for rural healthcare. Building on the blood donation sys- tems established during the Second Sino-Japanese War in Southwest China (Soon 2016) and since the 1950s in Henan province, state and health officials sought to deal with their financial shortfall in the 1990s by encouraging poor villagers to sell their blood and plasma for profit (Hayes 2005: 14; Jun 2011: 78).
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Zhang Yimou Interviews Edited by Frances Gateward
    ZHANG YIMOU INTERVIEWS EDITED BY FRANCES GATEWARD Discussing Red Sorghum JIAO XIONGPING/1988 Winning Winning Credit for My Grandpa Could you discuss how you chose the novel for Red Sorghum? I didn't know Mo Yan; I first read his novel, Red Sorghum, really liked it, and then gave him a phone call. Mo Yan suggested that we meet once. It was April and I was still filming Old Well, but I rushed to Shandong-I was tanned very dark then and went just wearing tattered clothes. I entered the courtyard early in the morning and shouted at the top of my voice, "Mo Yan! Mo Yan!" A door on the second floor suddenly opened and a head peered out: "Zhang Yimou?" I was dark then, having just come back from living in the countryside; Mo Yan took one look at me and immediately liked me-people have told me that he said Yimou wasn't too bad, that I was just like the work unit leader in his village. I later found out that this is his highest standard for judging people-when he says someone isn't too bad, that someone is just like this village work unit leader. Mo Yan's fiction exudes a supernatural quality "cobblestones are ice-cold, the air reeks of blood, and my grandma's voice reverberates over the sorghum fields." How was I to film this? There was no way I could shoot empty scenes of the sorghum fields, right? I said to Mo Yan, we can't skip any steps, so why don't you and Chen Jianyu first write a literary script.
    [Show full text]
  • 9780367508234 Text.Pdf
    Development of the Global Film Industry The global film industry has witnessed significant transformations in the past few years. Regions outside the USA have begun to prosper while non-traditional produc- tion companies such as Netflix have assumed a larger market share and online movies adapted from literature have continued to gain in popularity. How have these trends shaped the global film industry? This book answers this question by analyzing an increasingly globalized business through a global lens. Development of the Global Film Industry examines the recent history and current state of the business in all parts of the world. While many existing studies focus on the internal workings of the industry, such as production, distribution and screening, this study takes a “big picture” view, encompassing the transnational integration of the cultural and entertainment industry as a whole, and pays more attention to the coordinated develop- ment of the film industry in the light of influence from literature, television, animation, games and other sectors. This volume is a critical reference for students, scholars and the public to help them understand the major trends facing the global film industry in today’s world. Qiao Li is Associate Professor at Taylor’s University, Selangor, Malaysia, and Visiting Professor at the Université Paris 1 Panthéon- Sorbonne. He has a PhD in Film Studies from the University of Gloucestershire, UK, with expertise in Chinese- language cinema. He is a PhD supervisor, a film festival jury member, and an enthusiast of digital filmmaking with award- winning short films. He is the editor ofMigration and Memory: Arts and Cinemas of the Chinese Diaspora (Maison des Sciences et de l’Homme du Pacifique, 2019).
    [Show full text]
  • Zhang Ziyi and Aaron Kwok
    PRODUCTION NOTES Set in a small Chinese village where an illicit blood trade has spread AIDS to the community, LOVE FOR LIFE is the story of De Yi and Qin Qin, two victims faced with the grim reality of impending death, who unexpectedly fall in love and risk everything to pursue a last chance at happiness before it’s too late. SYNOPSIS In a small Chinese village where an illicit blood trade has spread AIDS to the community, the Zhao’s are a family caught in the middle. Qi Quan is the savvy elder son who first lured neighbors to give blood with promises of fast money while Grandpa, desperate to make amends for the damage caused by his family, turns the local school into a home where he can care for the sick. Among the patients is his second son De Yi, who confronts impending death with anger and recklessness. At the school, De Yi meets the beautiful Qin Qin, the new wife of his cousin and a recent victim of the virus. Emotionally deserted by their respective spouses, De Yi and Qin Qin are drawn to each other by the shared disappointment and fear of their fate. With nothing to look forward to, De Yi capriciously suggests becoming lovers but as they begin their secret affair, they are unprepared for the real love that grows between them. De Yi and Qin Qin’s dream of being together as man and wife, to love each other legitimately and freely, is jeopardized when the villagers discover their adultery. With their time slipping away, they must decide if they will surrender everything to pursue one chance at happiness before it’s too late.
    [Show full text]
  • Ruby's New Precious
    Film Edited by Arthur Tam [email protected] xxxx xxxx have voices that might not be heard, before and they have to study so – they’re very street smart – and sensitive topic, which can be stopped and about the changes in people’s many different types of braille for that’s what I found very charming. I at any time. lives. I think if you look at it, the different subjects. And in just one liked that a lot. themes are very similar. If you look afternoon, this one girl has to use all So now that you’re based in at the children being affected by these different tools to get through Was it strange that there are Hong Kong does that mean you’ll AIDS or the farmer who studies one class. It’s extremely difficult. some disabled students mixed pursue more issues dealing with environmental law to save his with non-disabled students? One Hong Kong? village, you see a common thread How many months did you have group is dealing with tangible Yes. There are many issues I’d emerging – the human spirit. This to spend filming? disabilities while the other like to explore, like ageing. And is what you can see in this film as The whole thing took over 90 days. one is not. then another one might be about Tattered and unwanted well. It is the challenge of the human And the post-production took a I think that it is good because, I media coverage in Hong Kong or But they’ll get through spirit, and it’s about humanity.
    [Show full text]
  • The Biopolitical Elements in Yan Lianke's Fiction Worlds
    Eastern Illinois University The Keep Masters Theses Student Theses & Publications 2018 The iopB olitical Elements in Yan Lianke's Fiction Worlds Xiaoyu Gao Eastern Illinois University This research is a product of the graduate program in English at Eastern Illinois University. Find out more about the program. Recommended Citation Gao, Xiaoyu, "The iopoB litical Elements in Yan Lianke's Fiction Worlds" (2018). Masters Theses. 3619. https://thekeep.eiu.edu/theses/3619 This is brought to you for free and open access by the Student Theses & Publications at The Keep. It has been accepted for inclusion in Masters Theses by an authorized administrator of The Keep. For more information, please contact [email protected]. The GraduateSchool � EA'ill 11.'1I·��-- h l:'ll\'tll\11'\' Thesis Maintenance and Reproduction Certificate FOR: Graduate candidates Completing Theses in PartialFulfillment of the Degree Graduate Faculty Advisors Directing the Theses RE: Preservation, Reproduction, and Distribution of Thesis Research Preserving, reproducing, and distributing thesis research is an important part of Booth Library's responsibility to provide access to scholarship. In order to further this goal, Booth Library makes all graduate theses completed as part of a degree program at Eastern Illinois University available for personal study, research, and other not-for­ profit educational purposes. Under 17 U.S.C. § 108, the library may reproduce and distribute a copy without infringing on copyright; however, professional courtesy dictates that permission be requested from the author before doing so. Your signatures affirm the following: •The graduate candidate is the author of this thesis. •The graduate candidate retains the copyright and intellectual property rights associated with the original research, creative activity, and intellectual or artistic content of the thesis.
    [Show full text]
  • China As Dystopia: Cultural Imaginings Through Translation Published In: Translation Studies (Taylor and Francis) Doi: 10.1080/1
    China as dystopia: Cultural imaginings through translation Published in: Translation Studies (Taylor and Francis) doi: 10.1080/14781700.2015.1009937 Tong King Lee* School of Chinese, The University of Hong Kong *Email: [email protected] This article explores how China is represented in English translations of contemporary Chinese literature. It seeks to uncover the discourses at work in framing this literature for reception by an Anglophone readership, and to suggest how these discourses dovetail with meta-narratives on China circulating in the West. In addition to asking “what gets translated”, the article is interested in how Chinese authors and their works are positioned, marketed, and commodified in the West through the discursive material that surrounds a translated book. Drawing on English translations of works by Yan Lianke, Ma Jian, Chan Koonchung, Yu Hua, Su Tong, and Mo Yan, the article argues that literary translation is part of a wider programme of Anglophone textual practices that renders China an overdetermined sign pointing to a repressive, dystopic Other. The knowledge structures governing these textual practices circumscribe the ways in which China is imagined and articulated, thereby producing a discursive China. Keywords: translated Chinese literature; censorship; paratext; cultural politics; Yan Lianke Translated Literature, Global Circulations 1 In 2007, Yan Lianke (b.1958), a novelist who had garnered much critical attention in his native China but was relatively unknown in the Anglophone world, made his English debut with the novel Serve the People!, a translation by Julia Lovell of his Wei renmin fuwu (2005). The front cover of the book, published by London’s Constable,1 pictures two Chinese cadets in a kissing posture, against a white background with radiating red stripes.
    [Show full text]
  • Asian American International Film Festival 2015 Presents a Stellar Group of Chinese and Chinese American Films
    FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Media contact: Kevin Lee Asian CineVision [email protected] . Asian American International Film Festival 2015 presents a stellar group of Chinese and Chinese American Films NEW YORK, June 23, 2015 – Chinese and Chinese American films have always been well represented at AAIFF and this year Asian CineVision presents a robust crop of films from popular Chinese filmmakers. Drawing on stories about growth and self-discovery to moral challenges and patriotism, this year’s slate of films is fueled by passionate directors who are driven by the energy and conviction of their characters. Highlighted by our Opening Night Presentation of Ruby Yang’s MY VOICE, MY LIFE, the 2015 program features Zhang Wei’s FACTORY BOSS, Daniel Lee’s DRAGON BLADE and Andrew Lau’s REVENGE OF THE GREEN DRAGONS among others. AAIFF 2015 will also showcase six Chinese short films included in our Made in NY, Arthouse, and LGBT programs. FEATURE FILMS MY VOICE MY LIFE AAIFF 2015 raises the opening night curtains with Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker Ruby Yang’s feature film MY VOICE, MY LIFE. Following a group of under-privileged Hong Kong youngsters, MY VOICE, MY LIFE is the life affirming journey of self-discovery and growth as this group of misfits undergoes six-months of rigorous training to produce a musical on stage. FACTORY BOSS Directed by Zhang Wei, is a compelling look into the heart of China's manufacturing culture. Based on Wei’s personal experiences in Shenzhen, FACTORY BOSS follows the global economic effect of the rising demand for cheap Chinese labor and the social issues surrounding its labor force.
    [Show full text]
  • A Moment in Time -- Press Release
    A Moment in Time -- Press Release A Moment in Time, a new film by Oscar-winner Ruby Yang, is a one-hour documentary about the experience of the Chinese in America through the films they loved. It harkens back to a time when six movie theaters in San Francisco’s Chinatown crystallized the memories, the beliefs, the sorrows and aspirations of Chinese immigrant families. The principal speakers in A Moment in Time grew up here: Irene Dea Collier, Jimmie Lee, Chuck Gee, Cecilia Wong, Amy Chung, Norman Fong. As children they associated Chinese movies (and the Chinese language) with their parents’ alien, backward world. Chinese mothers loved Cantonese Opera films in which tyrannical parents wrench young lovers apart. For them, movies were a rare break in an endless workweek. Chinese movies also translated national disasters – World War II, for example – into personal dramas of separation and loss. For Chinese immigrants they were true to life, unlike the sunny family shows on American TV. The immigrants’ American kids eventually found their own reasons to appreciate Chinese film. Partly in self defense -- because they were seen as Chinese -- the children developed a pride in Chinese things. The heartbeat of A Moment in Time is a series of clips from films that were hits in Chinatown. Hollywood Westerns were always popular. Wong Fei Hung, a Robin Hood character from Hong Kong, defended the weak with a smile and a bullwhip. Films from revolutionary mainland China sparked battles in Chinatown between long-haired youths and a conservative older generation. 1950s bobbysoxer films from Hong Kong proved that Chinese girls can be cool.
    [Show full text]
  • Art, Politics, and Commerce in Chinese Cinema
    Art, Politics, and Commerce in Chinese Cinema edited by Ying Zhu and Stanley Rosen Hong Kong University Press 14/F Hing Wai Centre, 7 Tin Wan Praya Road, Aberdeen, Hong Kong www.hkupress.org © Hong Kong University Press 2010 Hardcover ISBN 978-962-209-175-7 Paperback ISBN 978-962-209-176-4 All rights reserved. Copyright of extracts and photographs belongs to the original sources. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the copyright owners. Printed and bound by XXXXX, Hong Kong, China Contents List of Tables vii Acknowledgements ix List of Contributors xiii Introduction 1 Ying Zhu and Stanley Rosen Part 1 Film Industry: Local and Global Markets 15 1. The Evolution of Chinese Film as an Industry 17 Ying Zhu and Seio Nakajima 2. Chinese Cinema’s International Market 35 Stanley Rosen 3. American Films in China Prior to 1950 55 Zhiwei Xiao 4. Piracy and the DVD/VCD Market: Contradictions and Paradoxes 71 Shujen Wang Part 2 Film Politics: Genre and Reception 85 5. The Triumph of Cinema: Chinese Film Culture 87 from the 1960s to the 1980s Paul Clark vi Contents 6. The Martial Arts Film in Chinese Cinema: Historicism and the National 99 Stephen Teo 7. Chinese Animation Film: From Experimentation to Digitalization 111 John A. Lent and Ying Xu 8. Of Institutional Supervision and Individual Subjectivity: 127 The History and Current State of Chinese Documentary Yingjin Zhang Part 3 Film Art: Style and Authorship 143 9.
    [Show full text]
  • La Tua Terra, La Mia Lingua Traduzione Di Parte Del Romanzo Godersi La Vita Di Yan Lianke
    Corso di Laurea Magistrale in Interpretariato e Traduzione Editoriale, Settoriale Tesi di Laurea La tua terra, la mia lingua Traduzione di parte del romanzo Godersi la vita di Yan Lianke Relatore Ch.ma Prof.ssa Nicoletta Pesaro Laureando Angela Ferri Matricola 988808 Anno Accademico 2016 / 2017 «Tutto può cambiare, ma non la lingua che ci portiamo dentro, anzi che ci contiene dentro di sé come un mondo più esclusivo e definitivo del ventre materno».1 1 Italo Calvino, cit. in Andrea Camilleri, Tullio De Mauro, La lingua batte dove il dente duole, Bari, Laterza, 2014, p. 71. I Abstract This thesis focuses on the translation into Italian of part of Yan Lianke’s Lenin’s Kisses. After an overall presentation of the topic of dialect translation in literature, the aim is to give a solution to the translation of the author’s Henan dialect by adopting a very informal language and by utilizing specific terms from a Southern Italian dialect. This thesis is divided into four sections. The first section can be considered as a long reflection on the importance of translating dialect in literature. The history of dialectal writing in China and the political attitudes toward it, are also part of this first chapter. Furthermore, this section illustrates how dialectal writing is linked to some authors’ love for their homeland. Yan Lianke and his novel are attentively presented in this section. The second section is the translation from Chinese into Italian of two chapters selected from the novel. Each chapter has a few features that are representative and reflects the unique structure of the entire novel.
    [Show full text]
  • MY VOICE, MY LIFE Directed by Ruby Yang
    Presented by: In association with: MY VOICE, MY LIFE Directed by Ruby Yang PRESS PACKET Running Time: 91 minutes Language: Cantonese with English subtitles Rating: IIA (Hong Kong) Theatrical Release: October 16, 2014 (Hong Kong) For More Info: www.myvoicemylifemovie.com www.facebook.com/mvmlmovie www.youtube.com/mvmlhk Contact: [email protected] MY VOICE, MY LIFE Synopsis Short Synopsis “My Voice, My Life,” a Hong Kong documentary directed by Oscar winner Ruby Yang, chronicles the trials and tribulations of a group of underprivileged middle and high school students as they underwent six months of vigorous training to produce a musical on stage. A life-affirming journey of self-discovery and growth, the stories of these young people will challenge every parent, teacher and policy maker to reflect on our way of nurturing the young. The film is presented by the L plus H Creations Foundation, in association with the Lee Hysan Foundation. 250-Word Synopsis Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker Ruby Yang’s newest film,My “ Voice, My Life” follows an unlikely group of misfit students from four Hong Kong middle and high schools cast in a musical theater performance. From low self-esteem to blindness, each student confronts unique personal challenges in the process of developing his or her character. Many of the musical theater troupe’s students come from Hong Kong’s underprivileged schools, which admit the territory’s academically underperforming students. Others come from a school for the blind that seeks to teach its students how to perform basic tasks and function in the sighted world. Bad boy Jason regularly cuts class, smokes, and is generally a troublemaker.
    [Show full text]
  • Chinese Public Diplomacy: the Rise of the Confucius Institute / Falk Hartig
    Chinese Public Diplomacy This book presents the first comprehensive analysis of Confucius Institutes (CIs), situating them as a tool of public diplomacy in the broader context of China’s foreign affairs. The study establishes the concept of public diplomacy as the theoretical framework for analysing CIs. By applying this frame to in- depth case studies of CIs in Europe and Oceania, it provides in-depth knowledge of the structure and organisation of CIs, their activities and audiences, as well as problems, chal- lenges and potentials. In addition to examining CIs as the most prominent and most controversial tool of China’s charm offensive, this book also explains what the structural configuration of these Institutes can tell us about China’s under- standing of and approaches towards public diplomacy. The study demonstrates that, in contrast to their international counterparts, CIs are normally organised as joint ventures between international and Chinese partners in the field of educa- tion or cultural exchange. From this unique setting a more fundamental observa- tion can be made, namely China’s willingness to engage and cooperate with foreigners in the context of public diplomacy. Overall, the author argues that by utilising the current global fascination with Chinese language and culture, the Chinese government has found interested and willing international partners to co- finance the CIs and thus partially fund China’s international charm offensive. This book will be of much interest to students of public diplomacy, Chinese politics, foreign policy and international relations in general. Falk Hartig is a post-doctoral researcher at Goethe University, Frankfurt, Germany, and has a PhD in Media & Communication from Queensland Univer- sity of Technology, Australia.
    [Show full text]