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The making of : The construction of Chineseness during the Olympics

Zeng, G.

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The Making of China The Construction of Chineseness during the Beijing Olympics

© Guohua Zeng 2013 Printed by IPSKAMP, the Netherlands.

The Making of China

The Construction of Chineseness during the Beijing Olympics

ACADEMISCH PROEFSCHRIFT

ter verkrijging van de graad van doctor aan de Universiteit van Amsterdam op gezag van de Rector Magnificus prof. dr. D.C. van den Boom ten overstaan van een door het college voor promoties ingestelde commissie, in het openbaar te verdedigen in de Agnietenkapel op dinsdag 21 mei 2013, te 14:00 uur door

Guohua Zeng

geboren te Xinfeng, Jiangxi Province, P. R. China

Promotiecommissie

Promotores: Prof. dr. J.F.T.M. van Dijck Prof. dr. B.J. de Kloet

Overige Leden: Prof. dr. S.R. Landsberger Prof. dr. C.P. Lindner Prof. dr. P.D. Nyiri Dr. J.L. Qiu Prof. dr. B. van Rooij Dr. A.B. Schneider

Faculteit der Geesteswetenschappen

For my parents, and Yu Jie

Table of Contents

Acknowledgement V Chapter One Chineseness and Beyond 1 Global Media Events and the Opening Ceremony 4 Old Images, New Images, and Soft Power of China 9 Chineseness as an Essentialist Term 14 Strategic “New” Chineseness? 19 Chineseness: One or Many, to Unbind or to Attach to? 27 Discourses, Internet, and Chineseness in Mainland China 33 Understanding Chineseness as a Mediated Construction: Methodological Reflections 39 Situative Centering of Chineseness in Various Media: The Outline of Research 43 Chapter Two Particularity, Universality, and Alternative: The Constructing of New Chineseness 47 To-Be-Looked-At Spectacle 49 New Chineseness and Discourses 55 Splendid and Long Continuous History 61 Multilayered Harmony 70 Alternative Chinese Modernity 83 Determined Romanticism 89 Conclusion 93 Chapter Three The Janus-Faced China: How is China Presented in Anglo-American Media? 95 Dragon or Panda 96 NBC: Centering the Opening Ceremony with a Commercialized Exoticism 98 BBC: A Broadcasting Serving for British Propaganda 121 Conclusion 136 Chapter Four The Pendulum of Chinese Identity: Chineseness, Geopolitics, and the Live Broadcasts of the Opening Ceremony in and Taiwan 139 Geopolitics and Identity 141 Hong Kong’s Full Alignment with the Mainland: Deliberate but Failed 146 Conclusion 170 Chapter Five The New Chineseness as a Zero Institution: Online Resistance, Antagonism, and National Identity 173 “Zero Institution” as a Void Symbol 176 I

Six Critical Discourses 178 The New Chineseness: A Void Symbol with Fierce Antagonism 193 Conclusion 208 Epilogue Communicating Chineseness in a De-imperialized World? 211 New Chineseness and Its Contestations 213 Communicating Chineseness in a De-imperialized World? 216 Coda 224 Appendix I Notes for Data Collection and Analysis 227 Television Broadcasts Collection and Analyzing 227 Online Data Collection and Analysis 229 Online Discourses and Censorship 232 Follow-Up Fieldwork and Press Media Scanning 233 References 237 Samenvatting 255

II

List of Tables and Figures

Tables: Table 2.1: Program summary of the Opening Ceremony of the Beijing Olympics. 59 Table 3.1: The contents and structure of NBC’s rebroadcast of the Opening Ceremony. 102 Table 3.2: The pre-event warm-ups of BBC’s live broadcast of the Opening Ceremony. 122 Table 4.1: The contents of impromptu interpretations on culture and history during the Opening Ceremony. 155 Table 5.1: The critical discourses. 182 Table 5.2: Most notable antagonisms among the critical discourses. 194 Table A.1: Investigated websites. 230 Table A.2: Investigated blogs. 231 Table A.3: Composition of interviewees. 235

Figures: Figure 2.1: Key cultural symbols employed in the Opening Ceremony. 63 Figure 2.2: The Ritual Music section. 68 Figure 2.3: Three different forms of the character “和 [he].” 71 Figure 2.4: Key scenes in the Starlight section. 73 Figure 2.5: Key scenes signifying the harmony within Chinese Ethnicity. 74 Figure 2.6: Key scenes signifying/anticipating a “Harmonious World.” 76 Figure 2.7: Scenes in Maritime Silk Route section. 77 Figure 2.8: Key scenes in taijiquan section. 78 Figure 2.9: Scenes of High-tech Olympics and Green Olympics. 84 Figure 2.10: The involvement of the modernistic sports stadiums and the central Beijing. 87 Figure 3.1: The images of “tradition” and “modernity” in NBC’s starting trailer. 104 Figure 3.2: BBC’s features on China’s president Hu Jintao. 129

III

List of Abbreviations

ATV Asia Television Limited [亞洲電視有限公司，“亚視”] (Hong Kong, PRC) BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (UK) BC Bob Costas (a sports reporter in NBC) BOB The Beijing Olympic Broadcasting Co. Ltd BOCOG The Beijing Organizing Committee of the Beijing Olympic Games BOG The Beijing Olympic Games CCP The (the ruling political party in the PRC) CCTV [中央电视台] (PRC) CG Carrie Gracie (a reporter in BBC) CNN Cable News Network (a cable news channel in the US) CTS Chinese Television System [中華電視公司] (Taiwan, ROC) CTV China Television Company, Ltd [中國電視公司] (Taiwan, ROC) FTV Formosa Television, Ltd [民間全民電視股份有限公司] (Taiwan, ROC) GDP Gross domestic product HE Huw Edwards (a reporter in BBC) HI Hazel Irvine (a reporter in BBC) ICT Information and communications technology IOC The International Olympic Committee JCR Joshua Cooper Ramo (a special Chinese Analyst for NBC during the Beijing Olympics) LED Light-emitting diode TVB Television Broadcasts Limited (Hong Kong, PRC) TTV Taiwan Television Enterprise, Ltd [台灣電視公司] (Taiwan, ROC) ML Matthew (Matt) Lauer (a reporter in NBC) NBA The National Basketball Association (a preeminent men's professional basketball league in North America) NBC The National Broadcasting Company (US) PRC The People’s Republic of China [中华人民共和国] ROC The Republic of China [中華民國] UK The United Kingdom US The United States of American VIP Very Important Person

IV

Acknowledgement

First of all, I wish to dedicate this dissertation to my father Zeng Yunnan, my mother Zhang Jinnü, and my wife Yu Jie, for their unconditional love and support. My parents had made their best efforts in providing me the best education that was available in my home region, and have been supporting every choice I make. I especially wish to commemorate my mother, who passed away on 9 April 2011 after years of suffering from kidney disease. I wish her soul a happy and peaceful life in the world above. I would like to express my deep and sincere gratitude to my supervisor, Professor Jeroen de Kloet. Jeroen took risks inviting me, a candidate with no media studies background, to join his research team of the Beijing Olympics studies in 2009. His patient guidance and wise advice have been of great value for me; his encouragements have helped me defeat the nihilism inflicting many PhD candidates; and his generous and numerous helps in the daily life have made my life a lot easier in Holland. To me, Jeroen is the best supervisor I could expect for my PhD candidacy. I am deeply grateful to my promoter, Professor Josè van Dijck. Josè is a very caring supervisor. She has always been tolerant to my delays in writing, and has encouraged me to probe deeper into my project. She carefully reviewed every sentence of my dissertation and gave me constructive and detailed advices. I have learned a lot from her broad knowledge and critical thinking, and I hope one day I could be as academically productive as her. I am also greatly indebted to Professor Stefan Landsberger. Stefan has been encouraging and supportive since the first day I enrolled in UvA. He also reviewed the drafts of all the chapters, and has provided insightful, critical, and constructive remarks for revision. Meanwhile, I wish to take this V opportunity to thank Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (NWO) and International Institute for Asian Studies (in particular, the former depute director Manon Osseweijer and former director Max Sparreboom) for the financial support of my PhD project. Pál Nyíri is an intriguing teacher and a nicest friend. I benefit a lot from the numerous discussions with him. Matthew Chew has been a long-term friend and we have co-worked for years. I am deeply indebted to him for his inspirations and help in my research. Susan Brownell provided valuable critiques to chapter three, and I have also learned a lot from the discussions with her on the overall Beijing Olympics studies and China studies. Yuezhi Zhao gave me important advice about Chinese media studies. Nick Couldry generously sent me his unpublished essays and PowerPoint slides on the logics of spectacle, which is very helpful in my writing of chapter two. Anthony Fung, Kuan-Hsing Chen, Rana Mitter, Benjamin van Rooij, Zhu Jiangang, Françoise Papa, and Daya Thussu also gave valuable advice to my dissertation and shared with me their critical insights of the current media studies. A good academic environment and a supportive system are vital for the pursuit of a PhD. I have greatly benefitted from the daily academic activities in ASCA, the Department of Media Studies at the University of Amsterdam, and the network of China Studies in the Netherlands. A special thank to Carolyn Birdsall, Jenifer Chao, Maghiel van Crevel, David Duindam, Christoph Lindner, Thomas Poell, Lena Scheen, Florian Schneider, Markus Stauff, and Jan Teurlings; and to the Transasia reading group members Gladys Chong, Yiu Fai Chow, Jeroen Groenwegen, Bram Hendrawan, Lonneke van Heugten, Reza Kartosen, David Kloos, Esme Meivogel, Mari Nakamura, Lena Scheen, Leonie Schmidt, Maaike Siegerist, Olga Sooudi, Markha Valenta, and Ian Yang. I would also like to express my deep gratitude to the members of the PhD defense committee: Stefan Landsberger, Christoph Lindner, Pál Nyíri, Jack Linchuan Qiu, Benjamin van Rooij, and Alexandra Schneider. Some of the chapters were presented and discussed in the ASCA Transasia reading group, ACS 2010 Crossroads

VI

Conference in Hong Kong, and the “Global Media Worlds and China Symposium” at Uppsala University in Sweden, I am grateful to the participants who gave me feedback and offered advice and suggestions. I am also very thankful to Rebecca Chan for her incredibly brilliant editorial work which makes this dissertation a lot more readable, and to Britt Broekhaus for her efficient Dutch translation of the dissertation summary. I am very obliged to my paranymphs, Leonie Schmidt and Ian Yang, for their kind assistance in the arrangement of the oral defense ceremony, the reception, and other related issues. I also wish to thank Eloe Kingma, Jantine van Gogh in ASCA; Jacqueline Antonissen, Jobien Kuiper, Sandra van Delden in the Department of Media Studies; and Letje Lips, Ammetje Schook, Sandra Kloosterman, Gerard Duin, Eva Coomans in the Faculty of Humanities, for their support and help during my PhD candidacy. Many people helped me to adapt to the life in Holland. I am deeply indebted to Yiu Fai Chow and Leonie Schmidt. Yiu Fai is the most warm-hearted friend, helping me a lot to adapt to the life in Holland. I also benefitted from the numerous inspiring and motivating conversations with him. Leonie Schmidt has been my best friend in Holland, and has been helpful and supportive both in my research and daily life. I also thank Francisca Thesingh and Gladys Chong for their help in my adaptation to the life in Amsterdam. Friends are always a vital source of support. My sincere gratitude goes to Wang Chao, Hu Yanbin, Liu Chong, Li Cuiling, Hu Ping, Sun Mingzhan, Wang Xingyi, Yan Xiaojün, Zhai Yunting and Zhang Yin for their help and long-standing friendship. A special thanks goes to the friends in the Netherlands, Shu Chunyan, Dai Guowen, Yu, Ian Yang, Song Yang, Yan Huiqi, Yang Lijing, Liao Hongfei, Wang Ting, and Zhang Xiaoxiao, and Lonneke van Heugten, Bram Hendrawan, and many others; and to my officemates David Duindam, David Nieborg, Jennifer Steetskamp, Ellen de Vries, Niels Kerssens and Bart Wallet.

VII

A special thanks to Guan Jun, Zhang Yin, Zhai Yunting, Hu Ping, Jonathan Watts, Shiozawa Eiichi (鹽澤英一), Ke Zhixiong, Dai Zhiyong, Liu Fangfang and many others who accepted my interviews. I am also grateful to Hong Jiachun and Zhou Lei for their help in my fieldwork in Beijing, and to Zhai Yunting and Dai Zhiyong for the fieldwork in . Lü Yuhui and her friends assisted to transcribe the interview records and the CCTV live broadcast records of the Opening Ceremony of the Beijing Olympics. Dr. Gao Qi, the assistant director of Universities Service Centre for China Studies in the Chinese University of Hong Kong, kindly arranged my data collection in the libraries of the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Matthew Chew generously provided accommodation; also, utmost courtesy was offered by Zhang Yin, Zhang Wuyi, Chen Lu, and Wang Haiyan during my data- collection visit to the Chinese University of Hong Kong. I am also thankful to Louis Ho, Irene Yang, Wayne Huang, Jennifer Hubbert, Jake Bevan and Toon van Veelen for their help with getting television recordings of the Beijing Olympics from Hong Kong, Taiwan, the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands. I owe lots of gratitude to my siblings who have been taking good care of my father (and my mother before she passed away), and for their love and support. I am also grateful to my parents-in-laws, Yu Xiaoping and Cen Xiaoyan, for their support and encouragement. Finally, I must express my greatest gratitude to my wife, Yu Jie. Jie has always been a great supporter to me since we got to know each other on 25 November 2000. She tolerated my constant migration, and sacrificed her promising career in China and followed me to the Netherlands. In the past twelve years, we had a great time together. There are no words that can convey my love to Jie. I genuinely hope we will live our life together to the fullest.

VIII

Chapter One

Chineseness and Beyond

Beginning at 8 o’clock, 8 August 2008, the Opening Ceremony of the Beijing Olympics has attracted much of the world’s attention. Covering audiences of more than four billion people, it was regarded as the most widely broadcast media event: an audience of at least two billion has watched its broadcast on television,1 and the viewers who have watched it on the Internet or through a DVD player make the number even bigger. As one of the most watched events (the Opening Ceremony of the World Cup Football may arguably be the only rival), the Opening Ceremony of the Olympic Games is consensually one of the best opportunities for the host city/country to present itself to the world audience. The artistic performance of the Opening Ceremony of the Beijing Olympics was full of Chinese cultural and symbolic elements, which narrated the alleged five thousand years of Chinese culture and history (though in a non-chronological way), as well as China’s modernity, to the world and to China itself. The global media, representing the Ceremony as the “coming out party” of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), were lavish with their praises to the grandiose artistic presentations and staggering fireworks of the Opening Ceremony, despite with suspicions of what it meant to China and to the world, and how China would further develop after the Olympics. Scholars in China Studies have also affirmatively acknowledged that it was a marking event of “the birth of a new superpower,” presenting the “Chinese nation to the world as young and beautiful,

1 Nielson Company. 2008. “Beijing Olympics Opening Ceremony: Over 2 Billion Viewers Tune In.” 14 August. http://www.nielsen.com/us/en/insights/press-room/2008/beijing_olympics_opening.html (accessed 13 Jun 2011). However, more detailed reports about the ratio of TV and Internet viewers in different areas are not publically available.

1 wise and strong” (Callahan 2010: 1). It is seen as a “ . . . crafted to speak directly to the world of China’s vision of itself” (Barmé 2009: 64), or a ceremony showcasing “how much world history and Western modernization are actually indebted to Chinese civilization” (Manzenreiter 2010: 36). Indeed, the Opening Ceremony obviously aimed to present an ideal and “new” image of China to the world, which was one of the primary goals of China’s bidding for the 2008 Olympics (Brownell 2008: chapter 5; Haugen 2008; S. Luo 2009: episode 1, 2, & 7; Hong and Lu 2012), although it has heavily mobilized Chinese historical and traditional cultural elements.2 However, the Opening Ceremony and the overall Beijing Olympics were not just part of an international campaign for national image building, they also targeted at the people inside China. Anne-Marie Brady, a China studies scholar based in New Zealand, asserts that the preparation in 2006– 2008 for the Olympics was “a propaganda campaign designed to mobilize the population around a common goal, and distract them from more troubling issues such as inflation, unemployment, political corruption and environmental degradation” (2009: 1). She proposes that the Opening Ceremony, reflecting the “recent readjustments in China’s national narrative,” which defined a new China, was an integral part of this propaganda (ibid.: 20). Viewing it from another perspective, Yuezhi Zhao, a scholar on Chinese communication and media studies, takes the Opening Ceremony as “the ultimate embodiment of this [pragmatic] version of Chinese cultural nationalism in the digitalized neoliberal era” (2011: 566), which has been used as “an instrument for rallying popular support for the state-led project of ‘the Great Rejuvenation of the Chinese Nation’” (ibid.). Both arguments point to the fact that the Opening Ceremony promoted nationalism to the Chinese. These reviews reflect, on the one hand, the intense attention paid to the “rise of China,”3 and the international and domestic implications thereof; China’s national

2 China has bid twice for the Olympics. The first was in 1993 and the second in 2001. For more detailed discussion, please refer to Brownell (2008: chapter 5); and Hong and Lu (2012). 3 The “China rise” means that China, with its rapid economic growth, is becoming a “superpower” matching up to the US.

2 image (as well as soft power and public diplomacy) and national identity building; and the interrelations of these issues in the case of the Opening Ceremony of the Beijing Olympics. On the other hand, these studies, which attach great importance to the Opening Ceremony, call for more specialized research. In the numerous studies related to the Beijing Olympics, few studies so far have scrutinized what has exactly been constructed in the Opening Ceremony and how.4 A lot of studies probe into how the Opening Ceremony was received in different countries (e.g., Luo and Richeri 2012; Bonde 2009; Naka and Kobayashi 2010; Tarantino and Carini 2010; Peña et al. 2010; Papa 2010; Hong 2010; Mangan and Ok 2010), but few have analyzed in detail how it was responded to and contested in mainland China, and in Hong Kong and Taiwan.5 Taking this Opening Ceremony as a “global media event” (Hepp and Couldry 2010), I try to scrutinize in this dissertation what was exactly constructed in the Opening Ceremony and how this has been done. I am concerned with the following interrelated questions: What image(s) of China and Chineseness was constructed during the Opening Ceremony and the overall Beijing Olympics? How was it constructed and for whom? What responses did the Opening Ceremony receive from the media from different geological origins? What is the significance of these responses, and why? What reflections can we draw from the mediation of this global media event? Examining these questions, I propose that the construction of the ideal China in the Opening Ceremony of the Beijing Olympics both to the world and to the people inside China can arguably be summarized as a strategic construction of a “new” set of

4 Quite some articles discuss the involvement and significance of Chinese cultural elements in the Opening Ceremony (e.g., Barmé 2009; J. Luo 2011; Evans 2012; and Lawson 2011); its presentation style, national identity construction, and political implication (e.g., Wu and Yun 2008); and other aspects (e.g., Manzenreiter 2010). Yet, few have thoroughly scrutinized the representations and their implications in the construction of the national image of China, and the reinforcement of the national identity. Most of the studies include some of the selected aspects of the Opening Ceremony as (minor) evidence in their examinations of the overall Beijing Olympics, or other topics (e.g., Callahan 2010: Introduction; Schrag 2009; Latham 2010; Finlay and Xin 2010; Leibold 2010; Dong 2010; and Syed 2010). 5 Even in mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, detailed research studies on the reception of the Opening Ceremony are also relatively few (most research studies include it as a minor part in their work on the Beijing Olympics), especially about the contestations (e.g., Cheng et al. 2010; Heslop, Nadeau, and O’Reilly 2010; and Shen 2009).

3

Chineseness. Following the approach of the “global media event” (Hepp and Couldry 2010), I examine how this new version of Chineseness was constructed and mediated in the context of the rise of China, and how it was perceived, responded, and contested in the media, with a focus on television, in Anglo-America (as examples of media in the global context), Hong Kong and Taiwan (as examples of regional media), and on the Internet in mainland China.6 In the examination, I will reflect on the diversity and borderlines, as well as theoretical and practical limitations, of the concept of Chineseness in the globalized world. With this examination, I call for new ways for Chinese identity construction and national image (or soft power) building. And, resonating with Kuan-Hsing Chen (2010), I also call for more de-imperialized communication tactics and strategies between mainland China, and Hong Kong, Taiwan, and the Western societies.

Global Media Events and the Opening Ceremony

Before analyzing the “new” Chineseness constructed in the Opening Ceremony of the Beijing Olympics, it is necessary to introduce the concept and approach of global media events. Media events, according to Dayan and Katz, refer to three types of live broadcast events — conquests, contests, and coronations — that interrupt everyday life and serve metaphorically as “high holidays of mass communication” (1992: 1). According to Dayan and Katz, conquests refer to great steps for mankind, like the moon-landing and Egyptian President Sadat’s visit to Jerusalem in 1977. Contests mean sports events like the Football World Cup that involve contestations.

6 This PhD project is a sub-project of the NWO-funded project “Celebrations and Contestations of Chineseness — The Beijing 2008 Olympics and 21st Century Imaginations of Place, Culture and Identity.” According to the parental project, this project is designated to study the construction of Chineseness during the Beijing Olympics, and the responses and contestations in the global, regional, and national media. The selection of media was partly preset by the parental project. In this selection, the terms global, regional, and national refer more to the geographical location of the selected media, than to these media’s coverage or geographical distribution of the audience. I will reflect more on this scope in the methodology section of this chapter, in chapter two, and in the Epilogue.

4

Coronations are events that mark the role changes of the mighty, such as the British royal wedding in 1981. Dayan and Katz take media events as a “genre” of mass communication, which can be defined “at the intersection of the syntactic, the semantic, and the pragmatic” (ibid.:13). In other words, a media event is “[a] ceremony [that] interrupts the flow of daily life (syntactics); it deals reverently with sacred matter (semantics), and it involves the response of a committed audience (pragmatics)” (ibid.: 14). These characteristics distinguish media events as a “genre” and an integrative force that functions to reinforce the “core ideas” (and thus the integration) of a society. Although far-reaching and influential, the concept of media events has been critiqued on different levels. Andreas Hepp and Nick Couldry (2010: 5–8) summarize three levels of critique: The first level of critique is about Dayan and Katz’s neo- Durkheimian (or, rather, functionalist) perspective, which defines media events as rituals of mediated communicative integration and focuses on the question of possible social order. The assumption behind this perspective is that societies are stable and marked by a shared set of values, which is highly doubtful under today’s social conditions, especially under the perspective of critique theories. Nick Couldry launches a term “media rituals,” which defines the mediated events, in a different sense from the media events, as forms of media communication that construct “the myth of the mediated centers” (2003: 2). In this vein, media events refer to “forms of communication that articulate the power-related, hegemonic imagination of the media as the center of present societies, as the expression of the important incidents within that society” (Hepp and Couldry 2010: 5), which allow more flexibility “over the implications for value consensus (or otherwise) of both media events and indeed for ritual itself” (ibid.). The second level of critique questions the core definition of media events as a genre, pointing out that reverent and priestly styles of presenting and broadcasting media events are not necessarily given. Rather, a media event is, for John Fiske and other scholars who consider media events beyond a genre, a “discursive event” but not “a discourse about an event” (Fiske 1994: 2; qtd. in Hepp

5 and Couldry 2010). The third level questions the narrow typification of media events that includes only contests, conquests, and coronations. Critics argue that the live/immediately-after broadcast of disasters, terrors, and wars as “disaster marathons” (Liebes 1998), which usually last for days, weeks, or even months (in contrast to the narrowly defined “media events,” which are live and relatively short events), could also be included as possible scenario(s) of media events. In response to these critiques, Daniel Dayan attempts to further develop the concept and approach. In an article entitled “Beyond Media Events: Disenchantment, Derailment, Disruption,” Dayan (2008) reviews that the concept and approach of media events was originally developed in the context of national broadcasting systems, and should be refined to meet the needs of the globalized media environment. Based on an analysis of the Beijing Olympics (about the preparation period from 2001 to 2007), he redefines the major features of media events as (a) emphasis (the omnipresence of the transmitted events); (b) performativity (gestures that actively create realities); (c) loyalty (accepting the event’s self-definition); and (d) shared experience (the construction or reconstruction of the “we”) (ibid.: 394). This new definition no longer takes the media representations of the media events as “loyal” representations of the “actual” events, but emphasizes the performativity and translocality of those media representations. However, he insists that a shared “we,” which is the social integration function of the media events, can be constructed through the media events and can reinforce the integration and unification of a society. Based on Dayan’s new definition, Hepp and Couldry (2010) push the discussion further to the concept of “global media events.” They argue that in the global age, media events are becoming increasingly translocal and even global, their “omnipresence” is no longer confined to a national territory, but has become a situative “thickening” (a term referring to translocal processes for the articulation of meaning) in terms of locality (in translocal media cultures) and of media forms (expanded from mass media to the Internet and other digital media, and “mediated

6 interaction”). For example, the Olympic Games is not only broadcast on television, in the press, on the Internet, and in other technologically based media, but is also mediated and articulated in very different ways in different media cultures in different regions. Therefore, the “performativity” (gestures that actively create realities, including the thickening and centering) is linked to struggles for power and influence in and between media cultures in order to articulate meaning and create reality actively. In this transcultural thickening and performativity, the media events “obviously . . . cannot be related to just one power center . . . and a one-dimensional analysis at this point falls short” (ibid.: 11; italics original). Consequently, the characteristic of “loyalty” is hard to ascertain either. Although a certain point of a “thematic core” may still be detected,7 the “shared experience,” again, is hard to obtain in a global context. Instead, although the “global we” is highly unlikely to exist, the global-transcultural frame enables many different constructions of a common “we,” and “of many varied national, ethnic, religious, subcultural and other voicings of that ‘we’, all relating to how the main cultural thickenings within a media event are appropriated locally.” (ibid.: 12) Thus, when the common “we” is lost, it becomes all the more urgent to probe into the processes of articulation and appropriation of the various “we/s” (instead of one common “we”) in a media event. In this vein, Hepp and Couldry define “global media events” as “situated, thickened, centering performances of mediated communication that are focused on a specific thematic core, cross different media products and reach a wide and diverse multiplicity of audiences and participants” (2010:12). In this definition, the term “centering” is crucial. It refers to the “processes of constructing the ‘mediated center’”(ibid.); or more specifically, as mentioned above in Couldry’s concept of “media rituals,” refers to the media performativity that “articulate[s] the power- related, hegemonic imagination of the media as the center of present societies, as the expression of the important incidents within that society” (ibid.: 5). To put it simply,

7 For example, in the 9/11 event, in the global media reports, “the iconographic images of the destroyed twin towers . . . worked as the unifying focus of the diversity of discourses gathered within the situative thickening of this event” (Hepp and Couldry 2010: 11).

7

“centering” is the way the local media present global media events according to the agenda and preference of the local media culture. According to this concept and approach, the study of global media events needs to focus on how the events are constructed as “centering,” how the various powers within different media cultures are related, in the situative and thickening context, to articulate a “power-related, hegemonic imagination of the media as the center of present societies” in the mediated communication. Hepp and Couldry, therefore, argue in an emphasizing way that the “integrative” moment of media events is “something uncertain that must be investigated from one case to another,” but not something, as Dayan and Katz assume, “that may be assumed in advance as characteristic”(Hepp and Couldry 2010: 12). It is thus necessary to investigate the multi-centering of a global media event, to move beyond a single nation-based approach, and to insist instead on a comparative analysis. The Opening Ceremony of the Beijing Olympics is a typical global media event. It has a clear “thematic core”: the performance and ceremony, which aims to display a new set of representations of China and Chinese culture (or Chineseness) to the world, held in the Bird’s Nest (Chinese National Stadium). It is a highly thickened event, broadcast to global audience through multi-forms of media (which was the first Opening Ceremony of an Olympics to be broadcast live on the Internet). It is situatively and differently “centered” by the various local media cultures to articulate meanings according to their respective local agenda and priorities. In this dissertation, I will examine how the various media have centered the Opening Ceremony and the new Chineseness, and investigate how “integrative” moments of these centerings have been articulated in this particular case. In addition, I will also examine how this global media event interplays with the theory and practice of soft power (Nye 2004).

8

Old Images, New Images, and Soft Power of China

As a country that is globalizing its institutions “to a degree not seen in a big country since Meiji Japan” (Overholt 2005: 1), China is more and more concerned with its national image in the world. Simon Rabinovitch argues that it is “reasonable to assert that image considerations weigh heavily on the minds of Chinese decision-makers” (2008: 32). Indeed, as mentioned above, one of the main reasons for China to bid for the 2008 29th Olympics (and for the 2000 27th Olympics in 1993 that failed), was to demonstrate the rise of China as a modern country, to change and “upgrade” China’s international image, to improve China’s “soft power” (Nye 2004; Manzenreiter 2010), and thus to be more broadly accepted, admired, and followed in the “world community.” This was a timely but challenging initiative. One year before the opening of the Beijing Olympic Games, various activists were addressing conflicting narrations of China in China’s official media and in the western media. In contrast to the Chinese official media that represented China as a prosperous, orderly, normal, globalized, and peace-loving country, there were counternarratives from Western governments, media, and NGOs that depicted China as a country unqualified to host the Olympic Games, “bashing” China on issues related to human rights, environmental protection, Tibet, and Darfur (deLisle 2008).8 The conflict of narratives was well reflected in the worldwide Torch Relay in March–May 2008 (Liu and de Kloet 2008; Latham 2009; Nyiri, Zhang, and Varrall 2010). China and the Chinese saw the Torch Relay as a message of China’s goodwill to the world, but this goodwill was received with protests in Paris, London, Los Angeles, Tokyo, Seoul, and some other cities. As NBC reviewer Tom Brokaw put it, the protests during the

8 Darfur is a region in the west of Sudan where the non-Arabic indigenous population was at war with the Sudanese government from 2003–2010, which led to humanitarian emergencies in this region. Because of its huge investments in Sudan, China was blamed for financially supporting the Sudanese government’s “genocide” against the indigenous population.

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Torch Relay “brought home to the Chinese people a troubling reality: their self-image was not shared by many others in the world.”9 Then what is the image(s) of China in the “world,” especially in the West?10 As Jonathan D. Spence (1998) suggests, the shifting between admirable “good” and despised “bad” China permeates the imagination of China in the Western societies. For example, from the thirteenth century to the eighteenth century, Marco Polo inspired many fabulations that described China as an admirable “other.” The fabulations and exoticism, however, turned to stigmatization after the late eighteenth century, when China was depicted as a static, backward, even barbarian country, the people of which were weak, slough-eating, and opium-smoking; and the bureaucracy was systematically corrupt. This shifting between an admirable and a despised “other” accelerated in the twentieth century. In this period, the West (the United States in particular after World War II) evaluated China with the pragmatic criteria of whether China could be incorporated as a (weak) partner of the Western political and military strategies (e.g., the Cold War) or not (Mackerras 1999; Isaacs 1980; Mosher 1990). Thus, in the second half of the twentieth century, the image of China shifted dramatically in the West.11 This relationship between China and the West resembles what Edward Said argues: “the essential relationship, on political, cultural, and even religious grounds, was seen — in the West, which is what concerns us here — to be one between a strong and a weak partner” (Said 2003[1978]: 41). This Janus-faced image(s) of China has persisted in contemporary Western societies, which is even exacerbated by the China rise: the economic growth broadens China’s communication, cooperation, and relationship with most of the countries in the world; yet, various “China threat” theories never disappeared, instead they

9 Said Tom Brokow in “Short Video II,” NBC Rebroadcast of the Opening Ceremony of the Beijing Olympics on 8 August 2008. 10 In this dissertation, as I mentioned above, I discuss the “world” through the prism of the West and, especially, the English world (with a focus on Anglo-America). I will reflect on this scope in more detail in the methodology section of this chapter, chapter two, and Epilogue . 11 After 1949, China split into two parts, the PRC and the ROC, with Hong Kong as a British colony (which was handed back to the PRC in 1997). The image of China has become more complicated, and the interactions among the three regions have subtle yet important influences on the image(s) of China. However, in order to simplify the discussion, I have to narrow my focus on the PRC in this dissertation.

10 continue to haunt many, including Western, societies (Broomfield 2003; Jeffery 2009; Bisley 2012; Yee 2011). Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom (2008) summarizes the contemporary binary imaginations about China as optimistic “dreams” or pessimistic “nightmares,” and “good Chinese” and “bad Chinese government.” Similarly, Peter H. Gries depicts the images of China in America between a “cute panda” and an evil “dragon,” and observes that people in the United States have to negotiate a position between “panda hugger” and “dragon slyer”: generally, in the business sector, the image(s) of China tends to be more optimistic; however, in the media and the political sector, the image(s) of China is more likely to be negative (Gries 2004: 3–5). Alexei Yurchak calls this mentality “binary socialism,” a model to depict “socialist” society including dichotomies “such as the Party and the people, repression and freedom, oppression and resistance, truth and dissimulation, official economy and second economy, official culture and counter-culture, totalitarian language and people’s language, public self and private self” (2003: 482). However, in the mediation of China in terms of sports and the Olympics, the image of China in the Western media was largely negative. Susan Brownell, who had been following American media coverage of Chinese sports for over twenty years by 2008, “felt all along that the image of Chinese sports is generally negative” (2008: 150). Jacques deLisle (2008) describes how the “international civil society,” “foreign governments,” and other organizations and individuals “appropriate” the Olympics to deliver counternarratives, which have generated a media spectacle in the Western media, to the BOCOG (the Beijing Organizing Committee of the Beijing Olympic Games) and the Chinese government about the Beijing Olympics in the months leading up to Beijing Olympics. Kevin Latham (2009) analyzes the competition between the Chinese state and Chinese media (also nationalistic activists), and the Western media to reveal the “real” China in 2008, when “foreign journalists . . . engaged in their own efforts to reveal the ‘real’ China behind what they took as state propaganda, official deception of the public, and Olympic ‘fakery’” (Latham 2009:

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26). It is this mediascape that has given rise to the necessity of studying the mediation of the Beijing Olympics with the approach of global media events. This mediascape also partly resembles the complexity of the Olympic Games. With its underpinning ideology of cosmopolitanism, the Olympic Games, the largest and most influential sports mega-event, is supposed to be value-free or politics-free (IOC 2010), and should promote and stimulate “sincere internationalism,” as proposed by Pierre de Coubertin (Quanz 1993: 18), or globalization (Maguire 1999; Hargreaves 2000). However, the Moscow (1980) and the Los Angeles (1984) Olympics, and partly the Beijing Olympics, have demonstrated how the Cold War and its legacy intervened the Olympics. Furthermore, the Olympic Games, after all, are organized through national/regional membership, which invariably involves a politics of identity and nationalism (Hargreaves 1992; Rowe 2003). Indeed, the globalization flows and fluxes (Appadurai 1996) and the cosmopolitanism of the Olympic Games have not yet made patriotism or nationalism “things of [the] past” (A. D. Smith 2003) or, even more radically, made them “vanish” (Beck 2002). Although Coubertin’s initial intention was to encourage peace by “maintaining and passing on patriotism in its true sense in such a way as to reinforce the reform of sport itself under the symbol the Olympic Games as a cause for all countries and mankind as a whole” (Quanz 1993: 3), the entanglement of nationalism and, consequently, politics has made the Olympic Games a multi-platform of contestation and antagonism: the hosting of the Olympics becomes a symbolic triumph, especially for non-Western societies; the organization of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) is a political practice of international and sports politics; and the matches and games are symbols of national merits, national image, and national strength; and so on. One typical example is the competition of the medal counts between the United States and socialist countries like the Soviet Union and East Germany during the Cold War period. In the 2000s, the same competition continued between China and the United States. In 2008, the medal competition became a hotspot for the media both in China and America in the late stage of the Beijing Olympics and after. China has outdone the US in the gold medal

12 count (51:36), but the US outperformed China in the total number of medals (110:100), which has aroused debates in both countries about which country was the “real” sports superpower (Wu and Xu 2010; Huang, Wang, and 2009). From the debates, it is noticeable that there is increasing eagerness to surpass the United States in China, and an increasing feeling of being “threatened” (not limited in the sports arena) in the United States. It was under such complicated circumstances that China saw the Beijing Olympics as an opportunity to improve its national image and “soft power.” Since the early 2000s, the theory of “soft power,” coined by Joseph S. Nye, has gained great popularity in China. Soft power, different from hard power that rests on inducements (“carrots”) or threats (“sticks”), is the power of “getting others want the outcomes that you want.” It “co-opts people rather than coerces them” (Nye 2004: 5). Accordingly, the soft power resources “tend to be associated with the co-optive end of the spectrum of behavior,” in contrast to the hard power resources which are “usually associated with command behavior” (ibid.: 7). In order to achieve soft power, there are usually three categories of resources: “the country’s culture (in places where it is attractive to others), its political values (when it lives up to them at home and abroad), and its foreign policies (when they are seen as legitimate and having moral authority)” (ibid.: 11). Since its first appearance in 1990, the concept of soft power has inspired numerous research studies around the world, and has become one of the key concepts and approaches in developing foreign policies in countries like the United States, Japan, and China. In China, this concept was officially adopted by President Hu Jintao in his speech to the 17th Chinese Communist Party Congress in 2007 (Xinhua News Agency 2007), meaning that enhancing China’s soft power has become part of the national policy. President Hu called for the enhancement of China’s soft power, partly through “strengthening the foreign cultural exchanges, absorbing excellent achievements of civilization, [and] enhancing the international power of Chinese

13 culture.”12 The launch of Confucius Institutes (a campaign to promote and culture learning in the world; Hartig 2012); the initiatives to accelerate the development of the “creative industry” (Keane 2009); and the hosting of the Beijing Olympics, the Shanghai Expo, and other big international events have all been categorized under the realm of “soft power.” As one of the most important global media events, the Opening Ceremony of the Beijing Olympics has a profound influence on China’s soft power and national image building.13 During the meeting of the bidding for the directorship of the Opening Ceremony (which will be discussed later in this chapter), the BOCOG required the directive team to present a ceremony that would outperform the widely praised Opening Ceremony of the Athens Olympics. was selected mainly for his experience in communicating China to the West in “international perspective” (Zhang and Xia 2008). Zhang and his creative team also meant to produce a performance that would “shock the foreigners.” They also aimed to “present the true Chinese culture to the world” (S. Luo 2009: episode 2 & 3), to impress the world and, therefore, to increase China’s soft power and upgrade China’s national image(s), by articulating a “new” set of Chineseness. However, under this mask, Zhang, his colleagues, and the BOCOG, as I will discuss later, also had a strong intention to manifest the Chineseness as an alternative of Western modernity.

Chineseness as an Essentialist Term

Chineseness, which literally refers to what China and Chinese is or should be, involves a set of essentialist narratives, such as narratives about geographic territory, language, food, race, Confucian values, and so on, that draw “an imaginary boundary

12 Ibid. 13 Here the Opening Ceremony also involves the process of public diplomacy, a term closely connected to soft power and national image building. I specifically omit this part to narrow my arguments. For more detailed discussion about the interweaving of soft power, public diplomacy, and national image building, please refer to Cull 2008; Jian Wang 2011; Gonesh and Melissen 2005; and M. Li 2009.

14 between China and the rest of the world” (Chow 1998: 6). Generally speaking, this multilayered concept provides a cognitive basis for viewing “others” (non-Chinese who view China and Chinese as an “other” in the Saidian sense {2003[1978]}), as well for Chinese themselves, to perceive and conceive the ethnic belonging of “Chinese” individuals and groups from various geographical and national backgrounds (often regardless of their own identity/ies; Ang 2001; Reid 2009; Chow 1998; Louie 2004; Ong 1999). This “viewing” process usually involves a series of imagined or articulated characteristics of the Chinese ethnicity (Tu 1991; Ang 2001; Chun 1996; 2003; G. Wang 1992), and the characteristics and image(s) of the Chinese state (Tu 1991; Shi 2003 & 2006; G. Wang 1992; Spence 1998). In this regard, Chineseness is closely linked to images of China or “Chinese.” Meanwhile, Chineseness also works as “national agency” (Berry 1998) to build and rebuild Chinese national identity (or Chinese communal identity for some Chinese diaspora communities) (Song 2006; Lin 2006; Shi 2003). For example, in cinema, television dramas, literature, mega-media events, and other media forms, the nature and characteristics of China and Chinese are always being defined and redefined to call for emotional attachment to the state, or at least to arouse/strengthen a sense of belonging to the category of “Chinese.” As an essentialist concept, Chineseness contains some rather stable features. For example, the Chinese language (Mandarin)14 is a significant feature tied to Chineseness. Ien Ang depicts that she has experienced frequent disdainful comments, like “you are a fake Chinese,” since she is a “diaspora Chinese”15 who does not speak

14 There are a lot of “dialects” in China, e.g., , Hakka, . However, since the “national language standardization” movement in the 1910s, the Chinese language usually refers to Chinese Mandarin, which is called Putonghua [普通话] in mainland China and National Language [国语] in Taiwan. 15 There are quite some terms referring to the Chinese and their descendants outside mainland China and Taiwan, e.g., Chinese overseas (or overseas Chinese, referring to Chinese living abroad with Chinese nationalities), Chinese diaspora (more general term to address Chinese and their descendants living outside mainland China and Taiwan), new emigrants (Chinese emigrated after the launch of opening up and reform policy in 1978), and more specific terms like Chinese American, British Chinese to refer to Chinese and their descendants who are born in other regions and countries, and have other nationalities. Each term is supposed to have its specific connotations. However, in some academic books and in the new press, these terms are also interchangeable. In this dissertation, I mainly

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Chinese (2001: 30). On the other hand, it is also subject to changes, as in the example of the spread of Mandarin. The proliferation of the “” promoted by the People’s Republic of China (PRC, or mainland China) and the Republic of China (ROC, or Taiwan), has a subtle impact on the previous linkage between the Chineseness and Cantonese in Hong Kong (Davison and Lai 2007), as well as in some other Chinese diaspora communities in which Cantonese was or still is prominent. In fact, Chineseness has been constantly reshaped and contested by the various “Chinese” groups, the state of China, and the viewing “others,” and has ceaselessly been textualized and contextualized in accordance with the power-relationship between the diverse “Chinese” groups from different ethnic and geographical background (including Chinese diasporas and ethnic minorities in China), Chinese state, and the viewing “others” (as well as the society or state these viewing “others” are in). The “new” Chineseness constructed in the Opening Ceremony, as well as the overall Beijing Olympics, is a project initiated by the state with two dimensions: to change the current images of China in the world, and to strengthen the national identity in the domestic society. The national image, often defined in terms of international relationship (e.g., Snyder and Diesing 1977; Jervis 1970) or national branding (e.g., Jaffe and Nebenzahl 2006), involves popular beliefs and perceptions constituting “the totality of attributes that a person recognizes (or imagines) when he contemplates that nation” (W. A. Scott 1965: 72). As mentioned above, Chineseness is closely related to China’s national image(s) at the state level: as a set of essentialist descriptions of Chinese and the Chinese state, Chineseness works both as a cognitive basis and representation(s) of the image(s) of China, and constitutes “the totality of attributes” of China and Chinese. Given that a “good” national image will generate competitive advantages for corporation products (Jaffe and Nebenzahl 2006) in the global market, and can offer use Chinese diaspora to refer to all Chinese and their descendants living outside mainland China and Taiwan (including the overseas students, 留学生); and I use Chinese overseas to refer to Chinese and their descendants who emigrated before the launch of the opening up and reform policy in 1978. However, sometimes I also use these two terms interchangeably.

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“greater use than a significant increment of military or economic power” (Jervis 1970: 6) in the international relations, China has a strong motivation to project an “updated” national image, by redefining a new set of features and attributes of what the “real” China and Chinese is, to leverage the “old” image haunted by backwardness, cold-war “legacy,” human rights issues (particularly the June Fourth Event in 1989), and many other aspects (Brownell 2008: chapter 6; deLisle 2008; Wasserstrom 2008; Ramo 2007; Ding 2011; Jian Wang 2011), on which I will elaborate later in this chapter. In this regard, the Olympics Games is a highly constructive platform: the intense global public attention paid to the Opening Ceremony and the overall Olympics bestows upon the host city/country a great opportunity to project desired images, themes, and values, which is one of the main reasons for bidding to host the event. On this platform, media plays a vital role. As Marshall McLuhan points out, media work as “acceleration” and “amplification” (1964: 7). With the omnipresence of media, the national image building in the Olympic Games, on the one hand, becomes more demanding because every detail is subject to media scrutiny; on the other hand, it is also easier to achieve the desired outcome because of the large media coverage and the huge audience. This situation is well illustrated by an official of the 1992 Albertville Winter Olympics, who said: “There will be only sixteen days of television coverage, but we will have to live with the image for fifty years” (Larson and Park 1993: 246). Meanwhile, the new Chineseness is not only constructed to project a new image of China, but is also a key element for national identity construction. Benedict Anderson proposes that nations “are imagined because the members of even the smallest nation will never know most of their fellow members, meet them, or even hear of them, yet in the minds of each lives the image of their communion”(2006: 6). In this sense, national identity is built through collective imagination, in which the essentialized narratives of a nation play a vital role. The “new” Chineseness constructed in the Opening Ceremony aims to articulate “new” narratives and discourses about a new China in accordance with the rise of China: in 2007, after

17 almost thirty years of rapid growth, mainland China overtook Germany as the third largest economy in the world.16 The bewildering economic growth, and the subsequent changes in the social and cultural sectors, have stimulated China to define the 1990s and the 2000s as the time of Chinese “rejuvenation” or “revival [复兴],” a historical term to describe a glorious return to prosperity after a relatively long period of depression. However, in the 2000s, along with the surging patriotic waves, there were also crucial problems accompanying the economic boom. The rapid economic growth was polarizing the social classes and exacerbating the imbalanced regional economy, which generated social tensions extensively across China (Gu et al. 2001; F. Wu 2004; Logon 2002). Separatist activities in Tibet, , and Inner Mongolia have jeopardized the idea of “Chinese Ethnicity” and the constructed patriotism/nationalism, and become one of the major problems of the Chinese society (Y. Zhao 2010; H. Wang 2006). The 2008 Beijing Olympic Games have enabled Chinese authorities to systematically construct and present a new set of Chineseness to respond to and reinforce patriotism and to pacify social and ethnic tensions, by generating proudness of hosting the Olympics and presenting the nation as “a deep, horizontal comradeship” (Anderson 2006: 7). The ultimate goal is to forge and reinforce the identity to the somewhat increasingly “distant” nation: a “mismatch between China’s rapid changing society” and those ideas “rooted in an idealized Chinese past,” namely, the “socialism with Chinese characteristics” (Louie 2004: 26, 25). After Beijing won the bid for the 2008 Olympiad, the People’s Daily, the most authoritative official newspaper in China, published a review which states: “(H)osting the 2008 Olympiad is an important opportunity for China in the new century, which will greatly inspire all the ethnicities nationwide with patriotic passion. . . . The success of bidding will advance the opening up and reform, and modernization; facilitate the world’s understanding of China; and advance China to move forward in

16 In 2011, China overtook Japan as the second largest economy in the world.

18 the world.”17 To encourage patriotism within China and to facilitate China to “move forward in the world” — this anticipatory statement illustrates the twofold goal of the new Chineseness constructed in the Opening Ceremony and the overall Beijing Olympics.

Strategic “New” Chineseness?

In the definition of the “new” Chineseness in the Opening Ceremony, the “newness” here does not indicate that the articulated discourses and narratives of this set of Chineseness had never been addressed in the previous fifty-nine years of the PRC history, or even in the entire Chinese history. Indeed, most of the narratives are replicas of the narrations that have been mediated for some time in international cultural and political communication and, internally, in the national identity building. I define this set of Chineseness as new for two reasons: (a) This set of Chineseness is the most notable, systematic, and holistic representation of “what China and Chinese is/should be” in the recent three decades; and (b) The narratives were specifically articulated and represented as “new” in order to impress the world, and were endowed with some sense of “newness” by contextualizational and representational changes in three ways. Firstly, these narratives were articulated with the state’s political discourse of “unceasing newness/renewal” or “change” in mainland China,18 which

17 “Social Review: To Compose the Most Spectacular Chapter in the Olympiad History [人民日报社 论: 谱写奥运史上最壮丽的篇章].” 2001. People’s Daily [人民日报], 13 July. http://www.people.com.cn/GB/shizheng/252/5934/5938/20010713/511406.html (accessed 29 Apr 2009). 18 The “unceasing newness/renewal” or “change” is a fundamental idea of Taoism (as well as ) and is the key concept of the canon I Ching [易经; also known as The Book of Change], which emphasizes the idea that “the only unchangeable thing is change itself.” This ontological understanding of change was appropriated as a political discourse and movement in the “One Hundred Days of Reform” [百日维新] at the end of the nineteenth century, which aimed to facilitate political change in the stagnated late Qing empire. Confucianism also had a complicated tradition on the idea of “change” (and I Ching), which profoundly complicated the politicization of the idea of change. The reform failed but the political discourse of change was reinforced in the “New Culture Movement” in the mid-1910s to early 1920s (see footnote 35), and has become one of the most important political discursive resources in contemporary China (Jing Wang 1996). The PRC is called the “New China,”

19 aimed to make a political and cultural distinction from the “old” image, that is, the pervasive image and conceptualization of China as a backward, “abnormal,” and disordered country (deLisle 2008), or, more broadly, the image of an “evil dragon” (Gries 2004: 2–3) in the Western countries, and to forge stronger attachment to the state and society undergoing rapid changes. With this discourse, the slogan for bidding the 29th Olympics in 2001 was “New Beijing, New Olympic [新北京，新奥 运]” in Chinese (in English, the slogan was “New Beijing, Great Olympics”).19 The implication of this slogan is twofold: on the one hand, the hosting of the Olympics would change Beijing as well as China; on the other hand, Beijing’s hosting of the Olympics would “make room in the Olympic Games,” where the Western dominance has been maintained for over a hundred years, “for different cultural traditions” (Brownell 2008: 196). In order to achieve this goal, the Opening Ceremony, as well as the overall Beijing Olympics, has displayed and incorporated modernity and high technology extensively to signify the “new” and modern Beijing and China. Meanwhile, the initiatives to incorporate China’s ethnic sports, martial arts [武术], into the Olympics (although failed) and to arrange the sequence of national athletic teams according to the stroke sequence of their Chinese names (but not the usual alphabetical order)20 are examples of how to “make room for different cultural traditions” so as to make a “new” Olympics embedded with some Chineseness. Furthermore, as I will discuss later, the discourse of newness/renewal also articulates a “new” China to the world, and presents the Chineseness as an alternative and a renewal to the Western modernity. Secondly, as a consequence of the discourse of renewal/change, quite some symbolic cultural elements were reinterpreted and re-contextualized in the context of

the opening up and reform era is labeled as the “New Era,” which are typical examples of this discourse of new/renewal or change. 19 According to Susan Brownell, “新北京，新奥运 [New Beijing, New Olympics]” was translated into English as “New Beijing, Great Olympics” because the “[m]embers of the bid committee felt that non- Chinese might not understand how China could create a ‘new’ Olympics” (2008: 196). For me, this translation was an expediency to lower the already high alerts of China in the IOC. 20 This was the first time in Olympic history for a host country to sort the sequence of athlete teams according to its own language but not the Roman alphabetical order.

20 the rise of China, and the current political discourses and rhetoric. The new Chineseness constructed in the Opening Ceremony and the overall Beijing Olympics is one of the most comprehensive versions that have emerged in the recent two decades, integrating almost all possible crucial aspects (see chapter two), many of which are endowed with “new” interpretations or significance in accordance with the “new” context of “China rise,” and with the “new” political context, for example, the discourses of “harmonious society” and “scientific development values” proposed by Hu Jintao, President of the PRC. This contextualization, along with the hidden motif of displaying to the world the “China model” through hosting the Olympics (which will be discussed later), implies not only the intervention of political rhetoric in the Opening Ceremony, but also China’s confidence and attempts to articulate a “new” development model to export to the world (which will also be discussed later), which arguably means a new wave of exporting values/models after the “revolution exportation” in the 1950s–70s.21 Meanwhile, some excluded elements in the revolutionary period, for example, Confucianism which had mostly been criticized in political discourses from the 1950s to 1980s (even in the 1990s and early 2000s), were again included and highlighted. This celebration of Confucianism and other previously forbidden/neglected elements, indicate a formal recognition of Confucian tradition in mainland China, which is indeed a “new” trend in mainland China politics. Thirdly, the new Chineseness is a construction, with the approvals of the censors from the Chinese top leadership of the Politburo of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), that was incorporated with personal marks of Zhang Yimou, China’s most famous film-maker and the chief director of the Opening and Closing Ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics, as well as other key cultural intellectuals in Zhang’s creative team. One typical example of these marks is Zhang’s emphasis on the use of lights and LED display to create a spectacular visuality. As a member of the creative team argues, “every single element [of the performance] is not new,” yet,

21 In the 1950s through 70s, the Chinese government had sponsored “revolutions” in many regions in the world with “Maoist” thoughts.

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“the refashioning of the traditional culture with the digital multimedia ideas and ‘modernistic’ [technological] methods” did create “a visual strangeness” in these artistic presentations (S. Luo 2009: episode 6). With these personal marks, the presentations of the Opening Ceremony, despite the “banality” of the contents (for some critics, which will be discussed in chapter five), turn out to be technologically advanced, post-modern, romantic, and even dreamlike, which succeed in attaching a sense of modernity to mainland China, an image that symbolizes the rise of China and the revival of Chinese ethnicity. Thus, the newness of the “new” Chineseness is not strictly in factual or causal terms, but is rather a representational feature of a systematic and deliberate campaign of articulating a new China to the world and to the Chinese. Despite the confidence of reinterpreting a “new” set of Chineseness and promoting it to the world, it is by no means an easy task. The Beijing Olympics is, after all, a “different” Olympics, and one of the factors that have made this Olympics so different is precisely the “Chineseness.” As cultural studies scholar Zhang Xudong argues, before the Beijing Olympics, there were the 1936 Berlin, 1980 Moscow, and 1988 Seoul Olympics, the host countries of which all had one conflicting, or at least different, aspect in social system, culture, or ideology with “the core value system of the ‘Western civilization’”(X. Zhang 2008: n. pag.). However, Zhang argues, the Beijing Olympics is the only one with a host that “is different from the West in all the abovementioned aspects in a way of ‘harmony without uniformity’ [和而不同] and ‘seeking common points while reserving differences [求同存异]’”(ibid.).22 The significance of China’s relationship with the West, based on the so-called “harmony without uniformity,” is illustrated by Zhang Xudong as follows:

22 “Harmony without uniformity” is an extract from the Analects (a canon of Confucianism). It initially refers to an ideal principle of interpersonal relationship, but it is also extended as an ideal principle for inter-institute and international relationships. “Seeking common points while reserving differences,” proposed by the late Premiere Zhou Enlai, is the main principle for international relation of the PRC.

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The premise of this position or situation is not that China is seeking to be accepted as an “interior” (namely, a part) by the West, but is a contemporary economic, social, cultural, and political experiment that is supported by a whole civilization system and historical tradition, involved by 1.3 billion people, guided by a mighty and effective government, and explicitly or implicitly takes the polity legitimacy and the honor of the civilization system as the highest pursuits. (2008, n. pag.)

For Zhang Xudong, the implication of the Beijing Olympics is that it represents a different but equal civilization and development model (an “economic, social, cultural, and political experiment” embedded with Chineseness, like Chinese civilization, tradition, governmental involvement, and the highest pursuits) to the West. Similarly, this “economic, social, cultural, and political experiment” is also summarized as “Beijing Consensus” (Ramo 2004) or “China Model” (Lin 2006; Cao 2005), an alternative to the Western modernity and development model. For Joshua Copper Ramo, the “Beijing Consensus,” which is a counterpart of the “Washington Consensus,” refers to the development model combining market economy and democracy, and contains three theorems — repositioning “the value of innovation” from trailing-edge innovation to bleeding-edge innovation; using “a whole set of new tools” to guarantee “sustainability and equality” in order to manage possible chaos; and emphasizing “self-determination, one that stresses using leverage to move big, hegemonic powers that may be tempted to tread on your toes” (Ramo 2004: 11–12). Lin Chun defines “China Model” as a normative term of the in-the-making socialist reform paradigm that is “political innovativeness of a Chinese alternative to the capitalist homogenization of the world” (Lin 2006: 12; italics added). Although critics argue that a “Beijing Consensus” does not exist (e.g., Kennedy 2010; Chan, Lee, and Chan 2008), and that the “China model” is arguably not yet a model (e.g., Huang 2008 & 2012; Qin 2007), the concerns about the proliferation of the “China model,” or the “soft power” of China, has somehow

23 aggravated the worries about the already diverse “China threat.” For example, Joshua Kurlantzick writes in worries: “In the worst possible case, China’s success in delivering strong economic growth while retaining political control could serve as an example to some of the more authoritarian-minded leaders in the region, like Cambodia’s Hun Sen” (2006: 5). Worries about the China threat(s) — based on its political, economic, cultural, and even demographic differences from the West — was one of the main reasons why China failed the first bid in 1993 for the 27th 2000 Olympics (Brownell 2008: chapter 5; Hong and Lu 2012), and why the Western media tend to “bash” China (I will elaborate on this point later in this chapter). After China’s successful bid for the 2008 29th Olympics, the Western media, NGOs, and activists had been exploiting the Olympics as a platform to criticize China or to promote their own agenda (deLisle 2008; Latham 2009; Brownell 2008: chapter 6), seeing the Beijing Olympics as “promising contexts for long-standing participants and newcomers to try to change China” (deLisle 2008: 37). The intention was so strong that it has invoked Susan Brownell to ask: “In the West, there is more concern with the question, Will the Olympic Games change China? Why is the West so concerned about changing China and not concerned about China’s changing the West?” (2008: 195–96) However, for Chinese authorities, the validity of the concepts of “Beijing Consensus” or “China Model” was less complicated in relation to the Beijing Olympics. In fact, the Chinese authorities had an ambiguous attitude about manifesting the “Beijing Consensus” or “China Model.” Rather, with the political pragmatism since 1978 when the open and reform policy (also referred to as the Chinese Economic Reform) was formally adopted, the authorities prefer to keep silent about the development route while going ahead, except delivering the ambiguous discourse and rhetoric of “socialism with Chinese characteristics.”23 The strategy is

23 The discussion of development route in the Maoist time always fell into the debate of socialist route and capitalist route. After the launch of the Economic Reform, proposed to “shelve” the debates but to focus on development, with his widely circulated saying “A cat that can catch mice is a good cat, no matter whether it is black or white [不管白猫黑猫，抓到老鼠的就是好猫].”

24 clear: if the Beijing Olympics “succeeded,” then China automatically finished the “coming out party” and entered a so-called “international club” of Olympic host nations, like Japan (Tokyo 1964) and South Korea (Seoul 1988). By then, the alternative development “model” that China was exploring would spontaneously be more “self-evident.” The key issue, or the prominent “politics” of the Beijing Olympics for Chinese authorities, was to avoid the “tragic” situation of the Moscow (1980) and the Los Angeles (1984) Olympics when cold-war politics drew some nations to boycott the event and tore the Olympic Games apart. Under such circumstances, China’s communication and mediation of the Beijing Olympics was rather cautious. In the international communication, the Chinese government and the BOCOG were somehow “self-restrained,” trying to avoid any possible “conflicts” with the criticizing actors and media. This had actually benefited “those who seek to use the Olympics as a platform for rival narratives and critical agendas” (deLisle 2008: 46). In the domestic communication, the BOCOG and Chinese authorities cautiously separated “politics” from its mediation. For example, since 2005, China had undertaken a massive “Olympic education” program in China, which aimed to promote Olympic knowledge and mobilize civil supports to, as well as national pride in, the Olympic Games. Susan Brownell argues that this program was not a “master plan” surrounding the Beijing Olympics that “was imposed by the party-state from the top down with the singular goal of promoting nationalist and Communist ideology”; rather, it was:

a de-politicized version that linked national identity with sports heroes rather than political systems, and re-situated Chinese national identity within an international community in which it would now take its place as an equal partner. Old nationalist symbols were re-shaped by new associations with symbols of internationalism, the global community and world peace. (Brownell 2009: 62)

25

However, this program still aroused critiques blaming that it was a part of a “spiritual civilization” propaganda program as “a soft form of social control” that aimed to distract the Chinese from “other less positive social and economic issues” (Brady 2009: 17–19). The construction of new Chineseness in the Opening Ceremony was even more challenging. In addition to the concerns about the “political motives” from outside China, the Chinese in mainland China also had demanding expectations of the event. In the Closing Ceremony of the Athens Olympics, Zhang Yimou and his creative team launched an eight-minute artistic performance surrounding typical Chinese cultural symbols like Buddhism and the song Jasmine Flower. It gained applause from the foreign media for being especially “Chinese” but was heavily criticized in China for being banal (S. Luo 2009: episode 1). One of the reasons was that mainland China’s society, after more than twenty years of opening up and reform, was less homogeneous than in the Maoist times and possessed varying cultural and political orientations. On the issue of what should or should not be included in the Opening Ceremony (and in the symbolic system of the Beijing Olympics), there were at least traditionalist, neo-patriotic, neo-Leftist, and Occidentalist discourses that emphasized different aspects of Chinese culture and society that they thought should be presented in the artistic performances, as I will discuss in chapter two and five. Thus, for the BOCOG, and the chief director Zhang Yimou and his colleagues, the Opening Ceremony had to meet high demands and expectations: it should be a manifesto of China rise, a modernistic but very “Chinese” show that could project a brand new image of China and forge a stronger national identity; meanwhile, it should not be too powerful or pressuring to the world audience so as to reduce the already high resistance and criticisms. In 2007, the CCP Politburo, the Chinese top leadership, prescribed five features for the Opening Ceremony: splendor [精彩], novelty [新颖], characteristics of Chinese ethnicity [民族特色], characteristics of the age [时代特征

26

], and international perspective [世界眼光] (Q. Wu 2008).24 These features were summarized by the BOCOG and Zhang Yimou (and his colleagues) as “using the ‘world language’ to relate Chinese story” (ibid.). With this guideline, Zhang Yimou and his colleagues have articulated a set of new Chineseness that could (at least partly) be seen as an alternative to the Western modernity, based on the discourses of the splendid Chinese culture, multilayered harmony, and alternative modernity. I argue that this articulation of new Chineseness, on the one hand, implies a “strategic essentialism” as “the positivist essentialism in a scrupulously visible political interest” (Spivak 1996[1985]: 214), a strategy here for China to articulate an equal subject with the West;25 on the other hand, it also implies a sense of “to-be-looked-at-ness” (Mulvey 1992: 22–34; Chow 2010: 152–53) that implies the impact of the dominant aesthetics of Western cultural industry on the articulation of new Chineseness, as I will discuss in chapter two.

Chineseness: One or Many, to Unbind or to Attach to?

The new Chineseness constructed in the Opening Ceremony is rather monolithic, defining the “new” China, Chinese culture, and Chinese people in a strongly affirmative tone. However, as an essentialist term, Chineseness always contains variant versions, especially in the non-mainland Chinese communities (the diversity of Chineseness in mainland China will be discussed later). As Song Geng (2006) argues, the study of Chineseness is closely related to globalization, and is consequently connected tightly with geopolitics and identity

24 The translation of 世界眼光 as “international perspective” is borrowed from Barmé (2009: 70). However, 世界眼光 has more connotations than “international perspective.” It means the adoption of the dominant perspective, aesthetics, and representational styles of Western cultural production. 25 For Spivak, the “strategic essentialism” was a tactic used by marginalized groups to forge a sense of collective identity to be unified for political movements. But the proliferation of this term broadened its usage to include more social entities and social activities (Spivak herself later stopped using the term, but it is still influential in many research fields). Here I use this term to signify China’s relatively under-represented situation in articulating a more positive national image in the world.

27 politics. Song Geng draws a dichotomy between Chinese diaspora scholarship and its mainland China’s counterparts. He argues that the recent rise of the study of Chineseness, first initiated mostly by “overseas Chinese” and Western scholars in the broadly defined field “China Studies,” focuses more on its “constructiveness or discursiveness” (ibid.: 5) and on how to negotiate new cultural-political spaces for the overseas Chinese (Chinese diaspora), and for Taiwan and Hong Kong. However, in mainland China, for a large group of scholars (including some diaspora scholars with mainland China background), the idea of Chineseness is very much “an alternative for the Western modernity and a resistance to the Western hegemony” (ibid.), which emphasizes contemporary China as a representative of an alternative modernity. Song (2006) has rightfully pointed out the diversity of the concept and connotations of Chineseness. However, the dichotomy seems overgeneralized. Even when mainland China’s diverse constructions about Chineseness are left out, the diaspora studies about Chineseness may still have, at least, three distinctive levels: diversion, refusal, or reengagement. The first level is to articulate a version of Chineseness detached from mainland China, a place always associated with controversies that have become the “burden” of the overseas Chinese across the world. One of the major efforts to detach Chineseness from mainland China is Tu Weiming’s concept of “cultural China.” Tu (1991) proposes that the periphery, namely, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and , as well as the Chinese diaspora and the Western scholars of China Studies and Sinology, was becoming the new “center” of cultural China (in contrast to the “geographical China,” which usually refers to mainland China), due to the relative continuity of Chinese culture and fast economic growth in these areas in the 1970s and 80s. Tu argues that mainland China in the meantime had relatively slow economic growth and suffered from cultural discontinuity, because of the Cultural Revolution and other radical revolutionary movements from the 1950s to 1970s, and the radical anti-traditionalist movement that pervaded among the intellectuals and in urban areas in the 1980s. Therefore, mainland China failed to be a “modern” society like the periphery and “lost” the cultural tradition; as a consequence it was losing its

28 place as the “center” of Chineseness. Meanwhile, the periphery was becoming the new center, in the form of cultural China. In 1990 when Tu Weiming articulated the concept of “cultural China,” he apparently did not anticipate that mainland China would be emerging so quickly into the “modern” society that he saw in “Four Little Dragons.”26 Based on the assumptions of a slow or even static “modernization process” in mainland China and of a static and homogeneous Chinese identity in the periphery, he has asserted that the periphery would be the new center of the cultural China (in opposition to the geological China). He argues that:

Although realistically, those who are on the periphery . . . are seemingly helpless in affecting any fundamental transformation of China proper, the center no longer has the ability, insight or legitimate authority to dictate the agenda for cultural China. On the contrary, the transformation potential of the periphery is so great that it seems inevitable that it will significantly shape the intellectual discourse on cultural China for years to come. (Tu 1991: 27–28)

The assumptions of cultural China have aroused twofold critiques: one stems from the diaspora Chinese scholarship, which constitutes the second level of diaspora studies about Chineseness: refusal; the other is from mainland China (which will be discussed in the next section). As Tu’s assertion conflicts with the complex circumstances of the diverse Chinese diaspora communities, a large number of academic works — for example, Ien Ang (2001); Allen Chun (1996); Aihwa Ong (1999); Rey Chow (1998); Andrea Louie (2004); and many others — argue that the assumption of a static and homogeneous Chinese identity in the highly diverse “Chinese diaspora” communities across the world is problematic. For example, Chun (1996), with a provoking article title “Fuck Chineseness,” doubts the possibility of a univocal version of Chineseness

26 Four Little Dragons refer to Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, and South Korea, all of which had experienced rapid economic growth in the1970s and 1980s.

29 under the postmodern and postcolonial condition in the Asia-Pacific area. Ien Ang proposes that “there is no necessary political righteousness in Chinese diasporic identity, the long-standing Chinese tradition of feeling victimized and traumatized notwithstanding” (2001: 12). Describing Chineseness as a “prison-house” that constrains the diaspora Chinese, she argues:

[D]epending on context and necessity it may be politically mandatory to refuse the primordial interpellation of belonging to the largest ‘race’ of the world, the ‘family’ of ‘the Chinese people.’ (Ang 2001: 51)

With this understanding, Ang asks “Can one, when called for, say no to Chineseness?” (ibid.) Similarly, based on debates in a symposium on the “question whether Chineseness could or should be ‘unbound’ from a particular state (the PRC), or race (the yellow emperor’s seed),27 or definition of culture,” Anthony Reid asserts that “quests for either an essence of Chineseness or boundaries to it are bound to fail, and should fail” (2009: 199). Despite all these reflections and critiques on the Chineseness and its connection to the “place” of China, the identity of Chinese (or at least positive involvement with the essentialist Chineseness) persists in some diaspora Chinese, which constitutes the third level of the discussion of Chineseness in the diaspora Chinese communities. Based on the examination of the diaspora living condition, James Clifford questions “the organic, naturalizing bias of the term ‘culture’ — seen as a rooted body that grows, lives, [and] dies” (1997[1988]: 25). He argues, despite being critical to this phenomenon, that the “culture” of the diaspora is always bound to a specific “root” place:

27 It is more referred to as the “Emperors Yan and Huang’s seed [炎黄子孙],” which means that all Chinese are offspring of the Yan and Huang Emperors, two legendary figures in Chinese ancient sagas.

30

In these assumptions authentic social existence is, or should be, centered in circumscribed places. . . . Dwelling was understood to be the local ground of collective life, travel a supplement; roots always precede routes. (Clifford 1997[1988]: 3)

The search for roots in China among the diaspora Chinese reemerges against the background of the “China rise.”28 Even though Ien Ang questions if Chinese diaspora “can say no to Chineseness,” her mother — who had a somewhat “extreme” attitude to the assimilation into the Indonesian society when she lived in Indonesia — became “deeply interested, deeply attached to China” after she moved to the Netherlands (Gabriel 2011: 129). She also regretted her forbiddance of her children to learn Chinese in their childhood (in Indonesia): “When China had become more powerful globally, she would say, maybe it was a mistake not to have taught you Chinese” (ibid.). In the 1990s and 2000s, after decades of de-Chineseness,29 Singapore has been rebuilding connections with mainland China and reengaging with Chineseness through “roots-searching [寻根]” activities including learning Chinese Mandarin and visiting the ancestral “hometowns” in mainland China (Tan 2003).30 This resonates with Raj Vasil’s observation that “the fast-growing relationship and contact with China soon began to transform the Chineseness of Singapore from an unavoidable and unfortunate liability to an important and immensely profitable asset” (1995: 133).31 In Indonesia, after decades of “anti-Chinese” policy under the Suharto regime, the Chinese Indonesian began increasingly to reengage openly with Chineseness in the

28 The relationship between the overseas Chinese and China before the 1980s will not be discussed here. For relevant studies, please refer to G. Wang 2000; Ho 2009: part one; Rae and Witzel 2008; and many others. 29 De-Chineseness for Eugene K. B. Tan (2003) is the systematic exclusion of Chinese language as well as political and cultural relations with China in Singaporean government policy from the 1960s to early 1990s. But more generally this term refers to the initiatives, actions, and policies to culturally, politically, or socially detach from China (both PRC and ROC, but mostly PRC). 30 See also Lim (2007), although he takes a critical position. 31 The diaspora Chinese in and other regions have substantially contributed to the economic growth in their ancestral “hometown” in south China, especially in the Pearl Delta of Guangdong province in the 1980s and 1990s. For more detailed research, please refer to Lever-Tracy, Ip, and Tracy 1996; Zhou and Kuah-Pearce 2003; Kuah-Pearce 2011; Zweig 2002: chapter 2 & 5; Rae and Witzel 2008; and many others.

31 twenty-first century. The construction of kong miao [孔庙, Confucius’s temple] in 2011 in a national park in Indonesia “puts back the link between the Indonesia Confucian and Chinese culture and religiosity” (Satrisno 2012: 12), and has aroused the “balance issue” of “Chinese rootedness and Indonesian nationalism” (ibid.: 8). Meanwhile, there is an increasingly large number of “new emigrants,” namely, the Chinese emigrants since the 1980s, across the world. Although the overall attitude of the “new emigrants” to China and Chineseness is complicated,32 a notable phenomenon of “overseas Chinese nationalism” (Hong Liu 2005) has emerged among this group. Pal Nyiri, Juan Zhang, and Merriden Varrall have examined the critical responses of Chinese cosmopolitan youngsters’ to the protests against and interruptions to the worldwide Olympic Torch Relay in 2008 in Paris, London, San Francisco, and some other cities, as well as their supports to the Beijing Olympics and to China. They argue that “nationalism has become part of a cosmopolitan Chinese youth identity in overseas locations” (2010: 25). These three levels of studies (namely, diversion, refusal, and reengagement) about Chineseness and the (non-)identification with it in non-mainland-China areas form a vital background for my analysis of the situative centering of the Opening Ceremony and the new Chineseness by Hong Kong and Taiwan television channels. In both Hong Kong and Taiwan, due to the geopolitics, there are involvements of all the three attitudes, which can be seen in the television live broadcasts of the Opening Ceremony of the Beijing Olympics in these regions. With the examination of the live broadcasts of TVB (Hong Kong) and CTV (Taiwan), I argue that, on the one hand, neither the idea of cultural China nor the new Chineseness constructed in the Opening Ceremony can serve as a univocal identity resource for Hong Kong and Taiwan, let alone all “Chinese” across the world. On the other hand, the Hong Kong and Taiwan live broadcasts also imply a Chinese identity based on Chinese traditional culture.

32 Quite some emigrants are political dissidents, such as “democratic movement [民运]” activists, Falungong [法轮功] practitioners, ethnic independence activists, and others, who have strong criticisms on China and Chineseness. Ong (1999) also argues that some of the Chinese new emigrants have no specific nationalistic attachments but just economic interests.

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With this analysis, I propose that the increasing diversity of the global “Chinese community” calls for more updated and inclusive “new” Chineseness (or other forms of articulations), which can better match the pervasive hybridity in the Chinese communities across mainland China and the world, to serve as the basis for a “global Chinese identity,” at least for those who are willing to engage or reengage in some sort of Chinese identity.

Discourses, Internet, and Chineseness in Mainland

China

In addition to the critiques from scholarship on Chinese diaspora studies to Tu Weiming’s idea of cultural China, there are direct or indirect responses to this idea from mainland China. For some mainland Chinese scholars (as well as some overseas scholars originating from mainland China and some Western intellectuals, e.g., Lin Chun and Joshua Copper Ramo), one of the features of the discussion on Chineseness from the 1990s is that Chineseness is seen as both an alternative and a resistance to the Western hegemony. Song Geng argues that this discussion “to some extent inherits the official discourse of ‘ethnicity [民族性]’ and tints cultural relativism in the appearance, and acts as theoretical resources of (neo) nationalism/patriotism” (2006: 5). Contrary to the 1980s when mainland China was pervaded with Occidentalistic universalism (mostly liberalist values and theories; Jing Wang 1996; Xiaomei Chen 2002), the 1990s was the beginning of a new wave of nationalism/patriotism. Song cites that, for example, Wang Yichuan proposes that since the 1980s, China’s second-phase modernization (from the 1980s onward) is not to pursue the globalization of Chinese culture according to Western discourses; instead, it is to reconstruct and uphold Chineseness to provide an alternative “modernity” to the world (Song 2006: 5).

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Song’s generalization has somewhat simplified the complexity of the discussion on Chineseness and (neo-)nationalism in mainland-Chinese scholarship. Surrounding the question of “how to construct, and what is the body of, ‘Chineseness’ as an alternative modernity,” there are, at least, neo-patriotic, neo-Leftist, and traditionalist discourses that advocate respective proposals.33 The neo-patriotic discourse is derived from the neo-patriotism that emerged in the 1990s and thrives thereafter. It is a populist derivation of the government-engineered nationalism and is encouraged by China’s rapid economic growth (Dynon 2008; Gries 1999 & 2004; Callahan 2010). The “neo” here emphasizes the difference between the patriotism engineered in the 1950s–1970s with Maoism as the core, and the contemporary populist patriotism based on the discourse of China rise, the great rejuvenation of the Chinese ethnicity, and the socialism with Chinese characteristics. The most notable feature of this discourse is that it closely links patriotism to the government, thus legitimating the incumbent regime. One of the best (extreme) examples of this discourse is the best-selling trilogy China Can Say No (Song et al. 1996, 1998, 2009),34 which promotes populist nationalism in China. For example, in the latest book of the trilogy China Is Unhappy, the authors propose that “[s]ome people say that China should provide the world with a model. But I think that merely providing a model is too small a goal. What China should provide is the true administration and leadership” (Song et al. 2009: 98). The hidden appeal of this populist nationalism is the realization of China’s rejuvenation or even a rebuilding of a new “Chinese empire.” The neo-Leftist discourse proposes to reassess the Maoist socialism and the Cultural Revolution in order to resist the ongoing bureaucratic capitalism, power- sharing structure, and social inequality in China. For example, Cui Zhiyuan (2003[1996]) argues that the Angang [鞍钢, the Anshan Steel Plant] Constitution, an idealism of industrial corporate management (which encourages every worker’s participation in production management and emphasizes gradual improvement) that

33 More detailed discussion on these discourses is in chapter five. 34 This trilogy contains China Can Say No (1996), China Still Can Say No (1998), and China Is Unhappy (2009).

34 emerged in the Great Leap campaign in the 1950s, represents the management trend in the post-Fordist times of the world. Cui insists that “the spiritual essence of ‘Angang Constitution’ is still the precious intellectual resource for China to welcome the twenty-first century, no matter how many mistakes had emerged in the execution [of this set of management idealism] in the Cultural Revolution” (2003[1996]: 224). Another example is Wang Hui who anticipates that a certain new socialism, which is different from Maoism and the ongoing “socialism with Chinese characteristics,” will emerge in future in China and, probably, will spread to the world if we could reflect on Chinese socialist history and would carry on “theoretical and institutional innovation” in the context of globalization (2003[1994]: 42). The traditionalists claim that Chinese culture will be the main cultural resource for the world in the twenty-first century to cope with the issues that have emerged in the globalized times. For example, the deceased prominent historian Ji Xianlin (1993, 1996) has proposed that “‘tianren heyi [天人合一]’ means the harmony between human and nature” and asserted that “only the Oriental ethics, the ‘tianren heyi’, can save the contemporary humans” (Ji 1993: 7). Fei Xiaotong, a deceased prominent anthropologist in China, proposed his idea of “cultural consciousness” in 1997. By cultural consciousness, he means that in the context of globalization, the less powerful cultures would have to pull through phases of self- contempt, self-reflection, and self-confidence when encountering powerful cultures. Proposing a culture-relativist compromise of the Occidentalism and radical traditionalism, he writes:

Only when it has pulled through the arduously difficult process of cultural consciousness and independent adaptation can contemporary Chinese culture, in this currently forming world of plural cultures, find its own place; benefit and learn from other cultures; and set up co-recognized basic orders and a set of principles enabling peaceful coexistence, respective strengths exertion, and co-development (Fei 1997: 22).

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With this statement, Fei expects that China will be an equal power to the major powers in the world. Although their points of view may vary, the initiatives of the neo-patriots, neo- Leftists, and traditionalists are all to construct and promote a new China as an alternative modernity to the world, which is surely a reflection of China’s increasing self-confidence accompanying the high economic growth and rising international power after the Economic Reform. These initiatives, to some extent, cooperate, or even “conspire,” according to some critics like Song Geng (2006), with the government’s political rhetoric of “restoration” and socialism with Chinese characteristics, both of which imply an alternative modernity to the “Western” capitalist modernity, the former even involving some degree of traditional cultural restoration. This cooperation or “conspiracy” is one of the most notable political and cultural phenomena in the 1990s or 2000s, which has generated a large number of publications about the Chinese model as an alternative modernity, as I have mentioned above. Compared to this overwhelming cooperation between the official discourses and some broadly defined Chinese scholarships, the criticism and resistance from liberal and Occidentalist intellectuals and artists to this articulation of “Chineseness as an alternative” are comparatively less prominent. The Occidentalism, which thrived in the May Fourth movement35 and in the 1980s (Xiaomei Chen 2002; Jing Wang 1996), has been far less noticeable as it is restricted by the government. Yet, the Occidentalist critiques still keep on questioning the validity of the Chineseness “as an

35 The “New Culture Movement,” which was closely related to the May Fourth Movement in 1919 and thereby is called the May Fourth and New Cultural Movement, was a movement of the mid-1910s and 1920s, which aimed to create a “new” Chinese culture based on Western ideas of democracy and science, and to abandon the traditional Chinese culture. The peak of this movement was the May Fourth Movement in 1919, when college students marched into the streets to protest against the government’s diplomatic failure in the Paris Peace Conference after World War I. This movement has established a tradition of Occidentalism and radical anti-traditionalism in China. The establishment of the Chinese Communist Party was also one of the crucial outcomes of this movement. A by-product of this movement is the discourse of “new,” i.e., the political superiority of the “new” over the “old,” which is closely related to evolutionism and revolutionism.

36 alternative,” and emphasizing the necessity to adopt the “universal values” of democracy, liberalism, and constitutionalism. For example, using the life and words of the exemplar Li Shenzhi [李慎之], the deceased liberal intellectual, as illustration, Liu Junning argues that “although [the Western] mainstream civilization and universal values are not an inherent tradition of thousands of years of Chinese culture, they take their roots in China when they come, and merge into Chinese tradition” (J. Liu 2003: n. pag.). Liu Xiaobo, the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, states in his influential “Charter 08”:

The Chinese people, who have endured human rights disasters and uncountable struggles across these same years, now include many who see clearly that freedom, equality, and human rights are universal values of humankind and that democracy and constitutional government are the fundamental framework for protecting these values.

By departing from these values, the Chinese government's approach to "modernization" has proven disastrous. It has stripped people of their rights, destroyed their dignity, and corrupted normal human intercourse. So we ask: . . . will it [China] embrace universal human values, join the mainstream of civilized nations, and build a democratic system? (X. Liu 2008c: n. pag.)

With this statement and question, Liu obviously strives for a democratic China based on “universal values” and “mainstream civilization,” which resonates with his co- authored television documentary series River Elegy (1988) that proposes “a wholesale of Westernization” and the abandoning of Chinese traditional culture. These Occidentalist critiques may be low-key but their presence demonstrates that the dichotomy proposed by Song Geng between the diaspora and mainland scholarships on Chineseness probably neglects the counternarratives to “Chineseness as an alternative” within mainland China.

37

The diversity of these narratives is reflected in many websites and online forums that have populated the Internet since introduction of Internet to China in the 1990s. The Internet has been a medium for opinion debates and for activist contentions, especially when the traditional media is under stricter control (G. Yang 2003 & 2009; Tai 2006; Zheng 2007). Despite the government control over the Internet, every abovementioned discourse has, as its “centers,” one or two well-known websites or online forums, or at least some prominent communities (discussion boards) on the big forums: in the mid-2000s, there were, for example, at least Utopian Forum [乌有之乡] for the neo-Leftists; Kaidi Forum [凯迪网] for the liberalist; People’s Forum [强国论坛] and Tiexue Forum [铁血社区] for the neo-patriots; and the Guoxue Forum [国学论坛] and some communities on the prominent forum Tianya Forum [天涯社区] for the traditionalists.36 These discourses are also notable on portal websites like Sina, NetEase, Sohu, and QQ, especially in the news comments and on the discussion forums embedded in these websites. The Tianya Forum has even become a battlefield for the Leftists and Occidentalists to debate about the future direction of China. Despite the fact that some of the abovementioned discourses have been supporting or “conspiring” with the Chinese government in constructing Chineseness as an alternative to the “Western” modernity, each of them has different anticipations about what the new Chineseness is and how it should be constructed. Before and after the Opening Ceremony, there were heated debates about the representations of China and Chinese. One typical example was Ji Xianlin’s proposition of “uplifting Confucius” into the Opening Ceremony in 2007, which was greeted with enormous criticisms from neo-patriots, neo-Leftists, and Occidentalists, arguing that Confucius and Confucianism were too banal or even harmful to modern China.37 Another case

36 In April 2012, the biggest online forum Utopian Forum for neo-Leftists was shut down by the government; but the neo-Leftists still have some other websites and online forums, e.g., The April (derived from anti-cnn.com, a former neo-patriotic website). Also, the Utopian Forum’s reincarnation Redchinacn [红色中国] is emerging. 37 For a more detailed report, please refer to “Debates Triggered by Ji Xianlin’s Suggestion of Uplifting Confucius to the Opening Ceremony [季羡林建议奥运开幕式抬出孔子引发激辩 (组图)].” 30

38 was how to deal with the Maoist legacy, that is, whether Chairman Mao, his philosophy, and his policies were still assets of contemporary China, which is one of the key issues that have afflicted the neo-Leftists against the Occidentalists and the traditionalists (this will also be discussed in chapter five). After the Opening Ceremony, these discourses, together with other discourses, rendered harsh criticisms (in addition to their supports) on the new Chineseness, forming a sharp contrast to the “traditional” media that were under strict censorship by the authorities. The criticisms covered most of the aspects of the new Chineseness and the Opening Ceremony, as I will demonstrate in chapter five. At first glance, these criticisms seem to largely echo the researches that emphasize the heterogeneity and openness of the Chinese Internet (G. Yang 2003; Tai 2006; and Zheng 2007), and “the power of the Internet in China,” with online activism being an ever-evolving creative force to propel the Chinese “long revolution”: building up “conceptions and practices of self, society, and politics,” and then gradually evolving into “democracy as a political system”(G. Yang 2009: 213–14). However, I argue that, through a discourse analysis of these online criticisms, under the specific circumstances of 2008 when nationalism was mobilized in China, these critical discourses nevertheless collectively strengthened the identity to the new Chineseness and, to some extent, reinforced the authoritarian governmentality, as I will demonstrate in chapter five.

Understanding Chineseness as a Mediated

Construction: Methodological Reflections38

I have structured my study on the new Chineseness constructed in the Opening Ceremony and its mediation in the media in mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan,

August 2007. http://www.china.com.cn/city/txt/2007-08/30/content_8767616.htm (accessed 12 Apr 2009). 38 This section briefly introduces my theorizing structure, framing, data collection, and analysis methods. For, more detailed explanation on data gathering and analysis, please refer to Appendix I.

39 and Anglo-America through the approach and perspective of global media events. I examine firstly how the new Chineseness and the Opening Ceremony was produced as the “thematic core” of a global media event that aimed to upgrade the image(s) of China in the world and to foster national identity in mainland China. Secondly, I will examine how television channels in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Anglo-America, and the mainland Chinese Internet situatively “centered” the new Chineseness and the Opening Ceremony, and how these media received, recognized, and contested the constructed Chineseness (i.e., how these media articulate meanings of the Chineseness and the Opening Ceremony according to their own agenda and priorities), taking the television broadcasts (for global and regional media) and discussions (for national media) on the Internet as examples.

The examination of the thematic core, namely, the construction of the new Chineseness, is conducted mainly through the examination of the live broadcast of the Opening Ceremony on China Central Television (CCTV, the most officially authoritative television channel in mainland China); documentary films and television series, and press reports about the production of the Opening Ceremony; and ten in- depth interviews conducted by myself with participants of the Opening Ceremony in order to have a better grasp of the construction of the Chineseness and of the production of the Opening Ceremony. CCTV cooperated closely with the production of the Opening Ceremony, and its interpretation and commentary of the Opening Ceremony and the new Chineseness can literally be seen as an “official” manifestation of the views of the BOCOG and the Chinese government. The documentaries and press reports provide valuable details about the creative, executive, and performative process, which show the aesthetics, ethics, and political compromises behind the construction of the new Chineseness.

The reason I choose television broadcasts for the study about how the global and regional media situatively center the Chineseness and the Opening Ceremony is that, although the Opening Ceremony was “thickened” by multiple media forms, the most influential media form for the Olympics mediation was still the television. My 40 analysis is largely based on the live broadcast and rebroadcast of the Opening Ceremony, with a supplement of press reports, documentary videos, and online data (for the study of national media response). The selected global television channels are BBC and NBC, a choice based on that (a) they have a long tradition of broadcasting the Olympic Games and have very broad coverage in the world; (b) they represent public and commercial television channels respectively; and (c) they are representatives of the main targets of the Opening Ceremony and of national image building (as I will discuss in chapter two). TVB [无线, Television Broadcasting Company] and CTV [中视, China Television] are the two channels selected from Hong Kong and Taiwan respectively. Hong Kong and Taiwan, on the one hand, share cultural proximity and have strong cultural ties with mainland China; yet, on the other hand, both of them are, at least partially, politically distant (for Hong Kong) and detached (for Taiwan) from mainland China. This background makes Hong Kong and Taiwan vital places for the study of the media responses to the Opening Ceremony as a global media event and the new Chineseness embedded in it, and gives rise to interesting questions which are crucial for the examination of the constructed new Chineseness. TVB is selected not only because it was the most watched live broadcast in Hong Kong, but it also presented the typical Hong Kong media culture on sports events broadcast and on the ambiguity of Hong Kong identity. The reason for selecting CTV is that it has displayed the most typical controversial response in accordance with the abovementioned dual situations to the new Chineseness and the Opening Ceremony, although it was not the most watched live broadcast of the Opening Ceremony in Taiwan.

The examination of the mediation and reception of the new Chineseness inside mainland China is mainly through the study of the critical discourses to the new Chineseness and the Opening Ceremony on the Internet. Media control in China, and the openness and easy accessibility of Internet have made Internet the prominent media channel for public debates on social issues, especially for social contentions and activism that resist the Chinese government. After the Opening Ceremony,

41 reports, comments, and reviews in the traditional media were overwhelmingly supportive; while on the Internet, there were hot debates on the presentations and representations about the Opening Ceremony and the new Chineseness, simultaneously involving supportive and critical discourses. In the examination, I have chosen to carry out my analysis with a focus on critical discourses, rather than on actors and critics, for two reasons. Firstly, the examination of the critical discourses will spontaneously involve their antagonistic supportive discourses to the new Chineseness and the Opening Ceremony. Secondly, people who participated in these debates shifted their positions from one topic to another. As Jodi Dean argues, overall public debates on the Internet are rather “issue by issue” than actor-centered (2003: 107–8). Following Jodi Dean, I analyze the critical discourses in an issue-by- issue way, instead of focusing on actors and critics. Based on a sampling of online forums, websites, blogs, and short messages circulated on mobile phones (see Appendix I), I examine how six different critical discourses debated about the new Chineseness and antagonized each other issue by issue on the Internet, and how these antagonisms have made the new Chineseness a “void institution” (Levi-Strauss 1963; Žižek 1999).

In the examination, I mainly use discourse analysis to analyze the texts and video/image texts from the selected media. After several decades of development, there is a myriad of discourse analysis in different disciplines. I mainly see the discourse as “a form of social practice,” which is shaping and shaped by “the situation(s), institution(s) and social structure(s),” and which produces and reproduces “unequal power relations” (Fairclough and Wodak 1997: 258). In addition to the language, I also see video/image as a kind of discursive text that articulates discourses. In the examination, I am mainly concerned with how the discourses were articulated in given contexts where the language/image/visual text were situated, including both the articulation of the new Chineseness in the Opening Ceremony and the responses and contestations of it in various media.

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Situative Centering of Chineseness in Various Media:

The Outline of Research

In this dissertation I will examine how and for whom the “new” Chineseness has been constructed in the Opening Ceremony; and how it was responded to and contested in the global, regional, and national media. My analysis begins with examination of how the new Chineseness was constructed in the Opening Ceremony in chapter two. The examination of CCTV’s broadcasting is combined with the production process of the Opening Ceremony and the new Chineseness in order to better understand how and for whom the new Chineseness was constructed. I propose that, with interwoven discourses of the Chinese splendid culture and long continuous history, harmony, and alternative modernity, the Opening Ceremony of the Beijing Olympics articulates an alleged “new” set of Chineseness. This new Chineseness emphasizes the Chinese particularity to distinguish China from the rest of world, mobilizes a dual universalism to guarantee its acceptance, and meanwhile hints the potential of the new Chineseness as an alternative to the Western modernity. Thus, the Opening Ceremony, as well as the new Chineseness, on the one hand, feeds the Western audience with its to-be-looked-at-ness and strategic essentialism, and aims to construct a new and ideal image to the world; while on the other hand, it fosters national identity according to the CCP government’s priority.

Chapter three and chapter four examine the global and regional media’s centering of the Opening Ceremony and the constructed Chineseness respectively. In chapter three, I will analyze NBC’s and BBC’s different centerings of the Opening Ceremony, and their situative interpretations of the constructed Chineseness. The difference between NBC and BBC’s centerings well reflects the different main concerns of commercial and public television channels: NBC as a commercial television channel deliberately presented an exotic and Orientalistic rebroadcast of the 43

Opening Ceremony, and a “friendly” recognition of the new Chineseness, which was meant to maximize its revenue; the BBC live broadcast, on the contrary, to some extent questioned the narratives of the new Chineseness in the Opening Ceremony, reflecting the concerns of public television channels in propagating the “core values” (Western democracy and humanism). I argue that, ostensibly different they may appear, the centerings of NBC and BBC are largely “the West itself mirrored in the eyes and handiwork of its others” (Chow 2010: 170). Chapter four is concerned with the situative centering and thickening of the Opening Ceremony and the constructed Chineseness on the Hong Kong and Taiwan television channels. As I will show in this chapter, Hong Kong’s live broadcast (TVB) of the Opening Ceremony deliberately tried to stay in alignment with mainland China authorities, while Taiwan’s television (CTV) channels specifically tried to estrange itself from mainland China. Meanwhile, the Hong Kong live broadcast ironically implied a strong difference from the mainland media culture, and moreover, an implicit issue of local identity; while Taiwan’s live broadcast conversely showed a strong recognition of Chinese traditional culture, and an identity of Chinese. With this examination, I argue that neither the idea of cultural China (Tu 1991, 1994) nor the constructed new Chineseness in the Opening Ceremony can serve as an unequivocal identity resource for Hong Kong and Taiwan, let alone all “Chinese” across the world. A set of more updated and inclusive Chineseness (or other forms of articulations) is, therefore, called for to serve as a better identity basis for mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, and those diaspora Chinese who are willing to engage or reengage in some sort of Chinese identity. The national online response to the Opening Ceremony is explored in chapter five, with a focus on the online criticisms to the new Chineseness and the Opening Ceremony. I examine how the neo-patriotic, neo-Leftist, Occidentalist, traditionalist, interest-related, and playful-cynical discourses presented their criticisms to the new Chineseness and how they antagonized each other. Following Slavoj Žižek’s (1999) reinterpretation of Levi-Strauss’ concept of “zero institution,” I argue that the critical

44 discourses have nevertheless collectively strengthened the construction of the new Chineseness and, to some extent, reinforced the authoritarian governmentality. Based on the above case studies, and a comparison with the Opening Ceremony of the London Olympics in the Epilogue of this dissertation, I call for new ways for Chinese identity construction and national image (or soft power) building. In addition, resonating with Kuan-Hsing Chen (2010), I also call for more de- imperialized communication tactics and strategies between these regions and beyond.

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Chapter Two Particularity, Universality, and Alternative:

The Constructing of New Chineseness

This chapter focuses on how a “new” set of Chineseness, or the “thematic core” of this global event (Hepp and Couldry 2010), was constructed during the Opening Ceremony of the Beijing Olympics. As the most attractive moment of the most influential and globalized sports event, the Opening Ceremony of the Olympic Games has always been a crucial stage for the host nation to present itself and its culture. During the “staging,” it invariably involves the “narrative of nation” (Hall 1992) to respond to national, international, and global changes. For example, Jackie Hogan has studied the opening ceremonies of the Nagano 1998 (winter), Sydney 2000, and Salt Lake City 2002 (winter) Olympic Games, and examined how Japaneseness, Australianness, and Americanness were gendered and ethnicized. According to Hogan, “these gendered and ethnicized discourses of national identity at times both reflect current social hierarchies and contribute to the maintenance of these hierarchies by naturalizing the marginalization of women and ethnic minorities within these nations” (2003: 100). Teresa Heinz Housel (2007) has specifically analyzed the narratives of the nation in the 2000 Sydney Olympics’ Opening Ceremony, which presented images of a linear, multicultural, and chronological narrative of Australian history. Through the textual analysis of television broadcasting and news coverage of the ceremony, Housel demonstrates that the narrative of a united Australian nation in the Opening Ceremony of the Sydney Olympics (2000) was largely a response to “the

47 increasing disintegration of nation-states’ boundaries in the context of globalization.” (2007: 447) Likewise, Jilly Traganou has examined how the organizers of the Athens Olympic Games took the design of the sports stadium and the Opening Ceremony to build up a “new Greece” image, to “overhaul the country’s outdated image as a nation caught between a glorious antiquity and technological backwardness, as well as convince the international community of Greece’s modernity and Europeanization in both cultural and economic terms” (2009: 76). Even the rebroadcast of the opening ceremonies presented by other nations can serve the purpose of expressing and arousing a sense of nationalism. Lee and Maguire have depicted how the media in South Korea “framed the event [the Opening and Closing Ceremonies of the Athens Olympic Games] with reference to anti-Japanese sentiments and an expression of unitary Korea Nationalism — both of which are central elements of Korean nationalism.” (Traganou 2009: 5) Many observers have noted that the Beijing Olympics has also deliberately constructed a new image of China through the Opening Ceremony (Barmé 2009; Wu and Yun 2008; Callahan 2010: Introduction; Y. Zhao 2011; and many others). However, up until now, few of the publications about the Opening Ceremony or the overall Beijing Olympic Games have analyzed in details how this new China was precisely constructed and imagined during the ceremony. This chapter aims to probe into how the new image of China, or more concisely, the new Chineseness, was constructed during the Opening Ceremony. In this chapter, I will examine the “narratives of nation” or discourses — namely, the discourse of a grand culture and long history, the discourse of harmony, and the discourse of modernity — that underpinned the construction of a new Chineseness during the Opening Ceremony. I will also examine how they were articulated in terms of Chinese particularity, dual (Chinese and world) universalism, and relativist alternative to the Western societies. The analysis is mainly based on the CCTV live broadcast of the Opening Ceremony, the Media Guide for XXIX Olympiad Opening Ceremony, media reports on the

48 production process, and in-depth interviews with participants and reporting journalists of the Opening Ceremony done by myself in the follow-up fieldwork in the summer of 2010.

To-Be-Looked-At Spectacle

In the Closing Ceremony of the Athens Olympics in 2004, Zhang Yimou and his creative team presented an eight-minute artistic show as a symbolic ritual indicating that the Olympics was passing on from Athens to Beijing. This performance included very symbolic Chinese cultural elements: red lantern, the song Jasmine Flower, Buddhism (the dance Thousand-Handed Bodhisattva), and so on. This performance gained high praises from the audience in Athens. Zhang Qing, vice director of logistics of the Opening Ceremony of the Beijing Olympics, recalls it in proudness: “The roof was blown up. . . . They rushed into the VIP box . . . and said, ‘[Y]ou have successfully aroused our desire of going to China [for the Beijing Olympics]’” (S. Luo 2009: episode 1). However, this performance was harshly criticized by Chinese media and some netizens39 as being “banal” and “old-fashioned,” and as feeding into the Westerner’s Orientalistic imagination of China, thus not representing the “real” contemporary China that has dramatically “modernized” in the past three decades (ibid.). Because of these criticisms, Zhang lost the unofficially granted directorship of the Opening and Closing Ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics, and had to participate in the bidding for the position. On 16 April 2006, the final outcome of the bidding turned out to be a combined directive team that included Zhang Yimou [张艺谋, chief director], Chen Weiya [陈维亚，vice-chief director], and Zhang Jigang [张继 刚, vice-chief director] (S. Luo 2009; Zhang and Xia 2008; J. Li 2008; Olympics Archives 2008).

39 Netizens is the word used by the Chinese Internet users to refer to themselves. It sometimes connotes an implication of “the people” or “the public” on the Internet.

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These criticisms demonstrate that, as I have discussed in chapter one, the thirty years of rapid economic development, as well as the engineered nationalism, have stimulated strong motivation for some Chinese to expect a new image of a modern and “strong” China instead of an “oriental” country that only has traditional culture to “bluff.” After Zhang regained the directorship, he had to take both the national and global audiences into consideration, and not just the global audience alone. One of the basic principles was to make the artistic performances “intelligible to foreigners and favored by ordinary Chinese people” (S. Luo 2009: episode 2 & 3). He had to avoid the cultural elements that he had used before in his movies and other artistic works, such as red lanterns and round Chinese drums (ibid.). At the same time, he and his colleagues intended to “shock” the foreigners (especially those in Western countries that China had been tracing and trying to surpass for more than a hundred years) and to outperform the Opening Ceremony of the Athens Olympics (S. Luo 2009: episode 1). Ostensibly, the former consideration confined Zhang’s choice of cultural elements; the latter prescribed the general spectacular effect that he wanted to achieve. However, these two aspects are actually closely connected: the internal critics also want to impress the world, but they wish to include more modern elements which can better present China’s modernity. After all, as I have discussed in chapter one, one of the main intentions for China to host the Olympics is to display China’s achievements of modernization and economic development, hoping in so doing, it can gain more recognition from the world, facilitate further “development,” and tackle national and global issues. Therefore, this Opening Ceremony has to serve the purpose of changing China’s “old” image as an oriental, backward country, which only possesses traditional culture, into a modern, strong country and a “rising superpower,” which is returning to its grandiose glory; and thus facilitating the national identity. In fact, in April 2007 when the BOCOG leaders were reporting to the CCP Politburo, the Chinese top leadership prescribed five features for the Opening Ceremony: splendor, novelty, characteristics of the Chinese ethnicity, characteristics

50 of the age, and international perspective (Q. Wu 2008).40 These features, according to Zhang Heping (Department Director for the Opening and Closing Ceremonies of BOCOG) who depicted them in an analog, mean “using the ‘world language’ to relate Chinese story” (ibid.). They have become the main ideas for the choreography and creation of the artistic performance. Therefore, for the organizers, who were broadly from the top CCP leadership, and the creative team, the Opening Ceremony was certainly not so much an “objective” presentation of the contemporary China as a grandiose spectacle (splendor and novelty) with Chinese particularity (ethnic characteristics) and “world universalism” (characteristics of the age and international perspective), which will be discussed in more details later. I argue that this strategy of articulating the new Chineseness, on the one hand, implies a “strategic essentialism” as “the positivist essentialism in a scrupulously visible political interest” (Spivak 1996[1985]: 214), a strategy here for China to articulate a subject of equal standing with the West by producing a new set of essentialist new Chineseness in the Opening Ceremony. On the other hand, it also implies a sense of “to-be-looked-at-ness” (Mulvey 1992; Chow 2010) that signifies the Western dominance in worldwide culture industry. For Laura Mulvey, in the Hollywood cinema in the 1950s and 1960s, the female characters were coded with “to-be-looked-at-ness” by the looking males (1992: 22–34). Based on the ideas of Mulvey, Rey Chow expands this concept to study the national movie as self- ethnography. “The state of being looked at, she [Mulvey] argues, is built into the way we look” (Chow 2010: 152). Parallel to Mulvey, Chow argues: “the state of being looked at not only is built into the way non-Western cultures are viewed by Western ones; more significantly it is part of the active manner in which such cultures represent — ethnographize — themselves” (2010: 153). This argument resembles the construction of the new Chineseness and the Opening Ceremony of the Beijing

40 This prescription was actually a summarization of the main creative ideas of the BOCOG and Zhang Yimou’s creative team into “principles,” a usual tactics in CCP political activities, rather than an actual “prescription,” given that at that time the performance idea creation and design had almost finished and it was already entering the operation and execution process.

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Olympics. While trying to escape from the some Western “Oriental” imaginations of China, the construction of new Chineseness falls into the “world-ness” in which the Western aesthetics again dominates, as I will discuss later in this chapter. However, how is the strategic essentialism mobilized in articulating a set of to- be-looked-at new Chineseness and in the Opening Ceremony? I argue it is mainly through the logic of spectacle. Spectacle was first systematically theorized by Guy Debord (1995). According to Debord, spectacle refers to the abstract images and representations that are increasingly governing modern everyday life, which is fragmented into increasingly separate spheres by “the modern conditions of production” (1995: 23). Just like the spectacle, the images themselves are “detached from every aspect of life” and they “merge into a common stream” (ibid.: 12). Furthermore, the spectacle is “at once as society itself, as a part of society and as means of unification” (ibid.). In a word, the spectacle, through the images or visualization of representation, reunifies the separate aspects of everyday life and the separated individuals in the society:

The spectacle divides the world into two parts, one of which is held up as a self-representation to the world, and is superior to the world. The spectacle is simply the common language that bridges this division. Separation is linked only by a one-way relationship to the very center that maintains their isolation from one another. The spectacle thus unites what is separate but it unites it only in its separateness. . . . the spectacle is the map of this new world — a map drawn to the scale of territory itself. (ibid.: 22, 23; italics original)

Thus, the spectacle is “Not A Collection of images; rather, it is a social relationship between people that is mediated by images” (ibid.: 12; capital letters original). The spectacle has the power to unify the separate aspects and individuals of the society for it monopolizes all communications in a one-way manner to its own advantage. The

52 spectacle embodies a strong disciplinary power to justify the existing society, itself, and the mode of production that has given rise to it. Debord’s theorizing of the spectacle, although very inspiring, like his other situationist works, is sometimes over-generalized and lacks a clear empirical grounding. Combining Victor Turner’s studies on ritual studies with the spectacle, John J. MacAloon (1984) advocates further to distinguish the interwoven performative genres that he identifies as spectacle, festival, ritual, and game in the study of the Olympics Games. Douglas Kellner (2003, 2005, 2010) also contributes to the refinement of the theory of spectacle through the examination of the specific mechanism of the narratives of spectacle. Kellner emphasizes that media spectacles are becoming “the form in which news, information, and the events of the era are processed by media corporations, the state and the political groups, and institutions and individuals who have the power to construct political and social realities” (2010: 80); they “continue to produce modes of entertainment, sports, news and political information ever more beholden to spectacle” (2005: xvi). For example, in his book Media Spectacle, Kellner (2003) examines how the media spectacles impact on everyday social life in the contemporary US society, for example, how the exchange values of sports clothes and shoes are determined by the advertisement-created images rather than their use value, and how television news is drafted and broadcast according to the size of the potentially interested audience rather than the value of the facts and truths, and so on. Kellner’s theorizing helps us probe into the logic of spectacle in media events and examine how it relates to everyday practice. In this regard, Don Handelman, an Israeli anthropologist, pushes the exploration further.41 Handelman’s book, Models and Mirrors (1998[1990]), explores the underlying logics that connect the special moments of spectacle and the everyday categories out of which social order and governmental practices become possible. Handelman examines the shift in the study

41 Here I specifically thank Nick Couldry for his generous sharing of his unpublished text on the “The Logics of Spectacle” (2009) from which I benefit a lot in writing this part.

53 of spectacle from (a) events that create a “model” of society or present “mirror” image of parts of society to (b) events that re-present aspects of social logics (qtd. in Couldry 2009: 6). He asserts that “[s]pectacle is the exciting, sensuous mask of bureaucratic ethos and organization. . . . the holidays of bureaucratic ethos” (Handelman 1998[1990]: xxxi–vi), and “the spectacle becomes the representation of social order under surveillance, under control, manipulated by its compositors and auditors” (ibid: xxxix). In his other book Nationalism and the Israeli State, Handelman further argues that the spectacle is a part of the general process whereby “the modern state torques together infrastructure and emotion” so as to generate commitment to a distant state (2004: 202). More specifically, for Handelman, the underlying logic of the spectacle, which is also called a bureaucratic logic, is “a way of generating linear forms [note: a set of vertical or horizontal forms] of classification and dynamic for the creation and organization of linear form, that in its multitude of applications makes, shapes, and counts social life into existence in so many ways” (2004: 6). It is, in other words, “a logic of forming . . . the social forms” (ibid.). This logic not only underpins the spectacle, but also underpins everyday practice. For example, in a spectacular memorial event, the speeches were given by representatives of official categories of the Israeli state. These categories “constitute a linear taxonomy that delineates the state’s organization of responsibility for the welfare of the citizenry, according to categories of national policy (the minister), local government (the mayor), public order (the police commander), and national security (the Home Command general)” (ibid.: 9). The bureaucratic logic of this memorial event as a spectacle was partly revealed by the linear arrangement of these speeches. This chapter follows “the logic of the spectacle” to analyze the Opening Ceremony of the Beijing Olympic Games. Despite its ritual and festive features, the Opening Ceremony is above all an event dominated by visual performance. As I will demonstrate in the analysis, the strategic essentialism of the construction of new Chineseness was achieved through the to-be-looked-at performances and visual

54 spectacles. And the to-be-looked-at-ness was integrated into the classification and dynamic generating the linear forms that constructs the spectacle, namely, the bureaucratic logic behind this Opening Ceremony. Through the examination of the classification logic of the performances in the Opening Ceremony, I try to reveal the “linear forms” that shape the construction of the discourses, the narratives, and the spectacle of the Opening Ceremony and the new Chineseness.

New Chineseness and Discourses

The articulation of a “new” set of Chineseness, according to the five features prescribed by the top Chinese leadership, has to be equipped with “ethnicity characteristics, characteristics of the age, and international perspective.” These ambiguous features, just like other Chinese political discourses or rhetorics, must be understood intertextually. The characteristic of the age, together with an international perspective (though it refers more to the “globalized” perspective, aesthetics, and representational style), emphasizes the modernity China has achieved or has been endeavoring to achieve in the recent three decades. In the 1980s, Deng Xiaoping launched the Four Modernizations (including modernizations in industry, agriculture, national defense, and science and technology) as the goal of the Economic Reform. This had defined the basic understanding of “modernization” and modernity in the era of opening up and reform. Although Deng also promoted a balanced development of the “material civilization” and “socialist spiritual civilization,” the link between modernization/modernity, and materiality and economy is much stronger than any other linkages of modernity in the recent thirty years of development in China. Based on this understanding, modernization/modernity, as well as globalization, becomes a kind of “international perspective” or even “universalism” in mainland political rhetoric. The international perspective implies not only modernization or globalization, it also connotes the Westernized aesthetics, cultural production techniques, and the 55 philosophical grounds dominating the cultural industry in the world. While trying to achieve the required features of “splendor” and “novelty,” the directive team also had to employ and display this international perspective in the performances of the Opening Ceremony. This situation resembles the “common difference” proposed by Richard Wilk (1995, 2004). The process of “common difference” is, namely, the “institutions, often hierarchical ones that create common difference by providing standards and terminology that allow disparate groups to compare themselves along a common set of dimensions” (Wilk 2004: 91). If we see the opening ceremonies of the Olympic Games as stages for the hosting countries to compare with each other their cultural and visual spectacles, then the ritual procedures and operational requirements prescribed by the IOC are overt “standards and terminology” that make this comparison possible. Meanwhile, the Western aesthetics and techniques dominating the cultural industry across the world are covert standards for comparison. One of the reasons that Zhang Yimou was selected as the chief director of the Opening and Closing Ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics was that he was regarded as being equipped with the “world-ness,” having the ability to produce cultural products with “internationalized” perspective, techniques, and ideas (Zhang and Xia 2008). Compared with modernity, the idea of “ethnicity characteristics” is more complicated, consisting of Chinese historical/traditional culture, ethnic groups’ culture, and politico-cultural discourses, for example, the “socialism with Chinese characteristics,” which has been the governing political ideology in China since the 1980s; the “socialist spiritual civilization” proposed by Deng Xiaoping in the 1980s and updated by Jiang Zemin in the 1990s; the “socialist political civilization” promoted by Jiang Zeming in the late 1990s and early 2000s; and most importantly, the “harmonious society” promoted by Hu Jintao since 2004 (Dynon 2008). As I will elaborate later in this chapter, the political discourse of a “harmonious society” (together with its two interrelated discourses, “scientific development values” and “harmonious international community”) serves as one of the ideas behind the

56 performances. This discourse is also an element of the “characteristic of the age” as it is the newest discourse of the incumbent government. The preset basic concepts of the Beijing Olympics — the “Green Olympics,” “High-tech Olympics,” and “People’s Olympics,” have also been interwoven into the performances, for they are also intertextual concepts of the five features prescribed by the CCP top leadership. According to the website of the BOCOG, a “Green Olympics [绿色奥运] ” emphasizes the use of environmental-friendly technologies and measures to design and construct Olympic facilities and the promotion of environmental awareness to the general public; a “High-tech Olympics [科技奥运] ” stresses scientific innovativeness and high-tech achievements in the Games and also their popular use in daily life; a “People’s Olympics [人文奥运] ” aims to showcase Chinese culture, its historical and cultural heritage, and the population’s positive support to the Games, while promoting cultural exchanges and “harmonious development between mankind and nature.”42 Interwoven with the five features, these concepts penetrate all the performances in the ceremony: the Green Olympics is illustrated by the political discourse “harmony” (scientific development values) and the historico-cultural idea of “harmony between human and nature [天人合一]”; the High-tech Olympics penetrates the performances by the technologies employed as well as presented; the People’s Olympics is elaborated by the performances about China’s grand culture and long history. This combination of the “five features” and “three concepts” produce a basic principle: articulating the new Chineseness and choreographing the artistic performances in the Opening Ceremony through the “Chinese particularity” and a “dual universalism,” namely, world (Western) universalism and Chinese universalism. The logic is that China has effectively combined the Chinese particularity (Chinese culture and “socialism with Chinese characteristics”) and the “universal” modernity (materiality); and (at least some parts of) this combination can

42 “Concepts: Green Olympics, High-tech Olympics and People’s Olympics.” 2008. The Official Website of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games August 8-24 2008. http://en.beijing2008.cn/bocog/concepts/index.shtml (accessed 13 Jun 2011).

57 be “universal” to the world too. Meanwhile, in order to facilitate the reception of the Chinese universalism, the artistic performances were organized through the “world” aesthetics and techniques, for example, the light technology and setting design aesthetics, and sometimes “world-universal” ideas, for example, humanism, romanticism in the “Western” sense, and so on. Consequently, Zhang Yimou and his creative team have constructed the new Chineseness in the Opening Ceremony with the following three discourses: Chinese splendid historical culture, multilayered harmony, and Chinese alternative modernity. Meanwhile, in order not to be too mighty or intimidating in the artistic performances, Zhang and his colleagues also articulated some kind of “determined romanticism” as Chinese “new” temperament, as well as a strategy of presenting the performances. In the following I will elaborate how these three discourses and one temperament (see table 2.1) construct the new Chineseness, through the examination of the CCTV live broadcast, as well as the production process, of the Opening Ceremony. As many other opening ceremonies of the Olympics held in recent decades, the Opening Ceremony of the Beijing Olympics roughly consisted of three parts: the artistic performance (1 hour), the athletes’ entry (2 hours 16 minutes and 16 seconds), and the lighting of cauldron (33 minutes). The artistic performance, titled “The Beautiful Olympics [美丽的奥林匹克], ” also had two components (“acts”): the Brilliant Civilization [灿烂文明] and the Glorious Era [辉煌时代], each of which lasted for roughly 20 minutes and consisted of several sections: the former had five, the latter had three (see table 2.1). The CCTV live broadcast mainly adopted the standard signals from the Beijing Olympic Broadcasting Co. Ltd (BOB), with a few shots by self-equipped cameras. The “centering” of this ceremony was mainly through two commentators’ [ 孙正平，周涛] reading (but not talking in a dialogue manner) of prepared official scripts. Given that CCTV co-worked closely with the BOCOG and the directive team of the Opening Ceremony, it knew perfectly the implications of the artistic performances and the ceremonial rituals of the Opening Ceremony. CCTV is also the

58 most authoritative television channel in mainland China. Given the importance of the Opening Ceremony, this interpretative script was drafted with great prudence and approved by the top CCTV officials and high-level CCP propaganda leaders. This script, therefore, can be seen an official interpretation of the Opening Ceremony, as authentic as, if not more than, the Media Guide for XXIX Olympiad Opening Ceremony (hereafter Media Guide) drafted by the directive team. Its targeted audience was mainly mainland Chinese, so the commentary aimed not to interpret the basic contents of the performances, but to reveal the political and cultural implications of the performances, and to foster national pride. This is particularly relevant in interpreting the “harmony” discourse, as I will show later in the text. In the following, I will examine how the new Chineseness is articulated in the Opening Ceremony, through the examination of the live broadcast on CCTV and the production process of the Ceremony.

Table 2.1: Program summary of the Opening Ceremony of the Beijing Olympics.

Discourse(s) Sequence Sections Duration involved Pre-Performance 1 Pre-Ceremony Performance / 1:45:00 The Arrival of the Chairman of PRC 2 / 0:03:00 and the President of IOC 3 Countdown M 0:01:00 4 Welcome Fireworks C/M 0:00:20 5 Welcome: Fou Formation C 0:03:28 6 Footprints of History 0:01:05 C 7 Dream Rings 0:02:55 M 8 The Chinese National Flag Entry 0:02:45 H/R Raising the National Flag and Singing 9 / 0:01:30 the National Anthem

Artistic Performance 10 C 0:01:20 Prelude to the Artistic performance 59

“Beautiful Olympics” First Component: Brilliant Civilization 11 Painting Scroll C/M 0:05:15 12 Writing C 0:06:45 13 Opera C/R 0:03:00 14 Silk Route C/H 0:06:00 15 Ritual Music C 0:06:00 Second Component: Glorious Era 16 Starlight M/H 0:08:00 17 Nature M/H 0:08:30 18 Dream M/H/R 0:07:05

The Athletes’ Entry 19 The Athletes’ Entry 2:16:16

The Lighting of the Cauldron Speech by the President of BOCOG and 20 0:07:00 the President of IOC Declaration of the Opening by the 21 0:00:30 Chairman of PRC 22 Olympic Flag Entry 0:06:30 Raising the Olympic Flag and Playing 23 0:03:00 the Olympic Anthem 24 Athlete’s Oath and Official’s Oath 0:01:00 25 Dove Release 0:02:30 26 The Journey of the Torch 0:07:00 27 The Lighting of the Cauldron H/R 0:03:30 28 Celebration Fireworks 0:03:00

Note: C=Culture and History; H=Harmony; M=Modernity; R=Romanticism.

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Splendid Chinese Culture and Long Continuous

History

Nearly everyone who has watched the Opening Ceremony on the spot, on television, or through recording seems impressed by the presentations of Chinese culture and history in the performances.43 The splendid Chinese culture is one of the most widely recognized features of Chinese particularity, and is thus a must-have element in the Opening Ceremony and the new Chineseness. Some people may assume that the representations of the Chinese culture should be the easiest project in the vast Opening Ceremony program. For example, a cultural studies scholar Zhang Xudong says that the Opening Ceremony’s “function” is to remind the audiences that “at this moment, ‘Olympics’ and ‘China’ are connected;” then, “with the premise of achieving this function, all the cultural symbols are exchangeable” (X. Zhang 2008: n. pag.). For him, it is “the inexhaustible richness of the basic symbols and symbolic resources of Chinese culture that consists of the ‘content’ of the cultural symbols used in the Opening Ceremony, but not any concrete, specific symbols themselves” (ibid.). However, for Zhang Yimou and his colleagues, the selection and presentation of the historical cultural symbols was in reality more complicated. Besides the avoidance of some symbols and elements that Zhang had used before in his movies and works, the selection of these “exchangeable” symbols also involved subtle political and social entanglements. Numerous cultural symbols have been interwoven into the Opening Ceremony, especially at the beginning of the ceremony and in the Brilliant Civilization part. At the beginning of the Ceremony, a dazzling light is shed on the huge sundial model, “a timing device used in ancient China to measure the time by

43 Many influential media, including NBC, BBC, New York Times, International Herald Tribune, the Asahi Shimbun (Japan), and the China Times (Taiwan) reported the Opening Ceremony. The history and culture part was one of the parts that were most frequently referred to. The international responses to the Beijing Olympic Games (including the Opening Ceremony) will be discussed in chapter three.

61 the shadow of sun” (BOCOG 2008: 19), which could be dated back to at least four thousand years ago, signaling the long history of China. The following welcome performance, “Fou Formation,” displays the historical instrument fou, “the most ancient Chinese percussion instrument made of clay or bronze” (ibid.). The passionate and stylish performance of the 2008 fou-players gives the audience a strong feeling of “Chinese culture.” During the Dream Rings section, twenty “Apsaras [飞天] ” from Dunhuang Buddhist Caves [敦煌石窟] in Gansu province in China are “flying” via wires in the “” of the Bird’s Nest. Apsaras is one of the symbolic images of Dunhuang Buddhist Caves, which thrived in the Sui and Tang dynasties. A few minutes later begins the first component of the artistic performance — Brilliant Civilization. It consists of five sections: Painting Scroll, Writing, Opera, Silk Route, and Ritual Music. The five thousand years of Chinese history and culture has been, deliberately but not chronologically, interwoven into the 20-minute performance. It presents Chinese culture through two structures. The first structure is the traditional high culture — music, calligraphy, and painting [琴，书，画].44 Music includes an ancient instrument guqin [古琴], the Beijing Opera and kunqu Opera [昆曲], and other Chinese music forms; calligraphy includes Chinese characters, movable type-printing, and writing; and painting forms the storyline of the Ceremony — the whole process of the Opening Ceremony is to paint a giant painting. The second structure is the Four Great Inventions — paper-making, gunpowder (displayed mainly through fireworks), typography (movable type-printing), and compass. Therein, the Chinese scroll painting is used as the most important structural symbol and the metaphor of the ceremony: the huge LED “scroll” serves as the main stage for the performance, as a stage property providing background for the performance. The giant “painting” is first drawn by Chinese modern dancers (in the Painting Scroll section), later painted by children (in the Nature section), and finally trampled with colors by all the athletes during the athletes’ parade.

44 The four high cultural activities for traditional intellectuals in history are music, Chinese chess, calligraphy, and painting [琴棋书画].

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Figure 2.1: Key cultural symbols employed in the Opening Ceremony.

Image 2.1.1: The Sundial Image 2.1.2: Gunpowder Image 2.1.3: Fou formation

Image 2.1.4: Paper-making Image 2.1.5: Painting scroll Image 2.1.6: guqin

Image 2.1.7: Confucius’s Image 2.1.8: Calligraphy Image 2.1.9: The compass 3000 disciples and movable type-printing

However, as mentioned above, the selection of traditional cultural symbols is entangled with political considerations. For example, one of the most noteworthy parts of the Brilliant Civilization is the prominent presence of Confucius (image 2.1.7): eight hundred dancers, representing Confucius’s three thousand disciples, are dancing and reciting Confucius’s sayings from the Analects [论语]. As the most successful successor of the New Culture Movement, and the May Fourth Movement in the 1910s and the early 1920s,45 the CCP and the regime had long held an anti-

45 It was a radical cultural movement to renew Chinese culture to meet the requirements of modern development and to catch up with Western countries. For a detailed description of this movement, please refer to Chesneaux, Le Barbier, and Bergère (1977); Lawrance (2004); and many other books.

63 tradition position. They were more interested in building a “new” China46 than seeking a restoration of traditional culture in which Confucianism (as well as Buddhism and Taoism) was prominent. As the alleged representative of the “negative” aspects (also known as “dross [糟粕]”) of traditional culture, Confucius was severely criticized by the CCP and the regime, especially in the Cultural Revolution in 1967–77. Even in the 2000s, after a new wave of “fever” on traditional cultural studies resulting from “patriotic education program” and the promotion of the political discourse of the “Great Restoration of the Chinese Ethnicity” in the 1990s, the systematic studying of Confucian canons was still discouraged. The image of Confucius barely appeared in formal artistic performances (except as a representative of negative traditional culture to be criticized in the 1970s), and his sayings never enjoyed such an appreciation in those performances. In 2007 when Ji Xianlin [季羨 林], the prominent historian or master of nationology [国学] suggested “uplifting Confucius” in the Opening Ceremony, he was rejoined by fierce disputes.47 The final inclusion of “Confucius’s 3000 disciples” in the Opening Ceremony and the approval from the top leadership of mainland China symbolize a new stage of reconciliation of the CCP government and Confucianism (as well as other forms and elements of more “banal” traditional culture). Some observers even argue that the structure and performances in the Brilliant Civilization section imply the “respect of cultural and artists’ values,” for it allows the “artists to use the cultural forms that are disliked by the CCP, e.g. the mountain and water painting, calligraphy, water-ink painting… which are [representations of] cultural intellectuals’ sentiments.”48 (said Zhang Ying [journalist of Southern Weekend and co-author of

46 Many books and articles have addressed the anti-tradition position of the CCP and its rhetoric of “new.” See, for example, Q. E. Wang (2001); Meisner (1999). 47 “Debates Triggered by Ji Xianlin’s Suggestion of Uplifting Confucius to the Opening Ceremony [羨 林建議奧運開幕式抬出孔子引發激辯(圖)].” 2007. sina.com.cn [新浪网], 29 August. http://news.sina.com/c/2007-08-30/004412472922s.shtml (accessed 29 Jun 2009). 48 Cultural intellectuals’ sentiments [文人情怀], is a very broad term referring to sentiments based on a combined worldview of Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism. It implies the strong responsibility of the people [苍生], the sensitive feelings to nature, a tasteful lifestyle and manners, good tastes of literature and cultural activities, a “care-little” attitude to fame and fortune, and so on. Here, for Zhang,

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Zhang and Xia 2008], personal interview). The “cultural intellectuals’ sentiments” had been largely dismissed in the CCP ideology and discourse system since the Speech on Literature and Art Forum in Yan An, which emphasized the literature and art should “serve” proletariats, farmers, soldiers, and petit bourgeoisies, by Chairman was published in 1942. The including, and highlighting, of these traditional cultural representations may not be “exchangeable” as Zhang Xudong asserts. Instead, it reveals a gradual whilst crucial turn of the Chinese government’s cultural policy from radically abandoning traditional culture to gradually restoring it. This political turn displaces Tu Weiming’s assertions about the disposal of traditional Chinese culture in mainland China, a presumption of Tu’s concept of cultural China, which articulates a cultural center in the geographical periphery (Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Chinese diaspora communities) and the de-centering of the geographic center of mainland China (Tu 1991). Meanwhile, like many other opening ceremonies of the Olympic Games (such as Sydney [Housel 2007] and Athens [Traganou 2009]), the Beijing Olympics’ Opening Ceremony also involves certain manipulation of history: the artistic performance has ambitiously included Chinese history from ancient times to the Qing Dynasty, though not strictly as a chronicle, and then jumps to the opening-up and reform era. Modern history (usually defined as from 1840 to 1949) and the first thirty years of the People’s Republic of China (1949–1979) have been specifically left out. In the taxonomy of CCP ideology, the “Old Bourgeois Democratic Revolution History” (1840–1911) and the “New Bourgeois Democratic Revolution History (1911–1949)” are more important than the ancient history, for they are most relevant to the legitimacy of the government: it was the CCP-led revolution that liberated China from the tragic and humiliating predicament that resulted from feudalism, imperialism, and bureaucratic capitalism. However, these two periods in history are not included in the Opening Ceremony, nor is the history of the first thirty years of the

the sentiments refer more to the tasteful lifestyle and manners, and the good tastes of literature and cultural activities.

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PRC. Zhang Yimou’s explanation is that these histories are “too complicated” to present (S. Luo 2009: episode 2–3). I suspect the “complication” here is not in terms of presentation, but in terms of politics. As the CCP is still promoting in its propaganda cultural products, for example, the television drama series about the anti- Japanese war in 1937–1945 (e.g., Drawing Sword [亮剑]), and the civil war in 1946– 1949 (e.g., Concealing [潜伏]) in the 2000s, it is surely not because that part of history is politically sensitive in mainland China. The reason lies in that the “Old Bourgeois Democratic Revolution History” involved confrontation with Western countries, and the “New Bourgeois Democratic Revolution History” involved confrontations with Japan and the ROC in Taiwan. In such an event in which China was attempting to articulate a vision of “One world, One dream” and a “harmonious” relationship with other countries (which will be discussed in the next section), it was surely not wise to involve these confrontational histories. However, the neglect of the first thirty years of the PRC does reveal the real political taboo in mainland China in the recent twenty years — the involvement of the Maoist China — when the Cultural Revolution, the Great Leap, and other extremist leftist movements have been restricted from discussion in order not to undermine the already vulnerable legitimacy of the CCP regime.49 These selective presentations of history reflect a tactic: a specific “politics of memory.” This was a tactic prevalent in the nation-state building in the nineteenth century, which is “to mobilize and monumentalize national and universal pasts so as to legitimize and give meaning to the present and to envision the future: culturally, politically, socially” (Huyssen 2003: 2). The “willful forgetting” of the Maoist history and the contestable past with some other countries is to envisage a

49 On the appropriation and manipulation of authentic history, the Chinese government, as many other governments in the world (Hobsbawm and Ranger 1992; Utgaard 2003; Lee et al. 2004), has a tradition to choose the former according to the political or pragmatic requests. Since 1949, all the Chinese history has been rewritten according to materialist historical philosophy. Even today, the “refinement” of history textbooks for the elementary and middle school students has never aborted. The revising and refinement are very presuppositional, aiming to verify the “historical route to socialism” and to critique the history with materialist historical philosophy, so as to legitimatize its regime (Friedman 1995: chapter 1). Reorganization and reinterpretation of historical events, to generate a spectacle of history, are very common means used in rewriting China’s history. All descriptions of historical events, if not compatible with its legitimacy, would ironically be regarded as non-objective [不客观].

66 better future of China with “harmonious international relationship” that is without Maoist political radicalness, and the colonial humiliations and confrontations. Another notable selective politics is the classification of high culture and low culture, the center and the peripheral. The “high culture,” including poetry, painting, calligraphy, and music, is the most appreciated traditional form of culture in Chinese history and even in contemporary society. The “low culture” refers to folk cultures that are regarded as less appreciated and less “sophisticated” in form. The center means the Central Plains (comprising the middle and lower reaches of the Huang River), which has been the center of Chinese culture for four thousand years; the peripheral, though always changing in different contexts (M. Wang 2006), includes all the regions other than the central (in the broadest sense) or the boundary frontiers (in the narrowest sense). Nearly every section of the artistic performance about Chinese culture in the Opening Ceremony is around high culture and technological inventions of the central China,50 regional and ethnic cultures are largely neglected (which will be discussed further later), let alone the low culture. This taxonomy of high and low culture, the central and the peripheral, has a hierarchical connotation, which resonates with the “internal othering” with the Han-centrism or sino-centrism (Chow 1995: chapter 4 in part 2). Despite the politics involved in selection, the selected historico-cultural symbols and the overall performances have been presented as a truly splendid, novel spectacle, meeting the prescribed features of “splendor” and “novelty.” The emphasis on visual attraction goes into every detail: costumes, stage property, performance unity, dance choreography, even the performers’ and participants’ smiles (S. Luo 2009). One typical example is the 32 giant dragon pillars and 2500 magnificent costumes of the Ritual Music section (see figure 2.2): the costumes are divided into five categories, symbolizing the lady dresses in Tang, Song, Yuan, Ming, and Qing

50 Historically, technicians and craftsmen were among the lower classes in the society. Technology was regarded as inferior and trivial, compared to the high culture. However, since the May Fourth Movement in the 1910–20s, science and technology has been granted top importance. The High-tech Olympics, one of the three concepts of the Beijing Olympics, is an example of the emphasis on technology in China.

67 dynasties, which are decorated in extremely rich colors and details; the pillars are more than one meter in diameter and above fifteen meter in height, each decorated with golden dragon and painted in bright Chinese red, with a player of different musical instruments lying on each platform of pillars. With its grandiose scale, extremely rich colors, and massive female dances, it is visually awesome and spectacular, in the fullest sense of the words. Zhang calls it “a simple pile of cultural symbols of clothing, music, and architecture” (J. Li 2008: 80), while it is actually a less important part of the overall structure of the artistic performance. Yet, the spectacular visual impacts have still attracted special attentions from various media (which will be discussed in chapter three).

Figure 2.2: The Ritual Music section.

Image 2.2.1: Costume of Image 2.2.2: Dragon-decorated Tang dynasty lady pillars, and group presentation of instruments and ladies of the five dynasties

In order to create such a spectacle, the tactic of “(re)inventions of tradition” (Hobsbawm and Ranger 1992) has also been involved. For example, the fou instrument in the welcoming section is a total reinvention. Zhang Yimou and the creative team of the Ceremonies wanted to have a formation of a huge percussion instrument as a welcoming scene, because such scene could produce stunning visual and audio effects. One possible choice was the popular Chinese drums; however, Zhang had used drums many times in his movies, thus he could be sneered at by the media (for lacking creativity) if he used it again in the Opening Ceremony (Zhang and Xia 2008; S. Luo 2009: episode 3). After a few trials, he chose the fou. The fou as a

68 famous historical instrument was, unfortunately, pervasive far before the Tang dynasty (618 AD–907 AD); there is no reliable written record of how it was made and played. Finally, the fou shown at the Fou Formation section was made up on the basis of unearthed cultural relics (which were most likely not the fou instrument in history). The instrument was also significantly enlarged and altered in shape in order to meet the “visual” requirements.51 Likewise, since no one nowadays knows how to play fou, the performers have reinvented a unique form of drum-playing (S. Luo 2009: episode 6; Olympic Archives: episode 1). The (re)invention of fou is not the only example of the “invention of tradition.” Zhang Yimou has extended his predilection for exaggerated and luxurious costume in his movies to the Ceremonies.52 The costume of “Confucius’s disciples” is a complete invention (I will elucidate this point later in this chapter). The dresses of the Tang, Song, and Qing dynasties (which appear in the Ritual Music section) are altered exaggeratedly to generate a spectacular visual effect. However, by pointing out these make-ups and “invention of tradition,” I do not intend to criticize the Hollywood-style design aesthetics and principles. Neither do I want to advocate historical authenticity. The point is to illustrate how much Zhang Yimou and his creative team emphasize visual impacts, and to examine the politics of the selection and appropriation of cultural symbols. Here, Zhang and his colleagues, indeed, intentionally “self-Orientalize” the Chinese culture with the to-be-looked-at-ness. But, this “Oriental’s Orientalism,” as Rey Chow argues about Zhang’s films, “turns the

51 According to historian Zhang Lifan[章立凡], the fou that appeared in the Fou Formation section was not the fou in history (L. Zhang 2008). Historian Wang Jichao [王纪潮] further points out that it could be a “misreading” of traditional culture. This “misreading” is productive and can enrich the understanding of traditional culture. However, the instrument should not be named “fou” but could be called “Drum in Jianfou-shape with LED” or so (2008). This issue will be further discussed in chapter five. 52 Zhang’s recent movies, such as Hero, hit the top of the box office in China; but his movies have been criticized by the media for their involving of arbitrary falsification of history (including historical settings and costumes). See “’s Costume Is Ahistorical, Scholars Blames Curse of the Golden Flower Unauthentic [巩 俐服饰不符合史实,学者炮轰‘黄金甲’失真].” 2006. Information Times [信息时报], 20 October. http://ent.cnwest.com/content/2006-10/20/content_331971.htm (accessed 10 Nov 2009). Also, the chief costume designer of the Opening Ceremony, Eiko Ishioka, is a famous Japanese designer who has won the 1992 Academy Award for costume designing in Bram Stoker's Dracula and numerous other awards.

69 remnants of orientalism into elements of a new ethnography” (Chow 1995: 171–72), a cultural translation, despite superficial, that “makes ‘China’ survives and thrives” in the West (Chow 2010: 170). Similarly, the self-Orientalization in the Opening Ceremony is an attempt to articulate a “new” China, with the wish that it would survive and thrive in the West and in the world. Thus, the presentation of splendid culture and continuous history is subject to complex classification politics which also has to meet with Zhang’s personal predicament; the taxonomy of high culture, technology, and low culture; the binary division of center and periphery; the politics of history and memory selection; and the invention of tradition and so on. However, with Zhang Yimou’s outstanding self- Orientalized visual tactics and “strategic essentialism,” the splendor and particularity of Chinese culture has been spectacularly presented to the world, articulating an overwhelming display of Chinese culture.

Multilayered Harmony

Although the artistic performance is clearly targeted at global audiences, Zhang has not neglected the political context; he understands that “in China, we should do things according to the Chinese way,” so “we [need to] present the best of China to the world, within the framework of he [和, harmony]” (S. Luo 2009: session 6), because “the character he has many explanations, it can be as broad as the discourse of country [the political rhetoric “harmonious society” which is proposed by Hu Jintao in 2004], and can be as narrow as ‘happy and harmonious family life,’ gentleness, and peace” (J. Li 2008: 73).53 With this tactic, the artistic performance of the Opening Ceremony

53 The discourse of “Harmonious Society” had been integrated into the Beijing Olympics-related campaigns far before the Opening Ceremony. Stefan Landsberger describes how this discourse has become “a topic that merits PSA attention and complements the innumerable examples of open-air advertising for the same” (2009: 249). See also de Kloet, Chong, and Liu (2008).

70 has switched from the articulation of Chinese particularity to Chinese universalism, an alternative of the Western culture and modernity.

1. Harmonious Society

The most notable articulation of harmony is in the android-like performance in the Writing (Movable Type-printing) section. Nine hundred young soldiers operate cuboids, representing the movable type-printing, to simulate turbulences and relieve- like shapes, form Chinese characters, and simulate the Great Wall, in a computer- controlled and extremely precise manner of movements. For millions of people who do not speak Chinese, it was the first time that they saw the Chinese character 和 [he].

Figure 2.3: Three different forms of the character “和 [he].”

Image 2.3.1: The first he Image 2.3.2: Image 2.3.3: The second he The modern he

This highlighted theme of harmony is a projection of the current Chinese political rhetoric of “harmonious society,” “harmonious world,” and the “scientific development values.” The Chinese Party-State has a long tradition of launching periodic political propaganda campaigns, even after 1978 when the Economic Reform started. Examples include the “Four Modernizations” and “Two Civilizations” rhetoric proposed by Deng Xiaoping during the 1980s,54 the “Great

54 “Two Civilizations” include “Material Civilization,” which means the production of materiality based on “socialist market economy”; and “Spiritual Civilization,” which refers to the cultural prosperity based on socialist ideology.

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Restoration of Chinese Ethnicity” introduced by Jiang Zemin in the late 1990s, and the “Three Represents” again introduced by Jiang Zemin in 2001.55 According to the Party-State tradition, every rhetoric serves as the compass of the current propaganda campaigns. In 2003 and 2004, Hu Jintao, the General Secretary of CCP and Chairman of the PRC, launched the new rhetoric of “Scientific Development Values” and “Harmonious Society” (Dynon 2008). Aiming to alleviate the exacerbating polarization of the society and to make a turnaround from the previously prevalent tendency of over-emphasizing GDP growth, Hu proposed this rhetoric to call for an ideal future: a harmonious social condition with an environment-friendly and sustainable development pattern.56 In addition, Hu expanded the notion of “harmonious society” to “harmonious world” to express an expectation of a world of “peaceful coexistence” which “overcomes differences and seeks common ground [求 同存异]” (a diplomatic principle proposed by the PRC Premier Zhou Enlai in 1956). After its launch, the new rhetoric became the central discourse for the Party’s propaganda and served as the compass of “creative artistic works” with official background, which is what Zhang Yimou calls the “Chinese way.” Adopting the “Chinese way,” Zhang and his colleagues have presented an ideal China based on the idea of harmony: in the Opening Ceremony, besides the Writing section, the notion of harmony as the central motif penetrates every section of the performance. For example, the most visually notable performance is the aforementioned three forms of the Chinese character he [和]. Along with the astonishing movable type-printing performance, the apothegms from the Analects [论语, also translated as Confucius’s Sayings] that the “3000 Confucius’s disciples” recite include a well-known apothegm — “harmony is the keyword for propriety [和为贵]” (which is also translated as

55 “Three Represents” means the CCP needs to represent the advanced productive forces, the overall interests and development of the people, and the new advanced culture, which is actually the originating idea of the rhetoric of the three promises of the Beijing Olympic Organizing Committee: the Green Olympics, High-tech Olympics, and People’s Olympics. 56 For more detailed information, please refer to: “Scientific Development Values [科学发展观].” n.d. Xinhuanet [新华网]. http://news.xinhuanet.com/ziliao/2005-03/16/content_2704537.htm (accessed 13 Jun 2011).

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“peace enjoys priority”). When the third character (the modern version of he) appears, the commentator of CCTV narrates the performance and the rhetoric of harmony in this way: “Through thousands of years, the character he develops as time goes by. It expresses the humanist idea of the saying ‘harmony is the keyword for propriety,’ and manifests the long history and great tradition of the harmonious value of Chinese ethnicity.” Here, the narration that the idea and practice of harmony has a long history in China articulates a Chinese cultural characteristic of harmony. At the same time, the connection with Confucianism, which is always endowed with universalism, implies the universality of the idea and practice of harmony, which forms a basis to further articulate the Chinese universalism of harmony.

Figure 2.4: Key scenes in the Starlight section.

Image 2.4.1: Lang and Li Image 2.4.2: The galaxy Image 2.4.3: The dove

Image 2.4.4: The girl Image 2.4.5: The Bird’s Nest flying a kite

The Starlight section, the first section of the second component Glorious Era, is designated to describe the overall harmony concept. It integrates all the main layers of harmony (see figure 2.4): harmonious development (the green, the galaxy, and the nebula symbolize the harmony between human and the universe/nature), peaceful and harmonious world (the dove), the present harmonious life and society that China claims to have (the scene on the LED screen), and a dream of the harmonious future. 73

The green emissaries, who together build up a Bird’s Nest with their bodies (image 2.4.5), not only remind the audience of the “Green Olympics” promise of the Beijing Olympics, but also symbolize China’s commitment to green economy and environmental protection. One of the most notable narratives of the “harmonious society” is the harmony among the “fifty-six ethnicities as Chinese Ethnicity [中华民族]”; this has also been included in the Opening Ceremony. During the Chinese Anthem section, there is one group of fifty-six representatives of different ethnicities, dressed in different ethnic suits and dresses: one of them is standing by the flag altar (image 2.5.1), the other escorting the national flag to the flag altar (image 2.5.2). These two scenes have strong political implication: by standing beside the flag altar and by escorting the national flag, these scenes signify the assumed harmonious relationship among the ethnicities and the consolidation of the Chinese ethnicity, which is regarded a crucial part of the construction of harmonious society.

Figure 2.5: Key scenes signifying the harmony within Chinese Ethnicity.

Image 2.5.1 Lin and ethnic Image 2.5.2 Ethnic children children

In the second part of the artistic performance, there are also representations on the huge LED screen of a harmonious Chinese society by displaying the economic development, happy life of ordinary people, and other relevant scenes, demonstrating the fulfillment of “mutual richness, social stability and solidarity, rich public goods

74 and public services,” and other goals of the harmonious-society policy.57 However, as one participant of the Opening Ceremony remarks: “The emphasis on harmonious society of ordinary people is less important, because the hosting of Olympic Games is evidence of it. Foreign visitors can see how (harmonious) Beijing and China look.” The more important issue is to articulate other aspects of harmony, namely, the harmonious world and the harmony between human and nature.

2. Harmonious World

With the slogan “One World, One Dream,” the Beijing Olympics endeavors to convey an appeal for a “harmonious world.” The relevant representations sprawl the whole ceremony. Besides the abovementioned huge dove in the Starlight section, the Opening Ceremony has also employed other symbolic elements to construct a narrative of a harmonious world for the global audience. One of the first apothegms that the Confucius’s disciples recite is “all men under heaven will be his brothers [四 海之内，皆兄弟也]”. At the end of the Movable Type-printing section, the last diagram made by the movable types is the shape of the Great Wall, which, to some extent, is a symbol of China, and a symbol of defense and self-isolation. After that, every cuboid “blossoms out” into a bunch of pink peach blossom, and then there are cheering performers appearing at the curtain call. By substituting the Great Wall (one of the greatest defense architectures in the world) with pink peach blossoms and lively cheering, it signifies that China is no more separated from the world and is trying to build a harmonious world with its “peaceful rise.” Serving the same purpose are the 2008 smiling children faces collected and selected from all over the world shown at the end of the artistic performance; so is the joyous welcoming of the Torch Relay around the world shown on the series of huge LED screens encircling the whole rim

57 For the nine goals of the harmonious society, please see “Constructing the Socialist Harmonious Society [构建社会主义和谐社会].” n.d. People’s Daily Online [人民网]. http://politics.people.com.cn/GB/8198/70195/index.html (accessed 13 Jun 2011).

75 of the sports stadium (the chaos in Paris and London has been omitted) when Li Ning is winched up and is “running” in the air before lighting the cauldron.

Figure 2.6: Key scenes signifying/anticipating a “Harmonious World.”

Image 2.6.1: Image 2.6.2: Image 2.6.3: Reciting Sayings The Great Wall Peach blossom

Image 2.6.4: Image 2.6.5: Smiling faces Torch relay

The Silk Route section is another section that serves to express the openness of China and an aspiration for a harmonious world. Juxtaposing the Inland with the Maritime Silk Route, this section presents the long history of China’s communication with the world and implies China’s historical and cultural contribution to the world (including the compass [司南], one of the alleged Four Great Inventions). This is meant to construct a peace-loving image of China and its harmonious relationship with the world. The CCTV commentator Zhou Tao [周涛] interprets the two silk roads/routes as “making friends in every quarter, trading goods, learning from each other and enjoying respectful interactions.”58 Also, she says “Chinese ethnicity has long been warm-hearted and friendly, and the two silk routes are the best examples. . . . The Maritime Silk Route not only indicates ancient China’s

58 This is the long-term principle of diplomatic policy that the Chinese government claims to hold.

76 high level of navigational technology, but also confirms the amity and ardor of China, the country with great civilization.” These presentations articulate a “tradition,” showing that China has always been interacting with other countries with peaceful trades, which implies a comparison with the Western countries that have been colonizing the world with military forces.

Figure 2.7: Scenes in Maritime Silk Route section.

Image 2.7.1: Image 2.7.2: Image 2.7.3: Inland silk route Maritime silk route The compass

3. Harmony between Human and Nature

The second component of the artistic performance, Glorious Era, narrates the harmony between human and nature, which implicitly refers to the rhetoric of “scientific development values.” Besides the aforementioned Starlight section, the taijiquan [太极拳] performance of 2008 men in the Nature section of the Glorious Era component is the key section presenting China’s traditional philosophical understanding of the relationship between human and nature. Taiji [太极] is the first Taoist ontological understanding of the world, a view emphasizing the balance and harmony between human and nature.59 Taijiquan is a set of exercise based on the philosophical understanding of taiji. The taijiquan performance is divided in two parts. The first part is at the center of the sports stadium where performers exercise taijiquan around a circle of silk-made sheers, which are projected with mysterious lights and shadows to resemble mountains, rivers, and natural landscape. The

59 For more detailed description, please see R. J. Smith (2008); and D. Zhang (2002).

77 accompanying music is the sound of waterfalls, sea waves, bird twitters, and so on. This performance is to elaborate the idea of “harmony between human and nature [天 人合一],” with the presentation of exercising taiji to acquire the qi [气] into human bodies; the second part consists of 2008 taijiquan-exercisers forming homocentric circles, with scores of children coloring the huge scroll, which has been sketched by the modernist dancer during Painting Scroll section earlier, and collectively reciting a text to encourage environmental protection. At the end of this performance is the recapitulation of a harmonious coexistence between human and nature, after employing the idea of “harmony between human and nature”: the polluted world turns back into the balanced nature. The first part aims more specifically to present the philosophical understanding of harmonious relationship between human and nature, whereas the second part wants to show how taijiquan as a special Chinese martial exercise has become so popular that it has turned into a part of people’s everyday life, thus implying the ontological understanding of harmony is underpinning the values of all citizens, and signifying the positive outcome of applying the Chinese philosophy of “harmony between human and nature.”

Figure 2.8: Key scenes in taijiquan section.

Image 2.8.1: Image 2.8.2: Image 2.8.3: Taijiquan exercise The environment The massive taijiquan exercise

Through the rhetoric of harmony, the Opening Ceremony constructs China as a country with a harmonious and consolidated society, with long historical connection, communication, and contribution to the world, with the self-confidence to open up to the world, and with the courtesy to build a harmonious world. This

78 construction implies that the closed-ness and isolation of China has only lasted for a short, insignificant period, and that China has now built up a strong economic connection with the world again and will make great contributions to the world as it has done in history. In this articulation, the artistic performance again mobilizes various resources of Chinese particularity, such as the harmony among the fifty-six ethnicities, as well as the harmonious and happy everyday life of Chinese, to articulate an ideal version of Chineseness, and to change some stereotypes of a backward, abnormal, and disordered China (deLisle 2008). However, it is also notable that the Opening Ceremony, with this articulation of harmony, is switching from the emphasis on the Chinese particularity to broader themes like human-nature relationship and international/global relationship. The taijiquan performances, especially the taijiquan massive performance that shows the idea of “harmony between human and nature,” aim to display to the world a vision of a more sustainable future. With this presentation, the Opening Ceremony articulates a Chinese universalism and a potential alternative to the Western industrialization and modernity. However, the inherent controversies in the construction of harmony might again open space for questions. First of all, although the theme of harmony is omnipresent during the Opening Ceremony, the presentation is not quite “harmonious.” In the dramatic performance of “Confucius’s Disciples Reciting the Analects,” the three thousand performers, who are dancing and reciting selective apothegms, are in broad, black-and-white, robe-like costume, and wear a three-foot high headwear (images 2.1.7 and 2.6.1). Both the costume and the dancing, as well as the stylish -over reciting, are very impressive. However, this representation is far from the concept of harmony in history or in the present day. In the Spring and Autumn Period [春秋时代] when Confucius lived, there were over a hundred seigneur states with different writing (characters) systems, different raiment customs, and even different languages (dialects that sometimes were incommunicable). For Confucius, the principle of teaching is “to teach for all [有教

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无类],” and his most important saying on harmony is “the gentlemen are harmonious but non-identical; the non-gentlemen are identical but non-harmonious [君子和而不 同，小人同而不和].” Actually, Confucius’s disciples came from many different states and from different social classes (from high-rank nobles to ordinary people). Thus, we can imagine that the three thousand students should wear clothes of different styles, speak in different dialects/languages, which is, philosophically and apparently, very different from the spectacular scene in the Opening Ceremony. Again, my point is not to advocate the “authenticity” of history, but to argue that the representations of the Confucian idea of harmony are not conforming to Confucius’s idea of harmony. Instead, these presentations imply the taxonomy of the governmental understanding of harmony, which will be discussed later. The costume design and the selection of Confucian apothegms are not solitary examples. Nearly every massive performance in the Opening Ceremony, like the welcoming Fou Formation and the taiji show, shares the same features: identical costume, and uniform and identical actions. Smaller group performances, for example, the display of women style of Tang, Song, and Ming dynasties, also show similar aesthetics. Actually, this is the very secret and myth of massive performance spectacle: only through identity and unity can a shocking effect be achieved. Zhang Yimou has explained it in interviews: “[T]he aesthetic generated from this kind of traditional, identical action . . . which is like computer controlled . . . shocked the foreigners”; it is a product of Chinese culture and tradition; in the world “only North Korea can exceed China in massive performance”(Zhang and Xia 2008). Zhang’s explanation clearly shows that, according Zhang Yimou and the censors from the central government, the aesthetics of unity and identity go well with harmony. It also conforms to the everyday logic of government. In every political campaign or in regular promotions of the Party’s rhetoric, the government always emphasizes the “unification of thoughts” and “keeping identical pace with the Party.” In the government’s taxonomy, identicalness and unity enjoy more importance than pluralist

80 diversity. It seems that, according to the Opening Ceremony, harmony can largely be achieved through unification and identicality. More examples can be given to support my claim that the performance of harmony during the Opening Ceremony is itself fraught with ambivalences and contradictions. For example, the ritualized presence of the fifty-six ethnicities implies the harmony of the ethnicities in China. The harmony of ethnicities was extremely important given that there was a riot in Lhasa of Tibet in March 2008. However, although the ethnicities are presented in an essentialist way by having the children dressed in fifty-six ethnic traditional clothes, and the Media Guide clearly claims that they are “children from fifty-six Chinese ethnic groups” (BOCOG 2008: 25), most of the fifty-six children are actually of Han ethnicity and from Beijing.60 Thus the representation of the fifty-six ethnicities is rather controversial: being essentialist in visual representation and “non-essentialist” in ethnic origins. On the whole, the fifty-five minor ethnicities have very limited presence in the Opening Ceremony. In addition to the taxonomy of high and low culture, the periphery and the central-China, we see here another taxonomy of Han Chinese and ethnic minorities. In the Opening Ceremony, the ethnic minorities are visible only in the more ritualistic presentations: accompanying the national flag and standing by the flag-raising altar, singing the Olympic Anthem, and participating in a 60-second dance performance at the very end of the artistic performance (which was barely broadcast by the CCTV). All these presentations testify to the main goal of including them: to show how the nation is united in multicultural difference, and to present to the world the idealized picture of a harmonious multicultural society. Only the last presentation (the dance) has some relationship to minority culture itself; but this part is heavily Orientalized: minor ethnicities are reduced to exotic people who sing and dance. This kind of internal Orientalism haunts the representations of minorities in

60 Many countries have/had similar presentations of minorities. For example, in American sports events, it used to be common to have non-Indian American performers to act as Indian American, although this sports “custom” is fading (Chao and Leow 2008). The difference is that usually the organizers would not claim that the performers are/were “from” Indian American origin.

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China (Schein 1997). The political highlight of “harmonious society with minorities” and the actual neglect in the presentation form an irony in the Opening Ceremony: an irony caused by the discourse of harmony and, again, the logic of taxonomy of the center and the periphery, the Han and the minorities. Thus, unity and identicality of harmony constructed in the Opening Ceremony, are, quite clearly, driven by a Han cultural centrism and sino-centrism, or “internal othering” (Chow 1995: chapter 4 in part 2). The articulation of the idea of harmonious world again falls into appropriation of memory and history. Although there were the thousand-year-long Silk Routes, and a tradition of peaceful communication with the world, this tradition ceased in Ming and Qing dynasties. This selectivity goes beyond the mobilization and monumentalization of the “national and universal pasts so as to legitimize and give meaning to the present and to envision the future” of a nation (Huyssen 2003: 2), it is actually expanded to articulate and call for an ideal of a “harmonious world.” Last but not least, the articulation of “harmony between human and nature” as an alternative vision for the future is a philosophically attractive one. However, this vision faces an irony: China is among the most polluted countries in the world, and the situation was aggravating in the 2000s,61 although China had become the second largest investor in green technology (especially green energy) by 2005 (and has been leading the green investment since 2010). In the months leading up to the Beijing Olympics, China was subject to numerous criticisms from the Western media for its environmental pollution (Latham 2009; deLisle 2008). The Opening Ceremony does not address the environmental problems in China but treats it as a “world” problem that can be solved with Chinese philosophy and, therefore, Chinese modernity. Thus, for the critics, the proposal of harmony between human and nature in the Opening Ceremony is at best an optimistic vision of an ideal future with characteristics of “Chinese modernity,” which calls for communal efforts for its realization; or at worst, a propaganda to legitimize the Chinese government and its policies, as I will discuss

61 For more detailed discussion, please refer to World Bank (2007).

82 in more details in chapter three, as it obliterates the “actual” difficulties in the society in the representation but emphasizes a vision in a self-affirmative way. Thus, conforming to the central political rhetoric, harmony is one of the prominent motifs of the new Chineseness and the Opening Ceremony, and is also the most ambitious discourse mobilized in the Ceremony, aiming to construct a new version of narratives of history, culture, development pattern, and social life, and to construct a Chinese universalism as an alternative to the Western industrialization- based human-nature relationship, while calling for a peaceful and harmonious world. However, the logic and aesthetics of presenting this harmony and the controversies of China’s human-nature relations, together with the legacy of the Cold War, may again open up space for questions and contestations.

Alternative Chinese Modernity

As mentioned before, to showcase the modernity of contemporary China is one of the most important purposes for bidding to host the Olympic Games. Zhang Yimou and his creative team have made up their minds right from the beginning to “shock the world” by “presenting the best of China” (S. Luo 2009: episode 1; J. Li 2008). The “best of China” means not only its grand history and culture, but also its modernity. Modernity is what Chinese have been longing for more than a century since the first Opium War when the imperial government was defeated by the British fleet in 1940. The often heard claim in popular and political discourses is that after more than one century’s “humiliation” of being invaded (Callahan 2006), exploited, and isolated, the Chinese have a strong anxiety to be “strong” and to showcase the strengths and power of China to the world. With the approaching “great rejuvenation” of the Chinese ethnicity, the Chinese authorities are confident in articulating a kind of Chinese modernity. The Chinese modernity, according to Lo Kwai-Cheung, is “a culturally specific kind of modernity — one that differs from the Euro-American model but fits well into its specific context” (2011: 382). It should “not be merely grasped as a 83 pluralization of or a sheer resistance to the monistic Eurocentric account of modernity”; instead, it “implies a potential emergent center of capitalist power that may cause the global picture of capitalist modernization to be redrawn” (ibid.). The Opening Ceremony has provided an ideal stage to articulate this Chinese modernity to the world. Modernity is mainly presented in the second component, Glorious Era, which is designated to show the achievements of the Chinese Economic Reform and to express China’s aspirations and expectation for the future. One of the most notable performances about modernity is the aforementioned metaphor of green development, appearing mainly in the first two sections, Starlight and Nature, as I have discussed in the above section. This “harmony between human and nature” implies a vision of the future of the Chinese modernity, and a future of mankind (image 2.9.3). In the third section Dream, astronauts are winched down from the rim of the sports stadium, reminding the audience of the outer-space and moon-landing program,62 a program which is regarded as evidence of China’s advance and progress in high technology (image 2.9.1). The high-speed train, the Internet, and the social landscape shown on the LED screen during the Starlight section are other explicit presentations of the modernity achieved in China (image 2.9.2).

Figure 2.9: Scenes of High-tech Olympics and Green Olympics.

Image 2.9.1: Image 2.9.2: Image 2.9.3: The astronauts The high technology The children paint in daily life with green idea

62 One manned space flight was launched on 27 September 2009, roughly one month after the Olympics, propelling yet another wave of popular nationalism across the country.

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There are also other implicit presentations of modernity. The Bird’s Nest sports stadium, a very modernistic building and the biggest sports stadium in the world, is itself regarded as representing China’s modernity. Its huge capacity has allowed about ninety-one thousand spectators to witness the Opening Ceremony, which also set a new “record” in the modern Olympic history. The spectators have also become a part of the spectacle: on the one hand, they are audiences of the spectacle as they do not participate in the actual performance; on the other hand, in the broadcast and rebroadcast of the event, their vast number has made them an important part of the spectacle, for their responses to every performance and section during the Ceremony are so notable. In fact, the creative team of the Opening Ceremony has turned the entire city of Beijing into the venue for the event. The firework of twenty-nine giant footprints, representing the steps of the twenty-nine Olympics walking to Beijing and the Bird’s Nest, traveled through the south-north axis of Beijing to the modernistic National Olympic Park. The regular celebrating firework also involves the National Olympic Park. The south-north axis of Beijing, including Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden City, the Beihai and Shichahai Park, the drum and bell towers, and Anding gate, covers most of the historical aspects of Beijing. The National Olympic Park, where the Bird’s Nest and the Water Cube, and many other modernistic Olympics-related facilities are located, is regarded as one of the representative districts of modern Beijing. The inclusion of the south-north axis and the National Olympic Park is meant to implicitly indicate that Beijing enjoys both long history with grand culture and high modernity. Thus, the twenty-nine giant steps of firework, starting from the south to north, have double implications: to indicate the twenty-nine Olympics in history walking to Beijing and the Bird’s Nest, and to signal the continuity of Chinese history from ancientness (in another word, backwardness) to modernity. In addition, the modernity of contemporary China shown in the Opening Ceremony is also showcased by the creativity and technology employed in presenting

85 and organizing the event. The opening ceremonies in Sydney and Athens gave much pressure on, as well as inspiration to, the BOCOG, Zhang Yimou, and his creative team. Their goal is to outperform the Athens Opening Ceremony. One of their strategies to achieve this goal is to use advanced technology to create and present the visually stimulating performances. For example, the huge LED “Scroll,” with a length of 147 meters and a width of 22, was the biggest LED screen in the world. It is with this huge LED screen that many spectacular performances become possible and more attractive: it extends across the whole depth of the stage and serves as an ever- changing background, enabling the seamless complement between the performance and the background in practically every session of the event. The design of the fou drum is another example. With sound- and touch-controlled LED lights, the fou drums produce the magnificent, Tetris-like counting-down and the dazzling drum performance in the Welcome section. Similarly, the design of the Dream Olympic Rings, the employment of the huge globe (in the Dream section), the dazzling light effect, the spectacular fireworks, and many other stage properties and performances serve the same purpose. In order to produce the sense of high technology, Zhang has even abandoned his favorite warm colors like Chinese red and bright yellow, which were frequently used in his movies, and chosen the cold hues of color. Colors like deep blue and green imbue the presentation of modernity with technology. Moreover, the smooth organization of the whole performance, which has involved more than 14,000 performers and a huge amount of logistic work, reflects the significance of management — a “science” that China has been eager to pursue through the Economic Reform since Deng Xiaoping’s era.63

63 Deng had anticipated an improvement in corporate management or “management modernization” in the 1980s. More detailed description can be seen in Ezra Vogel (2011: chapter 10).

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Figure 2.10: The involvement of the modernistic sports stadiums and the central Beijing.

Image 2.10.1: Image 2.10.2: Image 2.10.3: Footprint firework Water Cube Bird’s Nest

As many observers have noticed, modernity is constructed in the Opening Ceremony largely through the use of technology and material production; and, partly, through an expectation toward a green “scientific development” pattern. The presented modernity also shows the taxonomy that China has long had. The pursuit of modernization has been the goal for many generations of Chinese. After the Opium War in 1840, many Chinese elites attributed China’s failure to the backwardness in technology and material production, especially in armament technology and production. Later, people gradually acknowledged that it was not only the backwardness in technology and material production, but also the political system that had made China fall into an unprivileged situation. In the New Culture Movement in the 1910s to early 1920s, there was a famous assertion that “only ‘Mr. Democracy’ and ‘Mr. Science’ can save China.” After 1949 when the People’s Republic of China established, the government proposed that China had solved the problem of “democracy”; thus, only the science and technology problem remained. This assertion was again emphasized after the launch of the Four Modernizations: the Four Modernizations are, after all, about science and technology, and materiality. The long- term emphasis on technology results in a strong tendency that favors technology and materiality but de-prioritizes social well-being and the building of more balanced power-sharing structures. The management capacity is integrated as one of the important aspects of Chinese modernity in the Opening Ceremony. However, the robot-like performances

87 presented in the Opening Ceremony and the numerous interviews about the preparation (e.g. Olympic Archives: episode 1; S. Luo 2009) show that nearly every group of performers and workers of the ceremony have been managed in a “half- military” way with an emphasis that “national interests are supreme” (Olympic Archives: episode 4). For example, the presenter escorts of the athlete teams had been trained for about half a year, in an enclosed environment and following a seven-day-a- week training schedule (Olympic Archives: episode 3). It is, to some extent, a highly Taylorist and half-military management, and involves a classification of the collective and the individual that demands the latter to sacrifice for the former, which is one of the most media-circulated characteristics of Chinese culture. Although the management of the Opening Ceremony is much more complicated than performers and human resources management, the slogan “national interests are supreme” on the wall of the directive office of the Opening Ceremony can reveal the underpinning idea of this management modernity. Although the modernity constructed in the Opening Ceremony is one- dimensional (focusing on materiality and technology) and even authoritarian (as displayed in the organization and management of the Opening Ceremony and the overall Beijing Olympics), it is what is going on in China and it is what China is trying to present to the world: an economic development with Chinese cultural and political characteristics. It implies an eagerness to wipe out the “one hundred years of humiliation” since the Opium War, and a pride resulting from the fulfillment of this “modernity.” As I have discussed in chapter one, the Chinese modernity, either in the name of “Beijing Consensus” (Ramo 2004) or “China Model” (Lin 2006), can be seen as an alternative of the “Washington Consensus” and the Western modernity. The celebration of this modernity is to implicitly prove its feasibility and to promote it as one of the components of the Chinese “soft power.”

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Determined Romanticism

The intention to change the old images of China is comprehensive: Zhang Yimou and his colleagues also aim to redefine Chinese “temperament.” As Zhang explains in an interview:

Usually, [when we talk about] dreams and romance, [we] refer to the French. The Chinese ethnicity always gives others an impression of being solemn, reserved, and repressive. But I think a dreamlike and romantic style will greatly improve our image: we are not the Chinese in their imagination. (Zhang and Xia 2008)

In order to produce this dreamlike and romantic style, in contrast to some people’s insistence on showcasing China’s power and strength, Zhang Yimou is believed to have specifically “softened” the narrating style (J. Li 2008: 74, 80). A typical example is the softening of the nationalistic An Ode to My Homeland [歌唱祖国], which is performed after the fou drum welcoming section and before the national anthem (image 2.5.1). A beautiful and sweet girl, Lin Miaoke [林妙可], sings the originally strong and march-like song in a soft and lyrical style (to achieve a better effect, Zhang has selected the singing of another girl who can sing better and asked Lin to lip-synch on the spot). The winched-up young girl flying a kite in the air (in the Starlight section), the 5-year-old cute young girl who co-plays with the famous Chinese pianist Lang Lang (in the Starlight section), the inclusion of 2008 smiling faces from all the countries and regions participating in the Beijing Olympics, and the adoption of the theme song “You and Me” are other pertinent examples of these “softenizations.” However, according to Zhang, it is not softening but “humanizing,” “emotionizing,” and “romanticizing,” implying a “world-ness” or “universalism.” Zhang explains:

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What nicely surprises them [the foreign audience] is that [these performances] show another visage of ours: romance and dream, dream and romance in the modern sense, although what are presented are the many cultural heritages from ancient China. In fact, the world-ness comes exactly out of here: that is, humanity, world-ness, and tolerance. (Zhang and Xia 2008)

Here Zhang is articulating a specific humanitarianism and universalism of “dream and romance.” According to his understanding, the dream and romance “in the modern sense” implies humanity, world-ness, and tolerance. This understanding reflects the Chinese humanism discourse since the 1990s. As Wang Hui argues, the “Contemporary Chinese humanism and the concept of the human being were, at first, directed against Marxism which occupied a dominant position in ideology” (1995: n. pag.). It is a counternarrative to the official discourses in which:

Chinese philosophy, history, literature, and other branches of the social sciences established, around the core of the Marxist mode of production concept, a system of knowledge based on the following fundamental concepts: the economic basis, the superstructure, ideology, class, class struggle, and so forth. (ibid.)

In the articulation of Chinese humanism, Chinese history and philosophy, and Western individualist culture are mingled together. Chinese humanism is “again molded by Western individualist knowledge” (ibid). This articulation, according to Wang Hui, is Chinese scholars’ responses to the official political discourses about “the issues regarding the modernization of China” (ibid.). Similarly, Zhang Yimou is concerned about the possible representation of Chinese modernity in an “official” or nationalist way (or more precisely, neo-patriotic or neo-Leftist way, as I will discuss in chapter five), thence he uses this humanistic “world-ness” of “romance and

90 dreams” to present China and Chinese modernity to the world, a strategy which is closely linked with “to-be-looked-at-ness.” Presenting the performances and China in a dream-like and romantic style is thought to help build up a better China image, for it showcases another visage of the Chinese: self-confident, romantic, and friendly. However, for Zhang, being romantic implies not only “world” universalism, but also Chinese mightiness. Zhang believes that China is already strong and powerful, one typical example of which is the timing of the Opening Ceremony in the evening. He comments:

Two of the three opening ceremonies of the Olympics in Asia, one in Tokyo, the other in Seoul, were scheduled during the daytime. What dreams and romance can you make during daytime? Why? It was out of the concerns of the audience-rating and the time-difference issues of the powerful countries in Europe and America. . . . But this is not the case in China: [it is set] at 8:00 p.m., our prime time, regardless what time it may be in your time zone. China is powerful now, powerful enough for them to accept this time difference. This is why we can finish these artistic performances in the evening, in the dazzling rendering of lights. (Zhang and Xia 2008)

The timing of the Opening Ceremony itself, therefore, is the proof and evidence of China’s powerfulness. Meanwhile, he is alerted that this powerfulness could be disturbing, he says:

I know many foreigners have many misunderstanding of us, they even juxtapose our Opening Ceremony with the Nazi’s in the 1930s. They don’t know you, misunderstand you, and are expected to be frightened by us, they expect that “you shock me and make me fear.” I know exactly that many foreigners are expecting this. (J. Li 2008: 78)

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Indeed, it is the possible hints of “China threats” that he wants to avoid in the Opening Ceremony. His strategy is to romanticize the performance. He explains: “I think that only when an ethnicity becomes self-confident can it be romantic and make dreams. Merely making greatness and grandiosity is not enough.” (J. Li 2008: 74). The reason for this inadequacy is that “mightiness brings about look-up-ness, and look-up-ness creates distance, which discomforts people” (ibid.: 75). In this sense, the romanticization of the performances is an expediency employed to create a better image of China without alarming others. This romanticization or humanization, though expedient, requires substantial efforts. For example, in order to produce the perfect friendliness, during the last week, especially the last three days before the Opening Ceremony, all the performers were required to practice “smiling.” Some performers practiced so hard that they even got facial spasms (S. Luo 2009: episode 7, 8). In order to produce the dream-like visual effects, vast investments were put into costume design and manufacturing, stage properties procurement, and dance choreography. In addition, some of these deliberately romanticized cases have even caused huge controversies, as we can see in the case of lip-synching in the performance of An Ode to My Homeland. Thus, this intentional romanticization/humanization is a reflection of China’s yearning to be recognized by the world on the one hand, and of China’s determination to rise as a superpower on its own terms on the other. It is a mixed institution of articulating a “world” universalism of humanism and romanticism to make its appeals more agreeable, whilst insisting on the fundamental particularity of its appeals (e.g., the Chinese culture, nationalism, political discourses, harmony between human and nature). With this institution of “common difference” (Wilk 1995, 2004), Zhang and his colleagues have promoted a Chinese universalism (Chinese cultural modernity) as an alternative to the Western one. The romanticization/humanization, therefore, has served as a masking institution of the Chinese determination, which may be called some kind of “determined romanticism,” a strategy that may be linked to “strategic essentialism.”

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Conclusion

From the above analysis, we can see that, with interwoven discourses of Chinese splendid culture and long continuous history, harmony, and alternative modernity, the Opening Ceremony of the Beijing Olympics has articulated a new set of Chineseness. This new Chineseness emphasizes the Chinese particularity to distinguish China from the rest of world, mobilizes universalism to guarantee its acceptance, and meanwhile hints the potential of this set of Chineseness (at least some aspects of it) as an alternative to the Western modernity. It is, on the one hand, a to-be-looked-at spectacle, which traps itself into the “world-ness” of Western aesthetics while trying to escape from the Western Orientalistic imagination of China; on the other hand, although it is not absolutely, in Gayatri Spivak’s term, “scrupulous,” it is an articulation of what Spivak calls “strategic essentialism,” that is, “positivist essentialism in a scrupulously visible political interest” (1996[1985]: 214), which aims to articulate a new and ideal China image. With this strategically essentialized Chinese particularity, universalism, and alternative, this new set of Chineseness articulates an ideal China: China is a “superpower” with a long continuous history and grand culture, a harmonious society, which has long been advocating and contributing to the harmonious world, and a modern and prosperous society with harmonious and scientific development values that emphasize green development and the harmony between human and nature. In addition to these essentialist narrations of the “tangible” Chineseness, the Opening Ceremony has further constructed the temperament of the “new” Chinese: self-confident, friendly, romantic, and determined (with perseverance) to build an even better China. This construction of new Chineseness is rather one-dimensional or even monolithic. The logic of spectacle in Handelman’s (2004) terms can be clearly observed in the articulation of the new Chineseness: with a self-consciousness to “do things according to the Chinese way” and a competitive goal to outdo the Opening 93

Ceremony of the Athens Olympic Games, the chief director Zhang Yimou and his creative team constructed this set of new Chineseness largely in accordance to the Chinese bureaucratic logic, such as the hierarchy between the central and the peripheral; the priority between the material and technological development, and political changes; the emphasis on the open and reform era and the political avoidance of the Maoist times; the employment of the political discourse of harmony; and so on. The Ceremony, therefore, has articulated an ideal China based on the political discourses and bureaucratic institutions that aim to foster nationalism. It has turned the new set of Chineseness into a part of a general process whereby “the modern state torques together infrastructure and emotion” so as to generate commitments to the distant state (Handelman 2004: 202). Thus, the new set of Chineseness, on the one hand, feeding the Western audience with its to-be-looked-at-ness and strategic essentialism, aims to construct a new and ideal image to the world; while on the other hand, it fosters the national identity according to the CCP government’s priority. It embodies inherent controversies in its articulation process and opens up spaces for contestations. In the following chapters, I will examine how this set of new Chineseness and the Opening Ceremony are contested globally, regionally, and on the Chinese Internet.

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Chapter Three The Janus-Faced China: How is China Presented in Anglo-American Media?

Despite the slogan of “One World, One Dream,” the Beijing Olympic Games turn out to be a multi-themed mega-media event. The rejection of Beijing’s first bid for hosting the Games, and the approval of the second were both related to political concerns (Brownell 2008; Haugen 2008). Since 2001 when the Games were awarded to Beijing, the Olympic Games have been regarded as the best opportunity to brand a new Beijing/China, and indeed China has been trying hard to deliver favorite narratives to domestic and global audiences. Meanwhile, world-spinning narratives and counternarratives, especially on the issues of human rights, environmental protection, Tibet, and Darfur, have never stopped (deLisle 2008). In this chapter I will focus on how the global English media responded to this construction of a new China image in the Opening Ceremony of the Beijing Olympics, by taking the broadcast of NBC in the United States and BBC in the United Kingdom as examples.64 Both NBC and BBC are prominent English television channels, and they both have a long tradition of Olympic broadcasting. Moreover, NBC and BBC are representatives of commercial and public television channels respectively, an analysis of these two channels can generate meaningful comparisons.

64 The selection is based on the influence of the channels, the project resources, as well as the language ability of the research team. Ideally, the analysis should cover broader geographic and linguistic areas and involve different media forms to achieve a more comprehensive analysis of the “global” responses to the Opening Ceremony. However, with limited resources and energy, I have to limit the case studies within the English world (with a focus on Anglo-America). For more detailed discussion, please see the methodology section in chapter one and Appendix I.

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With the concept and approach of global media events, I will analyze how NBC and BBC situatively “center” the Opening Ceremony of the Beijing Olympics by their unique performativity, how these “centerings” are related to power and features of media cultures, and how they reveal the linkages and differences of the commercial and public television channels in the West. I will scrutinize the situative processes of “localization” in articulating meanings that are “meaningful” in their own media culture, while keeping in mind that such national media cultures are by no means univocal or monolithic. In other words, I will demonstrate that the global mediation of the Ceremony is not related to only one power center, but to many centers; that it articulates not one set of meanings surrounding a clearly defined thematic core, but multilayered meanings that are loosely, but not loyally, connected to a broadly defined thematic core: the Opening Ceremony held in the Bird’s Nest, Beijing, on 8 August 2008. With these cases studies, I argue that the West-China communication needs to turn away from an imperial and cold-war mentality.

Dragon or Panda

As I have already discussed in chapter one, there are two conflicting images of China that have long existed in Western societies. Nowadays, these binary images of China are depicted as a “cute panda” or an “evil dragon” (Gries 2004), optimistic “dreams” or pessimistic “nightmares,” and “good Chinese” or “bad Chinese government” (Wasserstrom 2008). When dealing with China, different people and institutions negotiate different sides of these binary images (and sometimes both sides). Western media also constantly mobilize this Janus-faced image of China in their reports, but with a particular interest in the “evil” image (Gries 2004; Wasserstrom 2008; Zhao and Hackett 1998; Mackerras 1999; and many others). This is also the case in the Olympics-related reports (Brownell 2008; Latham 2009; deLisle 2008). For example, by 2008 Susan Brownell had monitored American media coverage of Chinese sports for more than twenty years, and she “felt all along that the image of Chinese sports is 96 generally negative” (Brownell 2008: 150). In the months leading up to the Beijing Olympics, the Western media had been in a competition with Chinese media and neo- patriots in reporting the “real” China. In contrast to Chinese authorities’ efforts to showcase “China’s economic, technological, cultural, social and environmental achievements to the rest of the world,” the foreign journalists, “although to some degree silenced by the impressive organization and sporting spectacle of the Games, nevertheless engaged in their own efforts to reveal the ‘real’ China behind what they took as state propaganda, official deception of the public and Olympic ‘fakery’” (Latham 2009: 25, 26). Under such circumstances, China was caught in dilemmas when facing the Western media. For example, Jeffey N. Wasserstrom has portrayed the Western media’s perspectives and the dilemma China was facing:

If protests against the regime occur during the Games (or at other times), these will be taken by some commentators to be additional proof that the Communist Party is a repressive organization. But if there are no protests, this will likely be cited by some commentators as evidence of just how repressive the Communist Party is. (2008: 179; italics original)

The overall Janus-faced image of China in the Western society and the particular interest in an “evil” China in the Western media reveal a pervasive Western imperialism and the persistent cold-war mentality (Manzenreiter 2010; Brownell 2008), which was the backdrop of the live/rebroadcast of the Opening Ceremony of the Beijing Olympics on the Western television channels. In the following, I will demonstrate how the western television channels, though in different ways, mobilize the Janus-faced image of China, taking NBC and BBC as examples.

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NBC65: Centering the Opening Ceremony with a

Commercialized Exoticism

On 8 August 2008, the rebroadcast of the Opening Ceremony was shown on NBC roughly twelve hours later than the original ceremony. Due to the time difference, when the Opening Ceremony began in Beijing, it was morning in the United States (PST 5:08 a.m., EST 8:08 a.m.), a time when few people would watch television. Therefore, NBC decided to postpone the rebroadcast to the local time 8:00 p.m. (eastern), the prime time that would attract more audience and, more importantly, advertisers. This timing has enabled NBC to have more time to refine the rebroadcast, and to partly dodge the rigorous standards and regulations of the IOC on live broadcasts of the Opening Ceremony. Compared to regular live broadcasts on, for example, CCTV or BBC, NBC’s rebroadcast has adopted more panoramas and medium shots that could better showcase the spectacular visuality of the artistic performance. The commentators also had more time to prepare, thus they appeared more familiar with the show’s content and were able to give more in-depth comments and interpretations of the cultural and political meanings than the live broadcasts of the show, even the CCTV live broadcast. The commentators’ casual dialogue-like commentary style, in- depth interpretation of the cultural meaning of the artistic performance, and the apparently friendly attitude toward China and Chinese culture, all gain high appraisal from many Chinese netizens. The NBC’s rebroadcast is, therefore, quite ironically, regarded as the “best representation” of the Opening Ceremony and a “friendly recognition of China’s culture and accomplishments” by Chinese netizens,66 and has

65 NBC has a complex channel structure, including NBC News, NBC Sports, and many other channels. In this chapter, NBC refers to NBC Sports unless specified, although the Opening Ceremony of the Beijing Olympics was broadcast on NBC’s multiple channels and platforms. 66 See numerous posts and websites, e.g., “Where Can I Find the NBC Olympic Opening Ceremony [NBC 奥运开幕式哪里有下载].” 2008. Tianya Q & A [天涯问答]. 10 August. http://wenda.tianya.cn/question/7f08957579671c44 (accessed 28 Nov 2010). In 2012, after the opening of the London Olympics, there were again posts and blogs on the Internet relating personal experiences

98 soon become one of hottest items for P2P software users in China. Volunteers, in a way that Alvin Toffler (1980) calls “prosumers,” have even translated all the commentaries of the artistic performance section into Chinese subtitles. Pirated DVDs with Chinese subtitles appeared in the market as early as the end of August 2008 in Beijing. However, what cultural translations are taking place in NBC’s rebroadcast of the Opening Ceremony? Is it really a “friendly recognition of China’s culture and accomplishments”? If so, what factors have led NBC to such recognition? If not, what ideology lies behind the apparently friendly rebroadcast? Or in other words, what is “centered,” in what way is it “centered,” and by what performativity? And what is the response of the new Chineseness? What meaning does it articulate, and for what/whom? With these questions in mind, I will analyze in the following how the Opening Ceremony and particularly the new Chineseness, are situated, thickened, and centered through the performativity of NBC’s rebroadcast.

A Political Recognition with Reluctance

The rebroadcast of the Opening Ceremony of the Beijing Olympics was certainly not the first time NBC engaged China in the Olympics broadcasting. In the past broadcasts since 1992, NBC’s attitude to and commentaries on China were quite coherent with the particular interest of the Western media in an “evil dragon”. One example is Bob Costas, the prominent sports journalist in NBC who commentated every broadcast of the opening ceremonies of the summer Olympics since 1992. In the broadcast of the opening ceremony of the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, he introduced China as an authoritarian and oppressive country that “might be the closest thing to an old-style East German sports machine, closed society, very efficient, of watching the NBC’s rebroadcast of the Opening Ceremony of the Beijing Olympics. To some extent, for the Chinese supporters, the NBC’s rebroadcast has become a collective mediated memory (van Dijck 2007), for it has been an object “creating and recreating a sense of our past, present, and future selves in relation to others” (2007: 171).

99 taking young athletes, putting them in sports schools and using who knows what methods in their pursuit of Olympic medals” (qtd. in Brownell 2008: 166–67). In the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, he emphasized China’s “threat” in the Taiwan Strait disputes and stressed the doping suspicion of Chinese athletes. After the protests from Chinese Americans against his “polluting” introduction and comments of China,67 Bob Costas has softened his tone of interpreting China since the 2000 Sydney Olympics. However, accusations of his “racist” interpretations of the Chinese in broadcasts of the opening ceremonies of the Sydney and Athens Olympics can still be seen on the Internet and in the press.68 As mentioned before, since March 2008 there had been a new wave of critiquing China in the West, including the US media, indicating a new wave of articulating China’s image of an “evil dragon.” However, having invested 2.5 billion dollars to obtain the exclusive broadcasting franchises of the 2008 Summer, 2010 Winter, and 2012 Summer Olympiads in the United States, NBC was quite unlikely to support any boycott or to heavily engage in criticizing the Beijing Olympics, which would significantly affect its revenues.69 NBC mobilized three thousand professionals, three luxurious studios (one in the Olympic Press Building, one at of Tiananmen Square, one opposite the Bird’s Nest Stadium), and its prominent reporters in the broadcast of the Beijing Olympics. It built up close cooperation with the BOCOG, and even managed to persuade the BOCOG and the Chinese government to allow it to employ one camera helicopter, which was a privilege that only the BOB (Beijing Olympic Broadcasting Co. Ltd, the official Olympic Broadcasting Organization [OBO] for Beijing 2008 Olympics and Paralympics), CCTV, and NBC enjoyed, given that the usage of helicopters was extremely sensitive

67 After the telecast of the Opening Ceremony of the Atlanta Olympics, Chinese Americans collected thousands of signatures, and raised fund for a full-page advertisement in Washington Post and a quart- page in the New York Times to protest against Costa’s commentary about China. 68 One example can be seen on “Did Bob Costas Say Something Racist about the Chinese during the 2000 or 2004 Olympics?” 2008. Yahoo Answers. http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080821212844AAGjta3 (accessed on 25 Jun 2010). 69 Although NBC Sports operates separately from NBC News, the NBC News had also been less critical of China in the months leading up to the Beijing Olympics, compared to those more radical news channels like CNN and .

100 in Beijing (Olympic Archives: episode 12). However, facing a different media culture in the United States, NBC need to perform according to standards of its “local” media “professionalism” in reporting about boycotting initiatives and activities, and sometimes also need to engage in critiquing China. It, therefore, held a delicate position: it had to negotiate a space between the mainstream and hegemonic media culture (which tended to be a “dragon slayer”) and its own commercial interests. This situation has subtly influenced the performativity of its rebroadcast and the “centering” of the Opening Ceremony (and of the overall Beijing Olympic Games), as my analysis will show in the following. NBC’s broadcast of the Opening Ceremony involved the Tiananmen Square studio and the Bird’s Nest onsite studio. NBC set up dozens of self-equipped cameras in the Bird’s Nest Stadium, including one on the helicopter, which substantially contributed to the spectacular representations of the Opening Ceremony. It involved Tom Brokaw70 in the warm-ups, and Matt Lauer (anchorman of the NBC News’ premium program Today) and Bob Costas as on-site commentators. In addition to these prominent reporters, NBC invited Joshua Cooper Ramo as its “special Chinese analyst” in the on-site commentary. Ramo, a former senior editor and foreign editor of the Time magazine, is the managing director of the Kissinger Associate, and the author of the The Beijing Consensus (2004). The book articulates a “Beijing Consensus” as an alternative to the “Washington Model,” and promotes an idea of the “China model.” Involving Ramo, a “panda hugger” to some critics, can be read as a political gesture that NBC performs in the rebroadcast of the Beijing Opening Ceremony. Compared to the live broadcast on other television channels, NBC’s rebroadcast has a unique structure (see table 3.1). First, it has four sections of pre- event warm-ups, twenty minutes long, including a starting trailer, a video about the

70 Tom Brokaw, born in 1940, is one of the prominent journalists in NBC’s history. He is the only person who has hosted three major NBC news programs: The Today’s Show, NBC Nightly News, and Meet the Press. He is also the author of The Greatest Generations and several other books. See Museum of Broadcast Communication (online). n.d. “Brokaw, Tom.” http://www.museum.tv/eotvsection.php?entrycode=brokawtom (accessed 27 Nov 2010).

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Olympic Games, roughly four minutes, a video about the background of the Beijing Olympiad, roughly seven minutes, and eight minutes of on-site commentary and interviews. Second, some parts of the artistic performance and the parade of nations have been cut off to shorten the overall rebroadcasting time. The selection criteria of what to cut off and what not to is significant in terms of situative “centering.” Third, it has included an interview after the ceremony with Yao Ming, the most famous Chinese basketball player playing in the Houston Rockets in the NBA at that time, as well as a short wrap-up for all the rebroadcast. Last but not least, NBC has inserted more than fifteen commercial breaks into the rebroadcast, which distinguishes it from any other live broadcasts. Overall, it looks much better structured and prepared than the live broadcasts of other channels, more like a documentary feature program than a rebroadcast of a mega-media event.

Table 3.1: The contents and structure of NBC’s rebroadcast of the Opening Ceremony.

Sequence Sections Duration Pre-event Warm-ups 1 Starting trailer 0:00:38 2 Short Video I (about the athletes and the Olympiad) 0:03:44 Short Video II (about the background of the Beijing 3 Olympic Games) 0:07:02 Commercial Break Commentary and Interviews (in the stadium before the 4 artistic performance) 0:07:52 Pre-performance 5 Countdown 0:03:27 6 Welcome Fireworks 0:00:17 7 Introduction of Hu and Rogge 0:00:44 8 Fou Drum Formation 0:03:53 Commercial Break 9 Footprints of History 0:01:18 10 Dream Rings 0:02:42 11 the Chinese National Flag Entry 0:02:25 Raising the National Flag and Singing the National 12 Anthem 0:01:30 Commercial break Artistic Performance: The Beautiful Olympics (Historical Section) 102

13 Painting Scroll (the starting video omitted) 0:05:14 Commercial Break 14 Writing 0:06:04 The Beijing Opera Muppet Performance (the whole section 14A omitted) Commercial break 15 Inland Silk Route 0:02:00 16 Maritime Silk Route 0:04:02 Commercial break 17 Ritual Music (the kunqu opera performance omitted) 0:03:06 18 Fireworks 0:00:07 Commercial Break Artistic Performance: The Beautiful Olympics (Modern Section) 19 Starlight 0:05:32 Commercial Break 20 Nature 0:08:30 Commercial Break 21 Dream 0:02:52 22 Theme Song: You and Me 0:04:02 End-of-show Fireworks (mixed with the Chinese 56 23 Ethnicities’ dancing) 0:01:03 Commercial Break The Athletes’ Entry The Athletes’ Entry (the athletes’ parade of some nations 24 omitted, and five commercial breaks inserted) 1:44:30 The Lighting of the Cauldron Speech by the President of BOCOG and the President of 25 IOC (their entrance omitted) 0:04:22 26 Declaration of the Opening by the President of PRC 0:00:35 27 Olympic Flag Entry (part of the Entry omitted) 0:01:31 Raising the Olympic Flag and Singing the Olympic Anthem (Athlete’s Oath and Official’s Oath, Dove Release 28 omitted) 0:02:51 29 The Lighting of the Cauldron 0:11:13 30 Celebration Fireworks 0:01:30 Concluding Epilogue 31 Interview with Yao Ming 0:02:00 32 Wrap-up Words 0:00:46 33 End Trailer 0:01:10 Total Time of Rebroadcast 03:28:39

In this section, I will analyze how the Opening Ceremony and the Beijing Olympic Games have been politically “centered” in NBC, or how the translocal political meaning has been articulated in the rebroadcast, by examining two questions: 103

(a) How does NBC’s rebroadcast articulate the meaning of the Opening Ceremony and the overall Beijing Olympic Games to China/the Chinese? (b) How does NBC’s rebroadcast interpret China and the relationship between China and the United States? The overall tone of the broadcast of the Beijing Olympic Games, and more specifically, the Opening Ceremony, is first reflected in Section 1 Starting Trailer. This trailer contains a series of beautiful, even breath-taking, scenes: a window opens and a group of pigeons flies out and away over typical Beijing historical courtyard houses, with a red, three-story Chinese style building (Drum Tower) in the middle of the scene; a village located halfway in the hills with terraced fields; a cute young girl with big black eyes turning back to look at the camera; a Chinese-style pavilion, a dragon pillar, the Great Wall, the Forbidden City, Tiananmen Square, the Altar of Heaven (Tiantan); vivacious young children standing or running through the historical sites, the Water Cube, the World Trade Center, and the National Opera Theatre (see figure 3.1). The voice-over, with a magnetic voice and in a passionate way, says:

The footprints of their history stretched back five thousand years, but for the world’s greatest wall builders, makers of the Forbidden City [sic]. What happens tonight is not merely a small step, but a great leap! China is welcoming the world!

Figure 3.1: The images of “tradition” and “modernity” in NBC’s starting trailer.

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The 38-second trailer contains two sets of images that are intentionally attached with symbolic meaning: the Great Wall, the Forbidden City, Tiananmen Square, and other historical sites, which are depicted by NBC as symbols of a closed China; the Water Cube, the World Trade Center, and the National Opera Theatre symbolize the (material) accomplishments after the adoption of the reform policy in 1978. The contrast between the two sets of images suggests that China is undergoing a tremendous transformation from “tradition” to “modernity,” and from “closed” to “open.” Accordingly, the voice-over, first by explicitly referring to the Chinese as “the world’s greatest wall builders, makers of the Forbidden City” (both are symbols of closed-ness), alleges that China has a history of five thousand years of being closed; second, with an acoustic skill, the voice-over consciously leads the audience to the contrasting structure of “tradition” and “modernity,” “closed” and “open,” emphasizing the “rite-of-passage” (van Gennep 2004[1960]) meaning of the opening of the Olympics to China. The voice-over even uses an analog: “What happens tonight is not merely a small step, but a great leap,” which may remind the audience of the famous statement of the moon-landing astronomer, Neil Armstrong: “This is a small step for a man, a giant leap for mankind!” With all these spectacular images, contrasting structure, and impressive voice, this trailer, in an overwhelming way, delivers a clear but oversimplified message: although China is a country with great historical culture and a fast-growing economy, it actually has always been a “closed” country; however, it is now welcoming the world, and the symbolic meaning of this “opening” may even be comparable to the moon-landing in 1969. Therefore, this trailer implies that the Opening Ceremony (and, implicitly, the overall Beijing Olympic Games) is a “rite of passage” or “coming out party” (according to NBC commentator Matt Lauer) of China. This message, on the one hand, exaggerates or amplifies China’s closed political and ideological system, and the symbolic meaning of the opening of the Olympic Games to China; and, on the other, largely neglects the openness that China has achieved in, for example, economic, cultural, and societal sectors in the past thirty years. Even in the period

105 from 1949 to 1978, China still managed to maintain international cooperation with other third-world countries, let alone the Silk Route that had lasted for over a thousand years. However, all these largely escaped NBC’s (and most of the Western media’s) attention. Thus, this starting trailer centers the Olympic Games in terms of the political and international relationship between China and the West, and articulates indeed a unique meaning of the Olympic Games for “China”: a coming out party for a country that has been perceived or imagined as always “closed,” a frequently referred-to feature of the “evil dragon” image of China (Isaacs 1980; Mosher 1990; Spence 1998). This “centering” is further elaborated in Section 3 Short Video II. In this short video, NBC special reviewer Tom Brokaw deliberately explains what the Olympic Games means to China and the Chinese by recalling the key scenarios leading up to 8 August 2008. Brokaw partly adjusts the oversimplified assertion in the starting trailer by contextualizing the Beijing Olympic Games in the social, political, and economic conditions of contemporary China and in the complicated global situation. He recalls that China decided to “move beyond its ‘walls’” well before the Beijing Olympic Games — in 1971 when China invited the American table-tennis team to Beijing, and in the following year when China invited the US President Richard Nixon to visit China. Therefore, although the Games are important for China and its people, it is not China’s first “welcoming of the world.” Brokaw affirms the “rite of passage” meaning of the Games to China, and pushes it a little further, saying that for China and its people, the successful Olympic bid (in 2001) was “a validation of its . . . real wakening after the painful memories of foreign occupation, the cultural revolution, years of isolation,” thus the Games has become “an idol, great consequence, and patriotic pride,” the meaning of which “can’t be underestimated.” Thereby he echoes the symbolic meaning of the Games by calling the opening on the night of 8 August “a night that may be the most significant in modern Chinese history.” Brokaw further amends the overgeneralized image of the starting trailer by pointing out that China has been a highly controversial country: “There are so many

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Chinas. This is a country where half a billion people live on two dollars a day, but where hundreds of millions [are] now experiencing modern prosperity. It is the country where the few rule the many, where protest is not welcomed; a country that still can’t shake the echoes of the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown.” He asserts that, on the one hand, although “culturally, and especially politically, China and the West have an uneasy relationship,” China is still a country “rising into the future, confidently, [and] it can claim its place on its own terms.” On the other hand, given that China is still under the control of an authoritarian regime, he concludes that it is hard to predict what the Games would bring in the short term: “I think in the end of the seventeen days, the leaders have taken a giant step forward or maybe two steps back, my standing rule is: don’t assume you know what the Chinese government will do.” If we take the numerous “ordinary-looking” people (who are working hard, grieved by the Sichuan earthquake, and have genuine patriotic feelings) as presented in the short video, we may conclude that this short video might have affirmed the binary images of “good Chinese” and “bad Chinese government” that persistently exist in Western societies (Wasserstrom 2008). However, what is more noteworthy here is that this short video has articulated an image of a “rising China” (despite its authoritarian governance, polarized society, and fluctuating policies) that is rising confidently into the future and “can claim its place on its own terms.” This articulation implies that the “China” here, to the West, is an “other” who may be uncontrollable (and therefore somewhat dangerous), but after all, it has an optimistic future as a superpower in the medium/long term. The reluctant recognition of China as a rising superpower is further expressed in Section 4 Commentary and Interviews, when the anchormen and commentators Bob Costas (BC) and Matt Lauer (ML) start their commentary. This time their focus is on the boycott of the Beijing Olympic Games and the nations that are politically sensitive to Americans. Matt Lauer brings up the topic in this way:

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What’s going to happen, what response will President Bush get, for example, when he joins dignitaries like Hu Jintao . . . what’s the response going to be to Nicolas Sarkozy, the president of France who angered some people in China with talks of an early boycott and is going back on that; and what response will we hear when the delegations from North Korea, Iran, and Iraq enter this stadium, so [it is] a time that we just sit back and listen.

After two short interviews, they return to this topic again, focusing on President George W. Bush’s presence at the Opening Ceremony (the first time for a sitting president to attend the Games outside America), saying that although he has been urged to boycott the Beijing Olympic Games or at least the Opening Ceremony, he has decided to attend “to support the US athletes” and “to show the respect to China and its accomplishments, which he believes to lead to [sic] more constructive dialogue rather than yet to offending them by not attend[ing].” Then there comes a long but highly significant dialogue that deserves a lengthy quotation:

ML: But it doesn’t say that he has taken a soft line. On the plane way over here he talked about some of the problems he has with China [sic]. And then again yesterday, Bob, in a very strong speech in Thailand, he talked about things like China’s record on human rights on freedom of speech, freedom of religion, the jailing of dissidents, freedom of the press. . . . But then as you said, but wait a second, we encourage them and acknowledge their effort on behalf of the negotiations over North Korea and their nuclear ambitions, and Iran, which is still an unresolved situation. BC: President Bush will meet with Hu Jintao over the weekend and he promises to a kind of exchange of ideas, and presumably, a subject (in) which . . . [words inaudible] pollutions will be included, as well as others, because there are arrays of issues [sic].

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ML: And I guess this is the point, China and its emergence of power forces a lot of countries and their leaders to operate in a grey area, it can’t be black and white because while you agree on something, you don’t agree on others, and it can’t be a firm line, it’s gotta be a little “give and take.”

This conversation affirms Tom Brokaw’s reluctant recognition of China as a rising power, especially in Matt Lauer’s rejoinder when he uses “grey area” and “give and take.” Particularly, the words “force” and “grey line” indicate a more manifest sense of reluctance and unease that the United States (and the West) still has when confronting this rising power, even when they admit that the United States is expecting more Chinese cooperation on issues related to North Korea, Iran, and Iraq. President Bush’s speech in Thailand and Matt Lauer’s defensive statement “it doesn’t say that he has taken a soft line” again imply some degree of political and moral “superiority” over China’s authoritarian governance. Thus, NBC’s rebroadcast centers, politically, on China according to the logic of Realpolitik, in terms of the China-US bilateral relationship and diplomatic cooperation, emphasizing the importance of China’s cooperation in regional political issues. It acknowledges China as an emerging superpower and recognizes its accomplishments, despite with reluctance or unease. The implied power relationship between the United States and China still largely falls in the century-long, Orientalistic US-China relationship paradigm: China is admirable or worthy of “mercy”/cooperation just because of its possible incorporation as a (relatively weaker) partner in international relationship issues (Isaacs 1980; Mosher 1990). Here the relationship between China and the United States resembles what Edward Said argues: “[T]he essential relationship, on political, cultural, and even religious grounds, was seen — in the West, which is what concerns us here — to be one between a strong and a weak partner” (2003[1978]: 41). However, after all, this centering goes beyond the cliché of “China threats” and focuses on more constructive cooperation between China and the United States. The political construction of the new

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Chineseness has been, at least partly, recognized by NBC’s rebroadcast. Compared with Bob Costas’s interpretations of China in the broadcasts of the Opening Ceremony in the 1992 Barcelona Olympics and 1996 Atlanta Olympics, when Costas mostly introduced China as an oppressive communist country and a “threat” to Taiwan, the covert alerts to China are still observable, but the change is obvious too.

Orientalistic Exoticism: Presenting and Interpreting China and Chinese Culture

1. An exoticism of grandiosity and massiveness

Compared to the reluctant political recognition, NBC’s rebroadcast displays a deliberate, even enthusiastic, “spectacularization” of the artistic performances with Chinese traditional cultures. As mentioned before, NBC’s presentation and interpretation of Chinese cultural representations have been appraised by Chinese netizens. The netizens believe that the additional panoramas and medium shots by NBC have much better presented the spectacular visuality of the artistic performances; and that NBC’s commentary is not only more detailed in explaining Chinese culture, but also very kind and friendly to China. Compared to the live broadcasts, the signal of which was largely provided by the BOB, NBC’s rebroadcast actually shares almost ninety-five percent of the camera shots with the standard BOB live version.71 However, the five percent of the shots taken by NBC’s own cameras, together with the remarkable reediting of the BOB standard signals during the 12-hour interval, have made the overall rebroadcast significantly different. The panoramas, especially the bird’s-eye shots and the medium shots made by NBC’s own cameras have perfectly complemented the weakness of the BOB version for being “too detail-

71 “Then I Did Not ‘Backstab’ Zhang Yimou [当初没有“暗算”张艺谋].” 2010. Southern Weekend [南方周末], 12 November. http://news.sina.com.cn/c/sd/2010-11-12/104821460321_4.shtml (accessed 23 Nov 2012).

110 focused” and employing too many close shots. Therefore, NBC’s rebroadcast is believed to have “best” represented the Opening Ceremony as a visual and acoustic feast of Chinese culture. Meanwhile, as many netizens noted, this rebroadcast omits quite a few parts of the artistic performance, many of which are in the most appraised historical section (see table 3.1).72 In Section 13 Painting Scroll, NBC omits the starting video that shows the creative production process of a Chinese painting and the whole section of Section 14A Beijing Opera Puppet Performance. In Section 17 Ritual Music, the kunqu opera performance is left out. Similarly, the ritual scenes in other sections, like the athletes’ parade of some small nations, the lengthy entrance of Jacques Rogge (President of the IOC) and Liu Qi (President of the BOCOG), the Athlete’s Oath and the Official’s Oath, have all been omitted. NBC’s omissions partly reveal its logic of centering the cultural performance. These omissions, on the one hand, have made the rebroadcast more visually attractive to its audience. NBC always focuses on the most visually spectacular scenes, omitting or neglecting the less attractive ones. For example, Section 14A is a hasty and expedient substitution, choreographed and rehearsed in roughly two weeks, for the piying (shadow puppet) section that had been cut after the final rehearsal (S. Luo 2009: episode 7, 8), thus the overall visual and acoustic presentation is less spectacular than other mass performance sections such as the Fou Formation and the Writing section. The short video in Section 13 and the kunqu Opera in Section 14 are two visual “divergences” to the overall performance, for they are not so visually “grandiose” as the others. All these sections are left out in the rebroadcast. Moreover, while presenting the visually spectacular scenes, NBC tries to highlight the most spectacular shots. For example, in the Section 14 Writing, NBC focuses on the “jaw- dropping” (says Matt Lauer) robot-like Movable Type-printing performance, and

72 This is seen by Chinese netizens as the main weakness of the NBC rebroadcast. One post on Tianya Forum, one of the most popular online forums, clearly shows this point: “ NBC’s Version of the Olympic Opening Ceremony Is So So [NBC 版奥运会开幕式感觉挺一般啊].” 2008. Tianya Forum [天涯论坛], 13 August. http://www.tianya.cn/publicforum/content/free/1/1411057.shtml (accessed 29 Apr 2009).

111 largely neglects the performance of “Confucius’s disciples.” In Section 20 Nature, NBC ignores the painting children but fully represents the amazingly perfect circles made by the 2008 taiji performers (in contrast to NBC, the BOB live-broadcast presents these scenes, and many others, in a more balanced, thus less impressive, way). By doing so, NBC’s overall rebroadcast presents the Opening Ceremony as a visually grandiose and structurally well-knit “cinematic show in the real time” (says Bob Costas). These omissions also reveal how the rebroadcast articulates a particular exoticism and Orientalism of China. Grandiosity, massiveness, lavishness, and astonishment are some of the key words of this exoticism. As discussed above, NBC deliberately deletes scenes they consider less fitting, no matter how significant they are for understanding the narrative of the performance. Actually, some of the omitted parts are very crucial for the audience to understand the artistic performance, and for Zhang Yimou and his colleagues to construct the new Chineseness. The starting video of Section 13 is the introduction of the artistic performance: it tells how paper, brush, and ink are prepared, and how a painting scroll is created. It is on this video that Zhang Yimou’s thematic ideas of “scroll” and “painting,” which is the structural frame for the storyline, are based. The omitted performance in Section 17 is a graceful bit of the famous kunqu Blossoms on a Spring Moonlit Night, based on a song dated back to the Sui Dynasty (roughly 1500 years ago) and a poem written by Zhang Ruoxu in the Tang Dynasty (roughly 1200 years ago) about the poetic sorrow of separation and an ontological comprehension of life. It is one of the most prominent moments in the artistic performance that best reflects the sentiments of Chinese traditional intellectuals, and is one of the most important components of Zhang Yimou’s construction of China’s “romance.” However, the remaining part of Section 17 Ritual Music, which presents five groups of women in lavish costumes, juxtaposing the Tang, Song, Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties to impress the audience, has been included and emphasized. In the rebroadcast, the six hundred women’s “fashion show” (says Matt Lauer) has actually attracted most of the three

11 2 commentators’ attention and is, with multi-angled shots, deliberately presented in a spectacular way. This presentation resonates with the exotic imagination of China as a mysterious, oriental woman on the Western screens (Chow 1991: chapter 1). Thus, the ample use of panoramas and medium shots, and the omitting of some bits of the performance serve to articulate an exoticism of grandiosity, lavishness, and astonishment. It is to emphasize the spectacular visuality of the Opening Ceremony and the exoticism of Chineseness. This articulation not only governs the visual presentation and the structure of the rebroadcast, but it also permeates the commentary. In Section 4 Commentary and Interviews, Bob Costas and Matt Lauer emphasize some impressive statistics or facts as follows:

BC: The Bird’s Nest, the big stadium of energy and excitement in the middle of the Olympic green . . . where some 91,000 of people will come to witness an opening ceremony of an unprecedented scope. ML: It’s a big show, we are not hyping, here is a fact, 15,000 performers will take to the stadium floor, that’s a record. BC: 11,000 athletes is a little less than the 15,000 performers, a 300 million dollar production, ten times what Athens spent four years ago [sic] . . .

Later, similar commentaries continue. Here are just some comments from Matt Lauer:

This is one of the world’s largest LED screens . . . 30 feet long by 70 feet wide, and it will even get bigger as this night progresses. (Section 13) We talked about scope and scale at the beginning of the show. . . . A screen at the top of the stadium that stretches . . . stretches over a quarter of a mile, and everything [is] bigger here in China. (Section 15) Once again putting the entire stadium to spectacular use with the images on the membrane at the top. (Section 20)

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By emphasizing the impressive numbers, these commentaries also try to create a grandiose and exotic impression of the Opening Ceremony and the overall China state. This performativity of the centering of the cultural presentation provides a pertinent example for the exotic imaginations of China as an “other” of the West.

2. Implicit contempt behind the friendliness

The involvement of Joshua Cooper Ramo, NBC’s China analyst, the former foreign editor of the Time magazine, extends the commentary from exotic appraisals to more detailed cultural interpretations. In the commentator team, Ramo’s role is to provide background knowledge and cultural readings of the presentations. He has tried hard to reveal the historical background and cultural meanings of the performances to the American audience, which is also acknowledged by many Chinese netizens. Obviously, Ramo has specifically researched and prepared for the interpreting job; he has presented broad and in-depth knowledge of Chinese culture. His interpretation of the characteristics of traditional Chinese narratives, the cultural meaning of the patterns shown by the movable type-printing blocks, and the Chinese Inland and Maritime Silk Routes, as well as other sections of the performance, have provided a basis for the average American audience to grasp an idea of the cultural meaning of the performance. However, he is so eager to deliver comprehensive interpretations of the performance in terms of history, culture, and politics that he sometimes “misreads” or over-interprets the performance. This is typically reflected in the interpretation of the ending part of Section 14 when the movable type-printing blocks transform from the mimesis of the Great Wall to the blossoming of peach flowers. He says:

And now a symbol that is perhaps the most famous in China, the Great Wall, 4000 miles long, built and rebuilt over almost a 1000-year period as this country tried to keep barbarians out. Ha-ha, now a moment of symbolism

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that is just remarkable, the director Zhang Yimou brings the Great Wall down and replaces it with blossoming plum flowers, the Chinese symbol for openness. [italics added]

This interpretation contains three “misreadings.” First, the duration of building and rebuilding the Great Wall is much longer than a thousand years: it was first built, at least, in the Qin dynasty which dated back to 221–207 BC, and its last massive reconstruction was during the Ming dynasty (1368 AD–1644 AD); thence the duration of its building and rebuilding is more than 1500 years. Second, the blossoms shown in the performance are peach blossoms and not plum flowers. Third, neither peach blossoms nor plum flowers symbolize openness: the peach blossoms mainly symbolize spring and love, sometimes may refer to peace. Similar mistakes and misreadings can also be found in the interpretations of Section 19 and other sections. The point here is not to emphasize the accuracy of the commentary and interpretation, but to analyze the power relations behind the commentary, to which I will go back later in this chapter. When the eagerness to provide a comprehensive interpretation entangles with some more overt discrimination, it can produce some more indicative moments as shown in the commentary in Section 17 Ritual Music:

ML: . . . This is one of those moments for we have to stop and Woo and Ahh a little bit about the costumes, Zhang Yimou put on a fashion show on the floor. Look at the colors, look at the detail, look at the number of costumes he had to create for the show. BC: And consider these performers in often heavy costumes in a pervasive heat and humidity [sic]. JCR (Ramo): One of the wonderful things about China, frankly, is there is incredible attention to little, tiny details. Watch the way these women move their hands, you can see this in teahouse or even in McDonald’s in

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China. Just a leftover cultural emphasis on the way that tiniest gestures matter so much. BC: So, so you order a Big Mac and fries in Beijing and they present it to you in conspicuous elegance? JCR: For you? Yes. ML: It’s the way they do in Manhattan, isn’t it? BC: Absolutely.

In this dialogue, Matt Lauer first stresses the spectacle of the costumes, which reflects both the self-Orientalistic representing style of Zhang Yimou (Chow 2010) and the Orientalistic reading of Lauer himself. Bob Costas supplements by commenting on the harsh weather conditions for the performers wearing the heavy costumes, which may implicitly remind the audience of the reports about the arduous training that the performers and participants experienced, and may hint the stereotype in Western societies of the highly disciplined life under the authoritarian governance in China (see also Brownell 2008: 6–12). Ramo’s interpretation of the gestures further mobilizes the Orientalistic stereotypes of Chinese femininity and overall Chinese culture (Chow 1991). After that comes a casual joke involving the Chinese American workers in Manhattan’s Chinese restaurants, revealing the covert contempt for Chinese Americans who largely share an image as lower-class workers or laborers (Mosher 1990; Mackarras 1999). The performativity of situative thickening (or the translocal processes of articulating meaning) here in these dialogues and many other commentaries in NBC’s rebroadcast mobilize multilayered Orientalistic stereotypes to interpret the performance of the five groups of female dancers. It implies the implicit “superiority” of the commentators over Chinese, although they apparently display an appreciation of the visuality of the performance or Chinese culture. Edward Said, more than thirty years ago, addresses this issue in this way:

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To the extent that Western scholars were aware of contemporary Orientals or Oriental movements of thought and culture, these were perceived either as silent shadows to be animated by the Orientalist, brought into reality by him, or as a kind of cultural and intellectual proletariat useful for the Orientalist grander interpretative activity, necessary for his performance as superior judge, learned man, powerful cultural will. (2003[1978]: 208)

From Said’s view, even in Ramo, the one who shows most appreciation of Chinese culture and in-depth knowledge of China (and is even labeled a “panda hugger” as his articles promote the “Beijing Consensus”), one can see the shadow of an Orientalist and a sense of Western “superiority.”

Admirable Technology and Modernity

Modernity, one of the two “motifs” (historical culture and modern material accomplishments) constructed in NBC’s starting trailer, is also elucidated in the rebroadcast. During both Section 2 Short Video I and Section 3 Short Video II, there are specific presentations of China’s modernity. Although the theme of Short Video I is to provide a narrative background of the Olympics, it also continues the narrative structure of the starting trailer, providing a series of dazzling images of historical sites (the Shichahai Park, the Great Wall, and the Tiananmen Square) and material accomplishments (the multileveled flyovers, the business streets, the riverside night cityscapes, and the Bird’s Nest). The voice-over refers to the Chinese as “1.3 billion who framed the front page story of the twenty-first century,” and interprets China as a nation “both outside tie and bursting in every which way in the bewildering rush of transformation [sic].” The Short video II involves a similar narrative structure, and Brokaw explains that among the “so many ‘Chinas’” there is the China “where hundreds of millions [are] now experiencing modern prosperity.” All this

117 performativity centers China as a fast-modernizing (or to some extent even modernized) country that enjoys high material accomplishments. During the rebroadcast, NBC specifically presents the modernistic architectures in the Olympic Green, such as the Bird’s Nest, the Water Cube, and so on. The commentators pay specific attention to the technology employed during the performance. During Section 10 Dream Rings, Matt Lauer notes that “now as if by those dream rings are lifted from the floor of the stadium, just some of the technology and engineering that you are going to be seeing an awful lot of tonight.” He also, as mentioned earlier, notices and mentions three times, with passion and shock, the huge LED screens on the floor and at the top of the stadium. The commentators are also very impressed by the use of the giant globe (on which Liu Huan and Sarah Brightman sing the theme song You and Me), and the suddenly appearing Olympic cauldron (Matt Lauer comments, “it wasn’t even here thirty minutes ago, this appeared from over the top of the stadium, another amazing feat of the engineering here in the Bird’s Nest.”). Even without this passionate commentary, the audience may still be impressed by the exotic presentations of the dazzling use of light, the use of technology-based stage property (like the “stunning” image displayed on the LED, and the giant globe), and other “technology and engineering” that are prevalent in the performance. Furthermore, although the artistic performance neglected the period from the nineteenth century to 1978 when the reform policy started, the commentators pay no attention to the periodization of the “historical” and the “modern.” Lauer and Ramo have the following dialogue at the beginning of the second half, the “Modern” part:

ML: We told you that the show will be divided into ancient and modern. We’ve now arrived at the modern and I guess we can put an estimated year on this, Joshua, somewhere around 1978. JCR: Yeah, I think that’s about right, when the period of reform and opening began in China.

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Unlike BBC, NBC commentators do not question why the missing “miserable moments” (BBC commentator Carrie Gracie’s words) are omitted. Also, they have not paid much attention to the issues related to economic growth, such as pollution (like BBC, which will be analyzed later in this chapter). Compared with the commentators of BBC’s live broadcast, they pay more attention to how technology, engineering, and modernity are employed and presented in the performance, and focus more on enjoying the overall artistic presentation. Thus, this performativity of thickening the technology and modernity largely meets the constructed new Chineseness, and reflects the general attitude of the “panda huggers” who appreciate China’s economic growth and encourage the development of China-US economic relationship. Since the mid-1990s, after a short break from roughly 1989 to 1993, China and the United States have resumed bilateral relationships and have become more economically connected. China became one of the top five economic partners of the States in the late 1990s, and has been one of its top two partners in recent years.73 Meanwhile, the United States has been China’s biggest economic partner since the late 1990s (the only exception being 2008 and 2010). In both China and the United States, economic ties have surpassed many other, for example, political, concerns. In the United States, despite a concern of the impact of imported Chinese goods on the grassroots level, the importance of the Chinese economy for the business sector has long been emphasized. Although China at first served as a low-cost supplier, which also implies an unbalanced imperialist relationship as discussed above, China and the United States are building intensive, multilevel partnerships, which again have subtle impacts on the business sector on which commercial television channels like NBC Sports rely. NBC’s rebroadcast reveals the working logic of commercial television. NBC has invested heavily in obtaining the exclusive broadcast franchise of the Beijing

73 For more detailed information, please refer to: United States Census Bureau (online). 2012. “Top Ten Countries with Which the U.S. Trades 1998–2012.” http://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/top/ (accessed 30 Sep2012).

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Olympic Games. As a sports-focused commercial television channel, it is under intensive pressure to increase its revenue and to make a profit, thus it shares less political interests with public television channels or news channels. Heavy critiques of China might spontaneously drive viewers away and simultaneously imperil the cooperation with BOCOG, which was crucial for broadcasting the overall Games. Thus, NBC has to negotiate a space between the media culture of the United States, which tends to critique China, and its plan to increase revenue; or, in Gries’ words, to negotiate a position between “panda huggers” and “dragon slayers.” The result of this negotiation is: On the one hand, NBC has to present the Opening Ceremony as astounding and exotic as possible to push the audience to endure a commercial break every three to five minutes. On the other hand, NBC has to show some degree of local media “professionalism” by critiquing China’s authoritarian governance. The reluctance behind the acknowledgement of the rising power of China, the covert “superiority” of the West and the Westerners, and the must-have critics of the Chinese government all clearly demonstrate this performativity of “professionalism.” On the whole, its unique performativity of the centering of the Opening Ceremony, although regarded as friendly to China by Chinese netizens, still mobilizes the Janus-faced image of China and implies the imperialist power of the United States. From the above analysis we can see that NBC’s rebroadcast does represent the Opening Ceremony as a media spectacle. It highly appraises the artistic presentation of the overall performance. An exoticism of grandiosity, the super-detailed commentary, and the editing/reorganizing of the structure and camera angles have collectively transformed the show into a dazzling, stunning documentary feature program. The spectacular, exotic thickening not only made the broadcast the second most-watched event in the Olympic broadcast history in the United States (only next to the Atlanta Olympics in 1996) and even gained three Emmy Awards for NBC in 2009,74 but has also, as mentioned above, gained huge popularity among the Chinese

74 NBC’s rebroadcast gained four nominations for Emmy Awards 2009, and won three: “Outstanding Directing for a Variety, Music or Comedy Special,” “Outstanding Special Class Programs,” and

120 audience, who, ironically, even regard it as the best presentation of the Opening Ceremony. However, I do not concur with those netizens who advocate that this representation is a gesture of friendliness toward China. I believe it is, at least to a large extent, commercial considerations that made this specific rebroadcast possible. The business success of this rebroadcast is even more remarkable: NBC has inserted more than fifteen commercial breaks (two to five minutes each). In the first half of the artistic performance section, NBC even inserted a commercial break every three to five minutes, a total of ten times in the artistic performance, which lasted for less than one hour (see table 3.1).

BBC75: A Broadcasting Serving for British Propaganda

As a typical public television channel, BBC forms a sharp contrast to NBC. Although its revenue structure is changing, BBC is mainly financed by the television license in United Kingdom, the content and programs sales, and governmental grants. It is not even allowed to have direct advertisements,76 and its goal, as a result, is deemed to provide broadcasting as public service. This public service, according to BBC’s Charter Renewal in 2004, is to “build the public value” (BBC 2004). For BBC, the “public value,” derived from Mark Moore (1995), contains five categories: democratic value, cultural and creative value, educational value, social and community value, and global value (BBC 2004: 8). BBC claims that it is different from commercial television channels and media by stating this “public” service. The Chairman of the BBC Governors, Michael Grade, states that BBC exists for “the idea

“Outstanding Technical Direction, Camerawork, Video Control for a Miniseries, Movie or a Special.” http://www.emmys.com/award_history_search?person=&program=beijing&start_year=1949&end_yea r=2010&network=All&web_category=All&winner=All (accessed 20 Dec 2010). 75 BBC live-broadcast the Opening Ceremony on BBC One, BBC Worldnews, BBC HD, and its online platform. In this chapter, I focus on the live broadcast on BBC One. 76 The advertisement revenue of BBC websites and the online broadcast platforms has been remarkably increasing in the past decade, but its ratio in the overall BBC revenue is still relatively small. See BBC. n.d. “BBC Performance Review 2010/11.” http://www.bbcworldwide.com/annual-review/annual- review-2011/performance-review.aspx (accessed 30 Aug 2012).

121 of building public value, of generating social capital, of serving its audiences not just as consumers but as members of a wider society, of contributing significantly to the quality of life in the UK” (Grade 2005). While serving the public, BBC also stays aligned with the government, as the current BBC Director of Strategy, Caroline Thomson, states: “The BBC exists to create public value, not only value for individuals as consumers, but also value for people as citizens. Hence the six public purposes the government has given us [sic]” (Collins 2007: 16). This position often jeopardizes BBC’s claimed “independence” and “impartiality” in its reports (Bicket and Wall 2009) and has led to long-existing criticisms of the BBC as being a propaganda machine. These features of public television have profound influence on BBC’s live broadcast of the Opening Ceremony and the new Chineseness, as I will show in the following sections. BBC transmitted a live broadcast of the Opening Ceremony of the Beijing Olympic Games mainly with the signal provided by BOB, so the body of the live broadcast is notably different from NBC’s rebroadcast. Yet, BBC’s broadcast is quite similar to the live broadcasts on other channels, such as CCTV (mainland China), CTV (Taiwan), and TVB (Hong Kong). However, besides the body of the ceremony, BBC’s broadcast also contains four pre-event warm-ups (see table 3.2) and a series of after-event interviews that work as important components of situative thickening (which will be discussed later).

Table 3.2: The pre-event warm-ups of BBC’s live broadcast of the Opening Ceremony.

Sequence Sections Duration 1 Start trailer — Journey to the West 0:00:51 2 Short Video (about the athletes and the Olympiad) 0:03:04 On-site Interviews I (with the BBC commentary 3 0:04:09 team) On-site Interviews II (with Michael Johnson & Steve 4 0:01:13 Redgrave)

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Compared to NBC’s rebroadcast, which is more like a documentary feature program, BBC’s live broadcast exhibits more liveness. It has a more compact structure, containing no commercial breaks, no cut-offs, no integrated interviews afterward (instead, the interviews appear in the supplementary interview programs following the live broadcast, which in turn reinforce the “live” feeling of the previous live broadcast). The warm-ups are significantly shorter than NBC’s, the interviews are all set in the stadium, and the anchorperson and commentary team refer more to “what is going on at this moment,” all of which produce a stronger sense of being live. The liveness itself reflects BBC’s centering on this event: as Nick Couldry argues, liveness “marks the media’s constructed role as the access point to what is supposed to be ‘central’ to the ‘group’, that is, the whole society” (Couldry 2004: 359). However, BBC’s live broadcast, largely adopting BOB’s signal, has little space for performativity to center or thicken the overall broadcast, except the pre- event warm-ups, post-event interviews, and, most importantly, the commentaries. During the broadcast, the anchorwoman and sports reporter, Susan (Sue) Barker, and, especially, the commentators Huw Edwards (BBC anchorman and reporter), Hazel Irvine (BBC sports reporter), and Carrie Gracie (former China correspondent of BBC) play a vital role in the performativity of centering and thickening the Opening Ceremony, and in BBC’s responses to the new Chineseness constructed in the Ceremony.77 Their performativity of commentary, accordingly, falls more into the so- called “negative-reports” formula in China-related reporting, and implies again certain Western superiority or imperialist power.

77 Susan Barker was the anchorperson of the pre-event warm-ups and post-event interviews. In the commentator team, Huw Edwards was the coordinator who tended to provide instant explanation of “what’s going on” in the artistic performance, Hazel Irving’s main responsibility was to provide sports- and athletes-related interpretations, Carrie Gracie was responsible for interpreting China-related issues.

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Political China: An Evil “Dragon” and an Unharmonious Country

BBC, as public television, has a well-known tradition or culture of critique (Bicket and Wall 2009). Douglas Bicket and Melissa Wall argue that, compared to NBC, which is a commercial channel and (along with other American media) cooperates with the US government, BBC presents significantly more skepticism, “independence,” and “impartiality,” or a media culture of “Britishness,” in its everyday broadcast (2005: 369–73). In the case of the live broadcast of the Opening Ceremony, BBC has shown stronger interests in political concerns and criticisms of China. This centering presents the “democratic value” that BBC upholds, but it nevertheless implies dissolution of BBC’s “impartiality” or neutrality. The overall live broadcast is a continuation of the political and environmental critiques that pervade in the Western media, which is significantly different from NBC’s deliberate avoidance of political comments (and trying to narrow the comments down to US-China-related political issues when avoidance was not possible). The BBC even pushes the political concerns to an extreme. For example, in the pre-event short video on what the Olympics mean to the athletes, despite a declaration that “It’s your [athletes’] time!”, there is even a set of shots suggesting a parallel between the Beijing Olympics and the Berlin Olympics in 1936:78

Shot 1: On the huge square before the Taihe Palace in the Forbidden City in Beijing, Michael Johnson walks toward the camera and says: “And that is what the Olympics are. Extraordinary!” Shot 2 (black and white): A face feature of Adolf Hitler. Shot 3 (black and white): Athletes running on the lanes.

78 There are quite some extreme political articulations of the Beijing Olympics. Besides paralleling the Beijing Olympics with the Berlin Olympics, “genocide Olympics” has also been proposed by activists for Sudan human rights, among many other critiquing labels. These extreme articulations and appropriations receive controversial reviews in the Western media and in academia (deLisle 2008; Price 2008).

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Shot 4: An athlete (in a jersey marked with “USA”), standing before a microphone and with obvious nervousness, says: “I’m very glad to have won the 100 meters at the Olympic Games here in Berlin.” Shot 5: The Bird’s Nest in Beijing.

This series of camera shots implicitly connect the Beijing Olympics with the Berlin Olympics in 1936, an Olympics that symbolized the rise of Nazi Germany, which is one of the most extreme political attacks on the Beijing Olympics (deLisle 2008: 52). This attack is rather irresponsible and without groundings. This analog of Berlin Olympics is often “reinforced by references to Chinese complicity in the Darfur genocide” (Wasserstrom 2008: 167; see also Price 2008) by blaming China for mining for oil in Sudan and accusing China for suspiciously selling/providing military weapons to the Sudanese government. The crisis in Darfur was much more complicated than the international activists’ description in 2008, and China had very little entanglements in it (Brosché and Rothbart 2013). The proliferation of this unverified accusation, and the far less attention paid to the Western countries convincingly verified imperialist activities,79 reflects, on the one hand, a political and military imperialism of the Western countries (NATO, the United States, and the United Kingdom in particular), and the cold-war mentality in dealing with China on the other. A few moments later, in the interviews in the warm-ups, Susan Barker, after a short introduction, again turns to the political concern: “But not for many years have sport and politics had such an uneasy balance [sic].” Then, she asks six questions about (1) the political context of the Games; (2) environmental phase and pollution in Beijing; (3) the meaning of the Games to the Chinese; (4) President Bush’s

79 For example, there were relatively few criticisms to the British colonialism, imperialism, and slavery, which is also a factor leading to the crisis in Darfur (Giroux, Lanz, and Sguaitamatti 2010), during the London Olympics, as I will discuss in the Epilogue.

125 attendance; (5) the Sudanese refugee as the flag bearer of the US team;80 and (6) the contesting and boycotting of the Beijing Olympic Games. These questions resonate with the dominant concerns in the Western media before the opening of the Beijing Olympics (ibid.: 36–48). The first three questions are articulated by the three commentators with some degree of criticisms of China. For example, Carrie Gracie answers the question about “the meaning of the Games to Chinese people,” a question with apparently the least political implications, in a caricaturing way, depicting average Chinese as blinded crowds:

People here really are not exposed to negative messages that we have been talking about, the protests, the environmental worries, the heavy-handed security . . . apart from a few exceptions . . . who have an uncomfortable habit speaking their minds because the government moved them from Beijing for negation of the games, but most people are proud, they are ready to party . . .

Gracie obviously neglects the internal criticisms to the Chinese government and to the Olympics, and ignores the strong nationalist sentiments aroused, ironically, by the criticisms from the West, as I will discuss later in chapter five. She simplifies the issue and describes the diverse “most people” as blinded crowds, though with “a few exceptions,” who are mostly mobilized and sheltered by the government. Interestingly, the two athletes, however, consciously answer the apparently political questions in a more personal, de-politicized way. For example, Michael Johnson answers the question about George W. Bush’s attendance to the Opening Ceremony in this way: “I think the decision is less political, he is a great sports fan, a huge sports

80 One of the critiques of the Beijing Olympics is that China has not done enough to stop the humanitarian crisis in southern Sudan. Some of the activists even rashly labeled the Beijing Olympics as “genocide Olympics.” The US Olympic Team’s choosing of Lopez Lomong as the flag bearer during the parade of nations in the Opening Ceremony was a very political decision that has attracted many media reports. NBC’s rebroadcast has not emphasized this decision during the warm-ups and the artistic performance, forming a contrast to BBC’s performativity.

126 fan, and he stands his own thing to wrap up . . . I think he probably made a personal decision . . regardless of what anyone thinks back at home. . . . ” However, the athletes’ “divergence” does not undermine the apparently political concerns and intended criticisms behind the structure of Susan Barker’s questions and in the overall pre-event warm-ups. This attitude continues in the commentary. Huw Edwards notices that the Opening Ceremony is, for China, “basically saying to the world, we’ve arrived, we are the twenty-first century superpower, we can do the best Olympics ever.” Yet, the commentators obviously do not take China’s effort to “do the best Olympics” as an amicable one. During the commentary, Carrie Gracie, performs a unique “thickening” on China’s politics. As the commentator who is responsible for interpreting China- related issues, she, on the one hand, admits that after 1978, China “is a constantly growing economy with openness to the outside world, the market reforms, and the liberation of so many aspects of Chinese life” (said in the Starlight section). On the other hand, she recalls or implies eight times that China is a “communist” country or is governed by the “Communist Party.” Even when introducing Russia (a former communist state), Vietnam, and North Korea, she particularly articulates a sense of comradeship between China and these countries. For example, when Gracie comments on Vietnam’s athletes’ team, she says: “Both [are] reforming communist states with communist parties still in control but [with] market economies.” Carrie Gracie is not the only one in BBC to define China in this way. The BBC’s Beijing correspondent, James Rense, even pushes this emphasis to an extreme. During the BBC News at six o’clock (London local time), right after the Opening Ceremony, he talks about China’s President in a caricaturing way:

China’s president, Hu Jintao, he rules over more people than anyone else in history, is this what felt like to be a Chinese emperor [sic]. Tonight, everyone came to his court. The world’s most powerful man was enjoying himself.

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This direct analog of Hu Jintao as an emperor again showcases BBC’s intended mobilization of the imagination of an “evil” China, and implies the political and moral superiority of a BBC reporter. At least in the commentary, the normality of the state and the harmony in the political sector and the “peaceful rise” into world, which are important components of the new Chineseness constructed in the Opening Ceremony and the overall Beijing Olympic Games, are largely contested in the BBC live broadcast. Moreover, the commentators also question the social harmony among the multi-ethnicities, a vital political element in the construction of the new Chineseness. When the artistic performance reaches the last section, the dance of the Chinese fifty- six ethnicities, Huw Edwards (HE) and Carrie Gracie (CG) have the following dialogue:

HE: Performers representing the fifty-six ethnic groups of China dancing in the stadium. . . . Fifty-six ethnic groups! Carrie, a lot of people will not realize that China’s ethnic makeup is that complex. CG: . . . .We all occurred to in the months and weeks running up to these games about the problems in Tibet and the problems in Xinjiang, but as far as the authorities here [are] concerned, they are fifty-six happy ethnic groups all taking part in this together. Not just the world has come to Beijing for these games, but all of China [sic]. It’s the point it wants to make.

In this dialogue, Carrie Gracie consciously articulates a binary view between the “reality” and the representation of the ethnic harmony constructed in the performance, questioning the latter with the former. What is also worth mentioning is that the BBC’s live broadcast pays keen attention to Taiwan and North Korea in the Athletes’ Parade. During the entrance of the athletes of Chinese Taipei and North Korea, the BBC gives two feature shots of Hu Jintao, which are two of the few camera shots made by BBC itself, with commentator Huw Edwards saying “President Hu is

128 looking on carefully as Chinese Taipei/North Korea enter into the stadium.” These emphases on the Taiwan Strait politics and North Korea further strengthen BBC’s particular interest in the internal and regional political tensions in and surrounding China.

Figure 3.2: BBC’s features on China’s president Hu Jintao.

For Susan Barker, the commentary team, and the BBC colleagues like James Rense, it is perhaps natural, following BBC’s “tradition” or “culture” of performing “impartiality,” to point out the (unwelcomed) facts behind the presentation and rhetoric and to provide counternarratives of a harmonious China, which the new Chineseness discourse articulates. However, this performativity resonates with the dominating political concerns in the Western media: the constant referring of China as a communist country with authoritarian governance, the caricaturing of the Chinese president and the Games, and so on, imply not only the “culture of critique” or “impartiality” of a public media or the “public value” that it claims to uphold, but also a clear cold-war mentality that of demarcates “we” and “enemies/others,” “democratic” and “communist.” The hints that parallel China with Nazi Germany, and the caricaturing of China’s president and the Games again reveal the moral and political “superiority” or the imperialist power behind the performativity, and display a “loss” of its claimed “impartiality” in the interpretation and commentary.

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Truncated History and Fictional Culture

Like their NBC counterparts, the BBC commentators are not stingy in their appraisal of the massiveness, grandiosity, and creativity of the artistic performance. They employ phrases such as “more than spectacular,” “more than impressed by,” “stunning,” and other strong adjectives to describe and praise the artistic presentations. Meanwhile, by performing “impartiality,” they also try to provide alternative facts and comments on the performance and thus again question the represented grand history and rich culture (and its contribution to the world) — one of the key discourses of the new Chineseness presented in the Opening Ceremony. One of the alternative facts emphasized in BBC’s commentary is the incompleteness of the Chinese “history” presented in the Opening Ceremony. In the sub-section of Maritime Silk Route, Carrie Gracie hints, in the beginning, that the “history” presented is far from complete. She comments with some alternative historical facts:

And it’s worth mentioning that the connotation of that [the Westerners’ maritime adventures] for China is an extremely sad period of history, the late eighteenth and nineteenth century, when the maritime adventures were carried out by others, there ended up becoming to be [sic] two Chinas due to the civil war [sic], and we saw the period of history that we won’t be seeing in tonight’s ceremony, the Opium War, the invasion to China, ultimately the civil war and revolution.

A few moments later, while coming to the second section of the artistic performance, the modern part, Carrie Gracie mentions that when Zhang Yimou “was asked a couple of days ago why he didn’t include the more recent episodes from Chinese history, he says: ‘Well, Chinese history is a vast bucket full of water, I knew very little and

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[could] go through [only] a couple of drops.’” But, in contrast to Zhang, Gracie has a different explanation about the gaps in the historical presentation:

I suppose this is fair enough, no Olympic host wants to go through the most miserable moments of their history in their Opening Ceremony [sic]. China doesn’t want to endure thinking again tonight about the greatly poor, the Cultural Revolution or the other tragedies in his recent history.

Although Gracie says that it is “fair enough” for Zhang Yimou to omit the “most miserable moments,” she has specifically mentioned it twice and in an emphasizing way. This centering of the “missing history” displays Gracie’s strong interests in the “weak” China that suffered from the unbalanced China-West relationship, and the stereotyped “communist China” with totalitarian governance under which the Chinese have led a miserable life. This performativity resembles the dilemma, described by Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom (2008), that China was in: Whether the Opening Ceremony includes these historical phases or not, Carrie Gracie would deliver criticizing comments of China. If it had included there, Gracie would criticize the totalitarian governance or the backwardness of China (which will be further discussed in the next sub-section); now that it excludes, Gracie doubts the logic of excluding and hints the power politics behind this logic. The commentators’ questioning of the representation of the constructed grand history and rich culture goes well beyond the incompleteness of history. For example, Hazel Irvine questions the presentation of movable type-printing, which indicates that China first invented the movable printing technology, by saying that “here we have the examples of the first movable type system which was created here in China out of ceramic blocks around 1041 AD, as then it took Europe to the 1450s to introduce [the invention]. Generally, what’s regarded as an independent invention type that was created by Germany Johannes Gutenberg [sic].” A few moments later, again in the

131 sub-section of the Maritime Silk Route, the presentation of the Silk Route on the sea, Hazel Irvine (HI) and Carrie Gracie (CG) have the following dialogue:

HI: You are going to see the representation of the seven journeys of Zheng He, [who] pioneered the first express sea route through the western Pacific and the Indian Ocean, and his journeys incidentally took place eighty- seven years before those of Christopher Columbus. CG: But what is amazing about Zheng He, Hazel, is that, that was it, at that point he went out, he saw the world, he tried to persuade his leaders to go out to explore it, to engage with it, but after Zheng He there was a time when China turned again inward in the Ming Empire. The Forbidden City, the Great Wall went up. . . . The lessons . . . the momentums left behind [sic]. Zheng He’s early work was not maintained.

A few moments later, when the Chinese compass is featured, Carrie Gracie goes on:

So that is the Chinese compass. And the message here is that China invented not just the gunpowder, not just the paper, but also the compass that enabled the rest of the world to go out and explore the new world, but not China [sic].

These commentaries contain at least two points. First, although they both acknowledge that Zheng He’s seven voyages to the western Pacific and Indian Ocean were earlier than those of Christopher Columbus, Carrie Gracie questions Zheng He’s impact on China by arguing that China turned inward again after Zheng’s seven voyages and the maritime tradition “was not maintained.” Second, Gracie emphasizes that it was the Westerners who navigated and explored (and exploited) the world, but not China. Thus, Carrie Gracie questions the articulation of the historical contribution of Zheng He’s navigations in the performance, and again blames China’s inward- turning after Zheng He. By doing so, Carrie Gracie focuses on Zheng He’s navigation,

132 and neglects Zhang Yimou’s other important articulations concerning the Maritime Silk Route (a counterpart of the Inland Silk Route, with the heyday roughly from Tang to Ming Dynasty), the climax of which is Zheng He’s navigations, and the peaceful and “harmonious” historical relationship between China and other countries. Consequently, Carrie Gracie, along with other commentators, again questions some of the historical and cultural articulations of the new Chineseness. The commentators’ questioning of the completeness of history and the presentation of the Maritime Silk Route are related, implying a clear imperialist mentality. China’s turning inward was one of the main reasons that had stagnated its maritime tradition and consequently led to the loss of China (Qing Empire) to Britain in the Opium War in 1840 and in the subsequent wars between China and the West. However, it was the invention of the compass that “enabled the rest of the world to go out and explore the new world,” which eventually led the West to colonize the New World and to invade China. The “miserable moments,” which Gracie accuses Zhang Yimou of trying to conceal, were actually brought about by Britain’s intentional smuggling of opium to China. In contrast to the enthusiastic accusations, Carrie Gracie and other commentators have not mentioned a word of these “facts and truth” (factors that are key to the claimed “impartiality”) in this regard during the four-hour live broadcast, and the interviews and reviews of approximately two hours afterward.

Old Fashioned Modernity

Unlike NBC’s rebroadcast that expresses high appraisals of the technology and modernity presented in the Opening Ceremony and the overall Beijing Olympics, BBC’s live broadcast does not pay keen attention to the architecture of modernity and technology. For example, NBC’s three warm-ups intentionally form a binary view of Chinese tradition and modernity, and deliberately portray the modernity of Chinese cities, especially Beijing. By contrast, BBC’s short warm-up video is full of specific camera shots taken in the political and historical sites like the Forbidden City, Beihai

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Park, and Tiananmen Square, with no camera shots presenting the modernity of China. However, the commentators are very aware of the intention of the Ceremony to articulate a certain kind of modernity of China. For example, during the Dream Rings section, Hazel Irvine underscores that the overall presentation in the Opening Ceremony is “to say to the world, to that [sic] while China is very proud of its five thousand years of civilization, it is not afraid to modernize.” Meanwhile, as a former China correspondent of BBC, Carrie Gracie observantly notices that “there are some Chinese that don’t want to see this side of their culture, they are going to see more modern version” (in the Ritual and Music section). Huw Edwards also points out in the beginning of the modern part of the artistic performance that the aim of the second part is to portray “a more harmonious life” (in the Starlight section). Despite their awareness, the commentators do not give much appraisal or affirmative evaluation to the constructed modernity as their counterparts in NBC have done. The following is what the commentators think is behind the presented modernity, the economic achievements, and the technological developments:

I’m just sitting and thinking who that already call it Green Games [sic], it is so controversial, China . . . a country with sixteen of the world’s twenty most polluted cities, rapidly falling off the polluted table, the severe river pollution [sic] . . . The thirty years of economic reform, [is a] triumph for economy, but a damage to environment. (Carrie Gracie, in the Nature section)

Even the whole economic development in China is considered problematic. Carrie Gracie regards the Bird’s Nest Stadium and “other iconic structures appearing in Beijing and also in China’s other big cities, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenyang . . . ” as “bold, daring buildings,” which indicate an out-of-date modernity. She comments:

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I was talking to Norman Foster who designed China’s big airport, the biggest in the world, only this morning. And he says to me, China today reminds him of Britain in the nineteenth century. It’s a country with confidence to do everything on a big scale, to do things of prestige, to say what we need now and to double it.

A few moments later, at the starting moment of the last scene of the artistic performance Dream, when the “astronauts” show up in the performance, Carrie Gracie again emphasizes that the presentation indicates that “China is a country which says we can go into space, and we can hold the Olympics, and we can do all the other things!” From the above analysis we can see that, in contrast to NBC’s appraisal and admiration of the modernity and technology constructed in the Opening Ceremony, the BBC’s commentators regard the presented modernity (including the technology and engineering, post-modern architecture, space exploring, and so on) as impressive yet “old-fashioned.” This response reminds us of what Johannes Fabian calls “the denial of coevalness” (Fabian 1983), a denial of the coexistence of the non-Western societies in the contemporaneity — instead, seeing them as “primitive” — by the Western anthropologists when they are visiting the non-Western societies. The implication here is that Britain and the West have long experienced fast growth, pollution, the bold initiatives of construction, and that, most important of all, Britain has surpassed the relatively “primitive” or backward phase of development. Thus, like the harmony, history, and culture discourses, the modernity of the new Chineseness has also been questioned and criticized by BBC commentators. However, this unique centering of the new Chineseness and the Opening Ceremony involves ideological reading of the artistic performances and the discourses constructing the new Chineseness, and reflects a Western imperialism and cold-war mentality. By imperialism here, I do not mean the “old” European nation-states’ extension of the sovereignty beyond their own boundaries (Hardt and Negri 2001: xii).

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Instead, it refers to “neo-imperialism,” namely, Western countries’ construction of hierarchical relations to maintain non-Western countries and regions’ economic, political, and cultural dependence (K. Chen 2010: chapter one and four). The cold- war mentality means the inertia of adopting a perspective that views China (and other socialist or former socialist countries, even countries and regions with no socialist engagement) with cold-war considerations. As Edward Said argues, imperialism is “supported and perhaps even impelled by impressive ideological formations that include notions that certain territories and people require and beseech domination, as well as forms of knowledge affiliated with domination” (Said 1993: 9). Although Said’s argument is drawn from the “old” imperialism, it is also illustrative for the understanding of the neo-imperialism and the cold-war mentality. Here, BBC’s centering that keeps viewing China as a “communist” authoritarian country and as a “primitive” society is a pertinent example. Consequently, BBC’s centering breaks the “impartiality” it claims to uphold, and conflicts with the “global value” (one of the five categories of “public value” that BBC upholds) which tries to support the UK’s global role “by being the world’s most trusted provider of international news and information” (BBC 2004: 38). By doing so, BBC is more like “mov[ing] a recipient to a predetermined point of view” (Pratkanis and Turner 1996: 190), namely, delivering propaganda.

Conclusion

This chapter discusses how NBC’s and BBC’s broadcasts of the Opening Ceremony showcase the differences between commercial and public television in centering the Opening Ceremony and the new Chineseness. NBC tried to negotiate a position between the commercial interest and the political correctness of the US media culture, or, in other words, between “panda hugger” and “dragon slyer.” Meanwhile, BBC attempted to “create public value” by criticizing the new Chineseness constructed in the Opening Ceremony and the overall political, economic, and social conditions in 136

China. With these centerings, NBC gained huge revenue and three Emmy Awards, maintained cooperation with the Chinese authorities, and even gained high praises from vast number of Chinese netizens; BBC, on the contrary, appropriated most of the performances and the new Chineseness to create “democratic value” and to educate its “citizens,” which probably implies that the “impartiality” that it claims to uphold is more like a rhetorical disguise of propagation. Despite the ostensible differences, both television channels have articulated China as an “other.” For NBC, China is an exotic and Orientalistic “other,” while for BBC, China is evil and authoritarian. Both channels have displayed covert (NBC) or overt (BBC) political imperialism, cold-war mentality, and the superiority of Western advancement. Even NBC’s exotic centering of Chinese culture does not mean a “real” recognition of Chinese culture. In this regard, Judith Farquhar and James Hevia convincingly argue:

‘culture’ becomes a problem in communication and culturally appropriate persuasion, an impediment to progress, or an exotic (but dependent) ‘garden’ for tourist consumption and paternalistic protection…culture also explains the irrationality and backwardness of non-modernity nicely, creating a neat divide between ‘oriental’ and ‘western’ reason. (Farquhar and Hevia 1993: 488)

Thus, NBC’s and BBC’s centerings indicate that the new Chineseness constructed in the Opening Ceremony, the most attractive moment of the Beijing Olympics, has been much contested by the Western media where imperialism and cold-war mentality are still persistent. Wolfram Manzenreiter argues that the Westerners’ reluctance to recognize the rise of China “is first of all a consequence of their unwillingness to waive their own governments’ predominance in international politics and abandon their very own affluence in exchange for a more balanced distribution of wealth and economic opportunities on a global scale” (2010: 43). If Manzenreiter’s argument

137 explains this dilemma, then how can more constructive communication between China and the West be achieved? And, if the way to construct new Chineseness can and should be redevised (as BBC criticizes), then should the Western media also need to turn away from their imperial and cold-war mentality?

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Chapter Four The Pendulum of Chinese Identity: Chineseness, Geopolitics, and the Live Broadcasts of the

Opening Ceremony in Hong Kong and Taiwan

As I have analyzed in the previous chapters, although the Opening Ceremony constructed and claimed a univocal and mainland-China-centric version of Chineseness, the responses from NBC, BBC, and other Western media have turned the Opening Ceremony into a multi-themed mega-event, and turned the constructed “new” Chineseness into a, at least partially, contested project. In this chapter, I will analyze how Hong Kong and Taiwan television channels responded to, as well as contested, the Opening Ceremony and the new Chineseness. Hong Kong and Taiwan, on the one hand, share cultural approximation with and have strong cultural ties to mainland China; yet on the other hand, both of them are politically, at least partially, distant (for Hong Kong) and detached (for Taiwan) from mainland China. This background makes Hong Kong and Taiwan vital places for the study of the media responses to the Opening Ceremony as a global media event and the new Chineseness embedded in it. It also gives rise to interesting questions like: How would Hong Kong and Taiwan television channels respond to the new Chineseness? Would the cultural ties between mainland China, and Hong Kong and Taiwan have any influence on the responses? If yes, then what else, besides the cultural ties, might also have affected the responses? What political and cultural implications can we see in these responses? In this chapter, I will describe how Hong Kong and Taiwan television channels have played very different identity politics in the broadcasting of the

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Opening Ceremony. TVB (Television Broadcasting Limited) in Hong Kong has tried to fully support the Opening Ceremony by following the mediation discourse of the mainland China authorities. As a result, the local identity (or Hong Kong identity) that Hong Kong has been eagerly seeking since 1984 (especially from 1984 to the late 1990s) seemed to have disappeared. The CTV (China Television) in Taiwan, on the other hand, has deliberately kept a distance, or articulated estrangement from mainland China, by explicitly demarcating Taiwan from mainland China. However, while trying to keep in alignment with the discourses of the mainland authorities, the live broadcast on TVB reveals a conflict between practices of the Hong Kong media culture and the mediation discourse of mainland authorities, as well as between advocating the authorities and articulating local identity politics. Taiwan television channels, on the other hand, imply a subtle identity of Chinese while deliberately trying to keep a distance from mainland China. Ackbar Abbas, through the examination of Hong Kong popular culture in the 1980s and 1990s, proposes a theory of “disappearance.” He argues that the deliberate disappearance (or, to some extent, obliteration) of colonial existence in Hong Kong implies the appearance of the colonial experience, for “appearance is posited on the imminence of its disappearance” (Abbas 1997: 7), and vice versa. Paraphrasing Abbas, I argue that the evasion (disappearance) of local identity in Hong Kong and the articulation (appearance) of it in Taiwan in the live broadcasts of the Opening Ceremony imply exactly the opposite of their performativity; and so does their deliberate alignment with or estrangement from mainland China. These paradoxes that lie in the live broadcasts in Hong Kong and Taiwan well reflect the geopolitics among the three regions, which consequently have an impact on the perception and reaction to the new Chineseness. Through this examination, I argue that neither the influential concept “cultural China” (Tu 1991) nor the new Chineseness can meet the demands of the complex geopolitics among Hong Kong, Taiwan, and mainland China, despite the fact that Chinese traditional culture does serve as a key resource to connect the three regions. Through this analysis, I try to illustrate how the geopolitics shapes the

140 cultural and political identity of Hong Kong and Taiwan, and how this shaping turns the Chinese identity into a pendulum in these regions.

Geopolitics and Identity

When we come to issues related to Chineseness in Hong Kong and Taiwan, Tu Weiming’s concept of “cultural China” is a good starting point. In 1991, Tu published an influential paper “Cultural China: The Periphery as the Center,” in which he proposes that the periphery, namely, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, and the overseas Chinese (Chinese diasporas), is becoming the new “center” of cultural China (contrasting the “geographical China”), due to the relative continuity of Chinese culture in these places and their fast economic growth in the 1970s and 1980s. Meanwhile, mainland China suffered cultural discontinuity — because of the Cultural Revolution and other radical revolutionary movements (including the Wholesale Westernization discourse,81 which pervaded the intellectual circle in the 1980s) — and relative slow economic growth. Tu therefore asserts that, given that mainland China has failed to be a “modern” society like the periphery and has “lost” the cultural tradition, it is losing its “center” position of Chineseness, while the periphery is becoming the new center, in the form of cultural China. Cultural China was a timely reflection of the geopolitics between mainland China, and Taiwan and Hong Kong (as well as Singapore) before 1990. From the separation in 1949 to the first “democratic” election in 1996, under the authoritarian governance of the Nationalist Party (KMT, Kuomintang), Taiwan or the Republic of China (ROC), had expressed a strong appeal for “unification” with the mainland. Although both the PRC and the ROC have maintained a diplomatic “one-China”

81 The Wholesale Westernization discourse in the 1980s proposed to abandon the Chinese culture and to westernize the cultural, economic, political, and social systems to facilitate a fast development in China, in order not to be “exiled from the earth [开除球籍].” For more detailed discussion, please refer to Jing Wang (1996); and Xiaomei Chen (1992, 2002).

141 policy, they respectively claim China and Chineseness to refer to PRC or ROC, and try to subordinate the other (Copper 2008). In Hong Kong, during colonial times, the Hong Kong Chinese saw British colonialism not only as an oppressive but also a liberating force. “Eager to escape the economic depravity and political turmoil of the nineteenth- and twentieth-century China, most Chinese came to Hong Kong because of its economic opportunities and political stability” (Carroll 2005: 12). Before the handover in 1997, the people in Hong Kong had developed an identity of seeing “themselves as Chinese but not part of China” (Padua 2007). Thus, Tu’s notion of a cultural China has reclaimed the voice of Chinese societies outside mainland China. It has tried to find a way to reconcile the cultural cracks within these societies and to construct a cultural center of a Chinese identity that may help to decenter mainland China. However, since the geopolitical context and the identity issue have quickly changed both in Taiwan and Hong Kong,82 is the cultural China’s conceptual base still valid? In Tu’s analysis (1991), the “Chinese” identity of both people in the geological “center” (mainland) or “periphery” (Taiwan, Hong Kong, and the diaspora communities) is a prescribed and unquestioned issue. He uses “huaren (people of Chinese origin) rather than ‘zhongguoren’ (people of China, the state) to designate people of a variety of nationalities who are ethnically and culturally Chinese” (1991: 22; italics added). Yet, Chinese identity may not be as taken-for-granted as thought in many places, as I have discussed in chapter one. In Taiwan, since Chiang Ching Kuo’s [蒋经国] political reform in 1987, society has split into three parts: the Blue camp, led by the KMT, which has an inclination of unification; the Green camp, led by the Democratic Progressive Party, which upholds a strong appeal to claim independence; and the Moderate camp, which is believed to be the majority of society. The Green camp promotes a non-Chinese identity, namely, a Taiwanese identity, through the reconstruction of cultural and political history that depicts

82 Among the overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia and other countries, the Chinese identity and their relationship with China have also significantly changed since the 1990s. However, in order to be focused, I will mainly discuss the changes in Hong Kong and Taiwan in this chapter.

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Taiwan as having no definite cultural and ethnic links with China. Although the non- Chinese construction of a “Taiwanese identity” is highly problematic, according to some academic researchers (Copper 2008; Brown 2004), it has successfully changed the identity of some Taiwanese people. For example, according to the annual survey summary compiled by the Mainland Affairs Council of the ROC, there were on average 69 percent of people in 1996 (above age 20; the same below) who claimed to be Chinese, or both Chinese and Taiwanese, 34 percent held the solitary identity of Taiwanese.83 In 2008, the percentage claiming Taiwanese identity increased to about 65 percent, those claiming the identity of Chinese, or both Chinese and Taiwanese shrank to 24 percent.84 After 1984, facing the handover to mainland China in 1997 and being on the verge of “disappearance,” Hong Kong started to claim eagerly its alleged unique identity (Abbas 1997). The handover brought about political, economic, and cultural repercussions in Hong Kong, and the identity issue was the crown. As a Special Administrative Region (SAR) of China, Hong Kong virtually has an autonomous political (and to some extent, cultural) system. However, the Central Government in Beijing is keen to reconstruct a Chinese identity — with an attachment to the PRC — in Hong Kong. The Hong Kong local government also sees the economic advantages that such a reconstruction could bring along. Nonetheless, the long-formed identity of non-mainland-China Chinese still prevails in Hong Kong. Thus, although there is a hybridization of identity after the handover (Fung 2004), the identity in Hong Kong is by no means clear and unified (Ma and Fung 2007).

83 The annual survey summary compiled by the Mainland Affairs Council of the ROC usually consists of six to eight surveys conducted by different institutes covering green, blue, and moderate camps. The statistics cited here are roughly drawn from the “Image 1: Public Views on Self-Identity (in Synthesized Analysis on Public Views about Policies to Mainland and Strait Relationship, 1996) [图一： 民众对自我认同的看法].” http://www.mac.gov.tw/public/mmo/mac/pic1.gif (accessed 15 Jun 2012). 84 These statistics are drawn from “Appendix Table 12: Public Views on Self-Identity (in Synthesized Analysis on Domestic Public Polls about Strait Relationship, 2008) [表十二：民众对自我认同的看 法]. ” http://www.mac.gov.tw/public/Attachment/973944270.pdf (accessed 15 Jun 2012). The table contains seven different poll results, but only four of which are relatively comparable (1, 2, 4, 5) and from these four surveys I have compiled the statistics. However, even though the survey results may vary, it is a consensus that the local identity has been growing since the 1990s and the Chinese identity has been diminishing in a fluctuant downward curve.

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Dramatic changes also happen in mainland China after the 1990s. By 2008, mainland China had experienced thirty years of rapid economic growth. The hosting of the Beijing Olympics was an evidence of its economic and political power. Both Hong Kong and Taiwan are economically integrated with mainland China. Thousands of Taiwanese have migrated to mainland China, running businesses or working in companies and factories. The Taiwanese industries, especially the manufacturing industry, have outsourced to or even moved to mainland China, resulting in complaints of “hollowing out Taiwan” in Taiwan’s media and causing complex attitudes toward mainland China’s rapid economic growth. Hong Kong’s economy has also been increasingly dependent on mainland China (Yeung, Lee, and Kee 2008; Pannell 2008), although it has been constantly claiming a certain degree of cosmopolitanism and globalism since the 1970s. Following a tradition of cooperation with the governing authorities (Wesley-Smith 1998; Carroll 2005), the Hong Kong government and the upper classes tend to stay aligned with the central government, despite the fragmentary identities in Hong Kong society. Meanwhile, contrary to Tu’s assertion about mainland China’s radical and total abandonment of tradition and culture, a massive campaign to restore tradition and culture (which has been partly integrated into the official discourse and campaign of “the Great Rejuvenation of China and Chinese People”) has reappeared in China. History and culture, which is one of the key discourses of the Opening Ceremony of the Beijing Olympics, is partly an outcome of this campaign, as analyzed in chapter two. Thus, the cultural China conception is again challenged by a revival of both Chinese traditional culture and economy in mainland China. These changes indicate that the “factual” base on which Tu coins the concept of cultural China has somehow eroded. On the one hand, mainland China is becoming a “modern society” (as how Tu describes Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, and other diaspora Chinese communities in developed societies) with a strong economy like the periphery. Meanwhile, it is also re-articulating the connection with the Chinese tradition that Tu accuses it has lost. On the other hand, both in Taiwan and in Hong

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Kong, Chinese identity itself is under challenge, an aspect that is much neglected in Tu’s original conception of the cultural China. The live broadcasts of the Opening Ceremony in Hong Kong and Taiwan are embedded in this geopolitical context. As I will elucidate in the following sections, Hong Kong’s live broadcasts deliberately evade the Hong Kong identity so as to stay aligned with the central government, while Taiwan’s television channels specifically attempt to estrange itself from mainland China. At the same time, the Hong Kong live broadcasts ironically present strong differences from the mainland media culture, and moreover, exhibit a local identity; while the live broadcasts in Taiwan nevertheless show a strong recognition of Chinese traditional culture, and a certain identity of Chinese. Ackbar Abbas proposes a theory of “disappearance” through the examination of the attempts of Hong Kong popular culture (from 1984 to the 1990s) to transcend its colonial conditions into a Hong Kong identity of cosmopolitanism and globalization. The disappearance here refers not to absence or non-existence, but to a misrecognition or misrepresentation of the presence from colonial to local and cosmopolitan. He writes:

For a long time, Hong Kong did not develop the kind of cosmopolitan culture that Shanghai exhibited in the 1920s and 1930s . . . The one moment when it began to rival the cultural vibrancy of Shanghai in the 1930s was during the 1980s and 1990s, after the Joint Declaration announcing the return of Hong Kong to China in 1997. . . . This was the period when more and more people discovered, invented, and rallied behind what they called “Hong Kong culture.” This Hong Kong culture was a hothouse plant that appeared at the moment when something was disappearing: a case of love at last sight, a culture of disappearance. (2000: 777–78)

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Abbas argues that the deliberate disappearance (or, to some extent, obliteration) of colonial existence exactly implies the appearance of it, for “appearance is posited on the imminence of its disappearance” (1997: 7). It appears as soon as one tries to sublimate it. The change of the names of the colonial buildings into more cosmopolitan ones, trying to make the colonial history disappear and make “globalism” more manifest, exactly reflects the “appearance” or existence of colonial history. Similarly, the articulation of identity is exactly because of the lack/loss of it. Abbas’s theory of disappearance can shed light on the paradoxes present in the live broadcasts in Hong Kong and Taiwan: the disappearance, namely, the evasion of local identity in Hong Kong’s live broadcasts and the estrangement from mainland China on Taiwan’s television channels, nevertheless implies the appearance of Hong Kong locality and the existence of Taiwan’s close ties to mainland China.

Hong Kong’s Full Alignment with the Mainland:

Deliberate but Failed

“Proud of Being a Chinese”

In Hong Kong, both TVB (Television Broadcast Limited) and ATV (Asia Television Limited) have acquired the broadcasting rights of the Opening Ceremony of the Beijing Olympics. Given that TVB enjoys a significantly bigger audience share than ATV, I have chosen TVB as the case for my analysis.85 TVB simultaneously broadcast live on its main channel Jade, and on Jade HD, Pearl, and other channels. I have mainly taken the live broadcast on TVB Jade as the body for the case analysis. Like BBC, TVB adopted the standard BOB signal of the Opening Ceremony, with only a few shots made by self-equipped cameras and a few shots from CCTV.

85 Yeung, Frederick. 2008. “ATV Capitalises on Olympics to Improve Audience Rating Figures.” South China Morning Post, 13 August, BIZ 4.

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However, similar to NBC, TVB invested a large amount of money on the live broadcast: in Hong Kong, TVB mobilized one studio, two outdoor live performance sites (one in the Hong Kong Disneyland, the other in the Cultural Square), and at least one mobile-shot camera; in Beijing, TVB organized a broadcasting team of more than one hundred and fifty employees, occupying one main studio, one on-site broadcast studio in the Bird’s Nest, (at least) one outdoor interviewing team outside the Bird’s Nest, and one mobile camera setting in the metro station connecting to the Olympic Green. It is estimated that TVB has invested eighty million Hong Kong dollars in the single live broadcast.86 With these various settings, TVB was able to provide manifold warm-ups before the Opening Ceremony, turning the pre-Opening broadcast into an entertainment program. The broadcast shifts shots from studio to studio and from site to site, providing in-studio reviewing and interpreting, outdoor live artistic performances, outdoor interviews (with athletes, audience, volunteers, and participants), and on-site shots in the Bird’s Nest. The in-studio talk shows are about background knowledge and relevant information of the Games and the Opening Ceremony, such as the first day cover (with post stamps), the singers of the theme song of the Opening Ceremony, and so forth. The outdoor performances and the interviews are more joyous and festive, creating a festival-like atmosphere and mobilizing support to the Games. The on-site talk show shot in the Bird’s Nest talks about the gift package for the audience, the weather, and some settings of the Opening Ceremony. With a constant count-down to the Opening, TVB also creates a strong sense of “liveness” and has instigated an anxious expectation to the Opening Ceremony. The live broadcast on TVB, starting from the warm-ups, attempts to set a tune of “supporting the Beijing Olympics.” One typical example is that each of the four different outdoor interviews outside of the Bird’s Nest ends with a cheer in unison

86 “Beijing Olympics Enjoys First Priority, Programs in TVB and ATV Give Their Way [京奧大过天: 无线亚视节目让路].” 2008.Ming Pao Daily News [明报], 8 August, C10.

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“Come on, China! [中国加油]” and with a close shot on all of the cheerful figures who are gesturing in joy and cheer. The anchorpersons of the outdoor performances in Hong Kong also call upon the audience to show support for the Games. For example, during the second appearance of the outdoor performances in the Cultural Square in Hong Kong, the anchorman claims: “Not only Beijing people support [the Olympics], our Hong Kong citizens also support it. And every present audience also supports [the Olympics].” This support goes further to claim the pride of “being a Chinese.” As mentioned above, since the handover in 1997, Chinese identity has been a crucial social and political issue in Hong Kong. Although after the handover, the Central Government and the local SAR have been working collaboratively to reconstruct an identity of China and Chinese in Hong Kong, in which TVB plays an active role, research based on a survey from 1996 to 2006 has indicated that in 2006 there were still about forty percent of the respondents who were reluctant to take on the Chinese identity (Ma and Fung 2007). During the live broadcast, TVB does not touch on this issue but actively promotes a Chinese identity. Besides, TVB repeats the claim “proud of being a Chinese.” For example, when China’s Athlete Team is entering the stadium, there is a short shot, one of the few clips shot by TVB’s self-equipped camera, showing the three on-site anchorpersons cheerfully displaying the national flag of China. A few moments later, during the parade of China’s Athlete Team, one of the anchormen in the Beijing main studio reviews, as voice-over, the “centennial dream of the Olympics [百年奥运梦想],” the “three enquiries about the Olympics [奥运三问]”87 in 1908, and the disasters China suffered in 2008. He then concludes with the following comments: “This Olympic Games has 204 countries and regions attending . . . which is by far the most massively

87 The “centennial dream of the Olympics” and the “three enquiries about the Olympics” are all related to an article published in a magazine Tianjin Youth [天津青年] in 1908. In this article, the contributor asked (a) when China could send athletes to participate in the Olympics; (b) when Chinese athletes could win a gold medal in the Olympic; and (c) when China could host the Olympics. 2008 happened to be one hundred years since the questions were asked. This is the origin of the “centennial dream of the Olympics.”

148 attended Olympics. This most massively attended Olympics is exactly the Beijing Olympics, of which we should be proud.” Then he asks his fellow commentators how they think about the Olympics. They reply respectively as follows:

Up to now, we finally see the great aspects of the Olympics.

After watching the Opening Ceremony, I genuinely feel that I’m proud of being a Chinese.

This is an advance of the “new China.”88

I had never expected that I could be in Beijing to experience such a full blast.

These expressions of sentimental attachment to the Beijing Olympics and, more broadly, to China are pervasive in the whole live broadcast. In fact, TVB’s live broadcast is the only non-mainland-China version that does not present any manifest criticism to the Games and to China. It even tries to adopt CCTV’s commentary scripts for the art performance of the Opening Ceremony, reading word by word the commentary scripts in Cantonese during the live broadcast (which will be analyzed in detail later in this chapter). The overall tone of the live broadcast is obviously to stay aligned with the official position of the Beijing Olympics.89

Failed Full Alignment

By articulating proactive claims of supporting the Olympics, declaring the pride of being Chinese, and adopting interpretation scripts of the CCTV, TVB’s live broadcast of the Opening Ceremony attempts to stay aligned with the official mediation of

88 The “new China” usually refers to the People’s Republic of China that was established in 1949. 89 In 2009, a nickname of TVB, “CCTVB,” appeared on Hong Kong Internet. It is an abbreviation of CCTV and TVB, which means that the TVB is a branch channel of CCTV in Hong Kong. See Chong. 2009. “CCTVB: Self-censorship in Hong Kong.” Interlocal.net, 18 July. http://interlocals.net/?q=node/324 (accessed 7 Aug 2011); Lam, Oiwan. 2009. “Hong Kong: Say No to CCTVB.” Global Voice, 8 June. http://globalvoicesonline.org/2009/06/08/hong-kong-say-no-to-cctvb/ (accessed 7 Aug 2011).

149 mainland China on the Olympics. However, as a former colony of the United Kingdom, Hong Kong has its own political and cultural context, and particular media culture, both of which have become entangled with the live broadcast and have subsequently undermined TVB’s effort of political collaboration with the authorities. One of the most notable examples in this regard is that TVB is involving several pop stars in its Olympic broadcasting to attract more audience. These celebrities — including Carol Cheng [郑裕玲], Pak-Cheung [陈百祥], Lee Hac Ken [李克勤], Alex Fong Lik Sun [方力申), Shirley Yeung Sze Ki [杨思 琦], Kayi Cheung [张嘉儿], Heidi [朱凯婷], Sharon Luk Sze Wan [陆诗韵], Winnie Young Yuen Yee [杨婉仪), Anna Yau Hoi Man [丘凯敏], and Dexter Young Tin-King [杨天经] — are put on the screen to anchor the Olympics-related programs, to comment on the games, and to interview athletes. The intensive involvement of celebrities in the Olympic Games broadcast may be regarded as very unusual and inappropriate by many influential television channels in the world, for it may shed negative impact on their “professionalism” on sports. For example, CCTV, BBC, or CNN may sometimes involve pop stars in Olympics-related entertainment programs, for example, talk shows, but would rarely use them as anchorpersons or commentators for the games and matches, let alone for the Opening and Closing Ceremonies. Yet, this practice is not surprising in Hong Kong, a place with thriving popular culture and an entertainment-oriented media culture. TVB and ATV have been employing this market-driven strategy in the live broadcast of top sports events for over twenty years, even though it has always led to controversies: on the one hand, this strategy attracts a bigger audience; on the other, it arouses hefty criticisms of the pop stars’ lack of sports knowledge and anchoring experience. The commentators of the live broadcast of the Opening Ceremony are two pop stars Carol Cheng [郑裕玲] and Lee Hac Ken [李克勤], and a sports journalist Wendy Wong [黄毓霞]. Right at the beginning of the Opening Ceremony, when Mr. Hu Jintao (President of the PRC) and Mr. Jacques Rogge (President of the

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International Olympic Committee) are stepping onto the VIP platform, the commentators introduce them in a peculiar way:

Wendy Wong: Now, the one we see is . . .

Carol Cheng: Hu Jintao

Wendy Wong: Chinese President . . . President . . . Chinese President Hu Jintao, and the President of the International Olympic Committee, Rogge.

This unusual introduction reveals the difference between TVB and CCTV, or more precisely, the difference between Hong Kong media culture and mainland China media culture. According to the mainland media culture, directly calling the names of high-level government officials on the mainstream media is regarded as extremely inappropriate.90 However, with the relatively open political atmosphere and more entertainment-oriented media culture, addressing top leaders directly by their names on the media is not unusual in Hong Kong. Therefore, the pop star, Carol Cheng, spontaneously interrupts and addresses “Hu Jintao” directly when Wendy Wong has a very short break during her commentary. However, Wendy Wong, as a sports reporter, immediately adds “Chinese President . . . President . . . Chinese President Hu Jintao” to amend Cheng’s appellation. This small accident shows that, although TVB has attempted to stay aligned with the official media of mainland China, it nevertheless embodies the characteristics of local media culture. The differences in addressing political leaders are not coincidences. Another notable phenomenon is that TVB uses Cantonese as the interpreting language. For historical reasons, the Cantonese-speaking areas, including Hong Kong SAR and part

90 In the mainland, the usual way to address high-level officials (as well as other people with higher social status) on the official media is to address them with their titles or honorifics. For example, Hu Jintao is usually addressed as President Hu, or President Hu Jintao. On official occasions, he may also be called Comrade Hu Jintao. There are still other ways of addressing, but none of them would call out their names directly.

151 of the Guangdong province, are the only areas, apart from some autonomous minority areas, where television channels and radio stations can use the local “dialect” for broadcasting.91 As the mandatory promotion of Mandarin as the official “standard Chinese” is “as much an index to the organization of ethnicity inherent to nation building as more overt bureaucratic measures,” which “must be seen as symptomatic of a postcolonial global modernity marked, as always, by massive ethnic inequalities” (Chow 1998: 19), the practice of speaking and broadcasting in Cantonese has been subtly regarded as a resistance to the authoritarian governmentality from Beijing and a symbol of local identity of Hong Kong (Davison and Lai 2007). The Cantonese used in the interpretation is an indicator signifying inherent conflicts within TVB’s efforts of staying aligned with the mainland authorities. As mentioned above, during the live broadcast of the art performance, the commentators try to read the commentary scripts compiled by CCTV in Cantonese, word by word. This unusual adoption is obviously not because the TVB commentary team is unable to compile its own commentary script. The intention of this adoption is just to ensure a politically risk-free interpretation. However, the CCTV scripts are prepared for Chinese Mandarin voice-over, in a typical bureaucratic tone of the official media in mainland China. The script sounds extremely awkward when it is related in Cantonese. The script is relatively sparse compared to the length of the artistic performance, which does not match TVB’s general conversational and casual commentary style presented in the warm-ups and other programs. The on-site commentators soon discover this mismatch and they try to provide impromptu interpretations, which lead to frequent misinterpretations and

91 Hong Kong and the Guangdong province have a long history of broadcasting in Cantonese. In Hong Kong, Cantonese was broadcast to lower social classes in the colonial times. In the Guangdong province, in the late 1970s and early 1980s when the revival of media began, the television and radio broadcast chose Cantonese for two main reasons: (a) at that time many people could not understand Mandarin, especially those people of middle age and above, and living in small towns and the countryside; and (b) following Hong Kong as an example. In the 1990s and early 2000s, there was a wave in many provinces in mainland China to set up local-dialect-speaking programs on television and radio channels, but most of these programs ceased with the injunction from SARFT (the State Administration of Radio, Film, and Television). In 2010, people in the Guangdong province took to the streets to protest when there were rumors that SARFT and other authorities were trying to ban Cantonese broadcasting.

152 desynchronizations with the camera shots. Sometimes they have to make amendments and connections a few moments later, seemingly having been reminded by offstage workers. For example, shortly after the beginning of the fou drum performance, Carol Cheng interprets that “all performers are volunteers.” A few moments later, she amends: “The performers include professional performers, amateur performers, and volunteers.”92 The audience can even hear some clues of the offstage discussions about how to deal with this situation. After the Footprint firework, the voice-over interpretations are given in an unusual way: a combination of the interpretation from on-site commentators and commentators in the Beijing studio. Attentive audience can even differentiate the nuances of different voice tracks resulting from acoustic dis- synchronization of the two studios and of the two commentator groups. During the Movable Type-printing performance, Carol Cheng even openly reminds her colleagues in the Beijing studio by saying: “Actually, you friends sitting beside the TV set, you are from the TV station, and you know better about what is going on there than we do. We have limited knowledge of this and are just trying to get by.”93 This unusual situation reveals the tension between the market-driven business interests and political collaboration. On the one hand, TVB wants to perform more active collaborations with mainland authorities. On the other, its intensive involvement of the pop stars practically undermines the intended purpose. As a commercial television corporation, TVB has to maintain the profitability of its programs, especially when it has heavily invested in the live broadcast of the Opening Ceremony and the overall Beijing Olympics. Involving pop stars is a market-proof

92 Besides the mentioned example of “all performers are volunteers,” some noteworthy misinterpretations and desynchronizations in the first twenty minutes include: explaining that the firework of twenty-nine footprints began at Juyong Guan [居庸关] when the footprints actually began from the center of Beijing; calling the fifty-six youths in ethnic costumes surrounding the flag altar (where Lin Miaoke lip-synched An Ode to My Homeland) “children” when the fifty-six children actually had already appeared a few moments earlier and would appear a few moments later; commenting on the guqin, which was to appear almost one minute later, when the camera shots were focusing on the dancers who were drawing with their bodies; claiming that there were two big LED screens on the ground of the Bird’s Nest but there was only one super large LED screen on the ground; and some other examples. 93 I think this was an accident. Carol Cheng should be trying to communicate with her colleagues in the Beijing studio, but she forgot to mute the public voice track and unexpectedly had this conversation made public.

153 method that can generate high audience rating. Even though the heavy involvement of the pop stars might undermine the effect of political collaboration, TVB still has to employ it. This tension also unveils the conflict between the media culture in Hong Kong and in mainland China: the former entertainmentalizes the Beijing Olympics, but the latter takes it as a joyous yet serious event.

Cultural Sensibility and Partly Recognized Chineseness

As I have analyzed in the previous chapters, the Opening Ceremony has constructed a “new” version of Chineseness surrounding harmony, history and culture, and modernity. Although TVB’s live broadcast tries to articulate an alignment with the mainland authorities, it is only sensitive to some parts of the new Chineseness. As mentioned above, after finding out the awkwardness of adopting the CCTV’s commentary script, both the on-site commentators and those in the Beijing studio have to provide impromptu comments to fill up the long intervals between the commentaries and to counteract the bureaucratic tone of those scripts. Not foreseeing this situation and after a few misinterpretations, they become very cautious and try to limit their impromptu comments to the areas they are most familiar with. For example, Lee Hac Ken provides very few impromptu interpretations (besides echoing other people’s comments and adding some acclamations), one of which is to comment on the difficulties of forming perfect circles during the taijiquan performance in the Nature section. As a famous singer, he can fully understand the synchronization difficulties in massive group performances. Under this circumstance, the impromptu interpretations reflect their actual and spontaneous perception and recognition of the implications and connotations of the Opening Ceremony and the new Chineseness. The most frequently added impromptu interpretations are about culture and history. These interpretations amount to eight incidents and are all made by the anchorman from the Beijing studio (see table 4.1). These interpretations cover six out of the eight sections of the artistic performance, including all five sections in the first

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(historical) part of the art performance, and one of the three sections in the second (modern) part. Three of the eight interpretations last for more than two minutes, causing disturbance to the audience’s viewing of the performance. These spontaneous and impromptu interpretations imply the commentators’ deep identification with Chinese traditional culture, sharply contrasting to the commentators’ neglect of many other aspects of the new Chineseness.

Table 4.1: The contents of impromptu interpretations on culture and history during the Opening Ceremony

Sequence Performance Description of impromptu interpretations Section 1 Painting Scroll The cultural implications of the music of an ancient Chinese instrument guqin 2 Painting Scroll Introduction to A Thousand Li of Rivers and Mountain 3 Writing The origin and importance of the idea he (和, harmony) in Chinese culture and philosophy 4 Beijing Opera The difference between local operas in Northern and Southern China 5 Silk Route The historical process of the cultural communication between China and the West 6 Nature The cultural meaning of taiji 7 Nature The ideology behind taijiquan can facilitate “the communication between tradition and modernity, the harmonious coexistence between human and nature” 8 Nature The idea of “harmony between human and nature” [天人合一] and its social and environmental implications

However, compared to the enthusiastic interpretation of the cultural meanings and historical origins of the art performance, the commentators, except relating the CCTV scripts, pay little attention to the crucial discourses of modernity, social harmony, and ethnic harmony narrated in the performance. There are relatively more, but still few, comments on the employment of high technology, and the harmonious international relationship in history and in the contemporary era. In addition, in order to reduce the awkwardness, Carol Cheng, who is responsible for relating the CCTV 155 scripts, abridges some parts of the scripts to shorten the time of relating and to make them more sensible in Cantonese, which again reduces the content of interpretation. Thus, TVB’s live broadcast acknowledges only a fraction of the new Chineseness, namely, the rich culture and long history. The rest is either casually spoken of, or totally neglected. To sum up, some of the most notable phenomena are the overall alignment with the mainland authorities, the passion of patriotism, and the alleged support of the Olympics. This situative centering of the new Chineseness and the Opening Ceremony forms a sharp contrast with the CTV live broadcast in Taiwan, as I will show in the next section.

Taiwan: An Unresolved Alienation from the Mainland

As discussed earlier, Taiwan society is politically divided into three camps — Blue, Green, and Moderate, which has a direct impact on the media. The media in Taiwan mostly have their clear political position. For example, the China Times [中国时报], United Daily [联合报], and CTV [中视, China Television Company] belong to the Blue Camp, and the Liberty Times [自由时报] and FTV [民视, Formosa Television] are tied to the Green Camp. Relatively fewer media organizations are regarded as moderate or neutral, among which are Public TV [公视, Public Television Service] and CTS [华视, Chinese Television System]. In 2008, four television channels obtained the broadcasting rights of the Opening Ceremony of the Beijing Olympics: CTV, TTV (Taiwan TV), CTS, and FTV. CTV is typically blue. TTV is less stable, but in 2008 it was regarded as light blue. Meanwhile, CTS is regarded relatively neutral and FTV is green. In the following, I will take CTV’s live broadcast as an example to analyze how media in Taiwan present the Opening Ceremony and respond to, as well as contest, the new Chineseness. Choosing CTV is based on two reasons: Firstly, CTV’s live broadcast has a relative larger audience,

156 ranking as one of the top two among the four live broadcasts.94 Secondly, CTV can provide examples to illustrate the implications of the cultural ties and political split between mainland China and Taiwan: although CTV is regarded as one of the “bluest” media in Taiwan, it also expresses quite strong estrangement from the mainland China. CTV did not send out a crew to Beijing for the live broadcast of the Opening Ceremony (nor did the other three channels), so it adopted the standard BOB signal. Except for a short trailer, it did not fabricate warm-ups for the Ceremony. The live broadcast involved two groups of commentators. The first group included an anchorman from CTV Li Gang [李岗], a notable film-maker in Taiwan; and Chen Shengfu [陈胜福], the chief director of Ming Hua Yuan Arts & Culture Group [明华 园戏剧总团].95 The second group consisted of Tong Zhiwei, Wu Yingda, and Chen Yian [陈怡安]. The first group was responsible for the commentary of the art performance of the Opening Ceremony; the second group interpreted other sections. With these specifics, I will focus in the following on the commentaries, as well as a few blackouts during the broadcast, to analyze how CTV responds to and contests the Opening Ceremony and the new Chineseness.

“You Are Not Me”

Although CTV is labeled as a “blue” medium, which means that it politically advocates the (final) unification with mainland China, its live broadcast clearly reflects the political division between mainland China and Taiwan. One of the typical examples is CTV’s blackout of the China’s Anthem section during the broadcast. When the national flag of the People’s Republic of China is entering the stadium,

94 See “Taiwan Audience Rating Report: Nearly 7 Million Viewers Watched the Olympic Opening Ceremony [台湾收视率报告: 岛内近 700 万人观赏奥运开幕式].” 2008. Ifeng [凤凰网], 11 August. http://2008.ifeng.com/chinese/200808/0811_4216_713472.shtml (accessed 12 Jun 2011). 95 Ming Hua Yuan is a leading organization of gezaixi (Taiwanese opera), the only performing art form that allegedly originated in Taiwan. Detailed information about Ming Hua Yuan can be found at its official website: http://www.twopera.com/.

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CTV’s anchorman does not even acknowledge that the flag is a “national flag” of China, calling it the “the Olympic flag of the host country”: Even though the subtitles on the screen indicate that it is “China’s national flag entering,” the anchorman interprets in this way: “Right now, the Olympic flag of the host country is entering the stadium.” The live broadcast is immediately cut off and replaced by a lengthy advertisement of a pharmaceutical company. What makes this practice more unusual is that when the broadcast resumes, the commentators find out that the China’s Anthem ritual is still going on, they have to cut off the broadcasting and replace it with that commercial again. This practice resonates with the debate a few months earlier about the Chinese translation of the name of the Chinese Taipei Athlete’s Team. After the PRC resumed membership of the IOC in 1979, the ROC athlete team had to change its name to Chinese Taipei Athlete’s Team in the Olympic system. At the same time, the ROC Olympic membership changed its name to Chinese Taipei Olympic Committee. The PRC Olympic Committee is titled Chinese Olympic Committee (Brownell 2008: chapter five). Before the Beijing Olympics, both the China Athlete’s Team and the Chinese Taipei Athlete’s Team were all presented in foreign languages, such as English or French, the Chinese translation of the names had not led to disputes. However, in the spring of 2008, when the BOCOG proposed to translate Chinese Taipei to 中国台北 (zhongguo taibei, literally China Taipei), the Chinese Taipei Olympic Committee refused to accept it, pointing out that this name indicated that ROC or Taiwan was subordinate to PRC, for usually PRC was abbreviated as 中国 (zhongguo, China) and ROC was abbreviated as 中华民国 (Republic of China) or 中 华 (zhonghua, with no literal counterpart in English). Alternatively, the Chinese Taipei Olympic Committee proposed 台湾 (Taiwan) as its name. However, fearing that the use of “Taiwan” might lead to a domino effect of recognizing Taiwan as a diplomatic term, BOCOG refused to accept this proposal. The debate soon flared up into a “diplomatic” issue, involving the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the ROC and the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council of the PRC (the mainland China’s

158 official institute dealing with ROC-related issues). During the negotiation, the Chinese Taipei Olympic Committee threatened to quit the Beijing Olympics. Finally, with the mediation from the IOC, BOCOG, and the Chinese Taipei Olympic Committee, they reached an agreement to translate Chinese Taipei into 中华台北 (zhonghua taibei, literally Chinese Taipei, the official translation made by ROC). The trouble of names abounds in the live broadcast. The first group of CTV commentators employs a series of names to address mainland China: they [他们], mainland [大陆], the local [本地], the host [地主或东道主], the inland [内地], and China [中国]. Although the meaning of “China [中国]” they use is slippery (which will be analyzed later), most of the remaining appellations are more or less meant to demarcate “they” and “we,” or self and other. For example, when they are talking about the Chinese landscape painting during the Painting Scroll section, Chen Shengfu comments:

This kind of scroll-formed landscape painting, performed in a dance form, well matches the distinguishing features of they Chinese Han ethnicity [sic].

With “they Chinese Han,” Chen obviously demarcates himself (or more broadly, the people in Taiwan) from the “majority” of Chinese Han in mainland China. This also echoes the ethnic identity-building movement from the 1980s onward in Taiwan, which attempts to articulate a local ethnic identity and to separate the Taiwan people from the mainland Chinese.96 Similarly, in the Writing section, when there is a close shot of the movable printing blocks, Li Gang comments that “these [characters on the blocks] look like local characters [本地字].” The term “local characters,” referring to the simplified Chinese characters coined and promoted by the mainland China authorities in the 1960s and thereafter, resembles a contemptuous remark rarely used in formal occasions: Taiwan and Hong Kong are still using the traditional Chinese characters, a

96 For more detailed analysis on the ethnic identity-building movement in Taiwan, see Brown (2004).

159 fact of which some people in Taiwan and Hong Kong are proud. Yet, debates about whether or not to adopt the simplified Chinese characters have never ceased in both areas. One of the typical reactions to the simplified Chinese characters is that they are vulgar and have eliminated the elegance and cultural meanings of the traditional characters. This is why, after hearing Li’s comments, the other two commentators burst into laughter in amusement. Therefore, they do not even notice that the characters on the movable blocks are actually traditional Chinese characters. The comments and laughter again demarcates WE who use the authentic and aesthetic traditional Chinese characters from THEY who use the “local characters.” During the artistic performance commentary, there are several occasions of laughter. In all the examined live broadcasts or rebroadcasts, CTV is the only media that mixes in a strong playful-cynical tone in the commentaries. The first commentator group laughs more than twenty times during the roughly seventy minutes of commentary. They make fun of the involvement of PLA soldiers as performers, the chief director Zhang Yimou’s aesthetic preference (of volume and scale, of the golden and silver color, and so on), some narratives presented in the performance (for example, the “appeal for friends,” which I will analyze later), and other issues. One of the typical instances of laughter happens at the very beginning of the live broadcast when the anchorman briefs an introduction:

There were a lot of media reports about this event. For example, [reports] suspected that many art performers from PLA were involved in the performance. (Group laughter)

This case showcases one very important aspect of the playful-cynical commentaries: they serve to demarcate “you” and “me.” The laughter is largely triggered by (a) an unease caused by the military confrontation between the mainland and Taiwan; and (b) a “superiority complex” that mixed with a cold-war mindset and the Cross-Strait politics: you are still under the communist authoritarian governance, but we are now

160 in a “superior” democracy. The latter probably carries more weight than the former. One of the main reasons for the political division of the Taiwan Strait was the success of the communist movement in mainland China that resulted in the retreat of the Nationalist government to Taiwan in 1949. Since the 1980s, the democratization process has led Taiwan to be the first democratized society of the Greater China. Politicians, media, and academia in Taiwan often reveal a sense of political “superiority” over communist mainland China. A typical example is that President Ma Ying-jeou of ROC repeatedly claims that the premise of the political reunification with mainland China is the democratization in the mainland.97 A few moments later, Chen Shengfu’s comment reinforces this complex:

If it were in a democratic country, the massive mobilization of soldiers and students would definitely trigger protests and attacks . . . Only a communist country can manage to accomplish such a formidable task. (Laughter)

This scornful comment reflects the commentators’ contempt of the communist governmentality in the mainland. Similar political “superiority” complex can be seen in each of the nine times of the PLA-soldier-related laughter. Sometimes the laughter even exceeds the “superiority” complex. For example, shortly after the beginning of the live broadcast, when introducing the cultural implication of the timing of the Opening Ceremony, the anchorman briefs:

At eight o’clock in the evening, 8 August 2008, the Opening Ceremony will officially begin. The four eights [八, ba] connote ‘fortunate’ [发, fa], for they are homophones . . .

97 Ma has repeated this statement many times. The following is an example: “AP Interview: Taiwan's Ma Moves Ahead with China.” 2010. Associated Press, 19 October. http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=11913850 (accessed 7 Aug 2011).

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Then Li Gang retorts:

But this year the mainland did have suffered a lot of things, blizzard, earthquake, etc. (Laughter)

The irony between the fortunate implication of the four “eights” and the disasters that happened during the first half of 2008 does create a sense of amusement, but laughing at disasters still has gone far beyond the ethical propriety and the general humanitarianism that the mainstream worldwide media uphold. This laughter immediately alienates the object — the people in mainland China — from the subject — the commentators — creating an alienation of “you” and “me.” The second group of the CTV’s commentaries also shows the political division. The second group cheers when the athlete teams of the countries that maintain diplomatic relations with ROC (e.g., Republic of Palau, Republic of the Marshall Islands, Republic of Paraguay) are entering the stadium. In their commentaries, “China” refers more clearly to mainland China, which in turn demarcates more clearly mainland China and Taiwan than the first group of CTV’s commentaries. Thus, although the theme song of the Opening Ceremony advocates a proposition of “you and me, we are family,” the live broadcast on CTV, the alleged bluest media in Taiwan, presents a manifest alienation from mainland China, indicating a claim of “you are not me.”

Slippery “Chinese” and Ambiguous “We”

Despite a demarcation of “you” and “me,” CTV’s live broadcast still articulates an identity of Chinese and Chinese Culture. For example, in the first half of the live broadcast, although the commentators express a strong division of “we” and “they,” their attitude subtly changes as the artistic performance moves to the historical and

162 cultural sections. During the Silk Route section, the anchorman for the first time clearly uses “we” to include themselves and the mainlanders:

Zhang Qian was sent to the Western Regions on a diplomatic mission, which opened a time of splendid civilization . . . China’s cultural history was not merely limited in the Central Plains, but it was also [related to] the interaction with OUR neighboring countries, which was one of the very important interactions in OUR history. (emphasis added)

This inclusion continues throughout the whole Silk Route section. They keep talking about the interactions, as well as the implications of the interactions, between China and the countries on the Inland and Marine Silk Routes, by using “we” and “our.” They take pride in the glory of the Silk Route and indicate an inclusion of themselves as “Chinese.” For example, Li Gang comments on the suspension of the Marine Silk Route in late Ming dynasty:

The most pitiful is that, when Zheng He was back, the government . . . banned the marine navigation. If the navigation had continued, China would not have fallen into a decline, and would not be like what it is today. He was earlier than Columbus and Magellan . . . What a pity.

A few moments later, he adds:

But this [creating of the Silk Routes] for China is the westward and eastward huge merges with our neighbors [sic] . . . transmitting OUR civilization [to Europe, Southeast Asia, and other regions]. ” (emphasis added)

The strong pride in Chinese culture and history is not limited to the Silk Route section. At the very beginning of the commentary, Li expresses that he is more

163 interested in culture-related performances than those of high technology or “green Olympics,” namely, the “modernity-related” performances. During the commentaries, all the anchormen and the two commentators show solid knowledge of Chinese high culture. They recognize the “four inventions” immediately, and exclaim at some rarely seen cultural elements as the performance goes on. For example, in the Painting Scroll section, there is one short camera shot of a painting presented on the huge LED screen, which is A Thousand Li of Landscape painted by Wang Ximeng [王希孟] around 1113 AD. Later, during the session of the Writing performance, Li Gang suddenly recalls it: “Wasn’t it Wang Ximeng’s painting?” The anchorman agrees: “Yes. It was Wang Ximeng’s mountain and water painting.” And they go on commenting as follows:

Li: [It was painted] in North Song Dynasty . . . [and is] one of the Top Ten Chinese Paintings.98 The anchorman: Wang Ximeng was a legendary figure! He made this painting at eighteen . . . Li (interrupted): Only this painting! The anchorman: Then he died in his twenties.

These comments show their solid knowledge of Chinese historical high culture: although Wang was a prominent painting master in Chinese history, neither CCTV nor TVB (nor NBC or BBC) mentioned anything about his solitude masterpiece, let alone Wang’s life episodes. Besides, CTVs commentators’ knowledge of Chinese culture is also demonstrated by their familiarity with Confucius’s Analects. They can spontaneously tell from exactly which chapters of the Analects the Confucius’s sayings in the welcoming Fou Formation and the Writing sections were recited. For example, during the Fou Formation section, there is a Confucius’ saying “friends

98 There are a few different versions of Top Ten Chinese Paintings but all the versions include Wang Ximeng’s A Thousand Li of Landscape.

164 come from afar, how happy we are!” [有朋自远方来，不亦乐乎!] The anchorman immediately points out that this is a saying from the “xueer chapter” [学而篇, chapter one] of the Analects. These commentators’ solid background knowledge is remarkable considering the fact that in mainland China, specific knowledge of Chinese culture was largely lost due to the discontinuity of traditional cultural education from the 1950s to 1970s. In Taiwan, traditional cultural education was resumed after 1945 when the Nationalist Party took back Taiwan from Japanese occupation and has continued ever since. This is part of the reason why Taiwan (as well as Hong Kong, Singapore, and the countries where overseas Chinese congregate) is regarded by Tu Weiming (1991) as a “new center” of the Chinese culture and mainland China as the “periphery.” Thus, despite their manifest demarcation and alienation from mainland China, CTV’s commentators have subtly embodied a cultural identity of China and Chineseness. This identity and recognition partly resonate with the principle of consensus reached by both the PRC and the ROC in 1992, “maintaining one China but left each side free to express their interpretation [九二共識、一中各表],” which is one of agreements that the Green Camp has been trying to annul since the late 1990s.

Selective Recognition of the New Chineseness

Despite the attempt to alienate themselves from the PRC, CTV’s commentators present a strong acknowledgement of Chinese traditional culture and a subtle identification of being Chinese. This geo-identity politics also has a subtle impact on the commentators’ perception and response to the new Chineseness. The most notable impact is related to traditional culture. CTV’s commentators complain about the way the Opening Ceremony presents Chinese tradition and culture. For example, at the end of the art performance, Li Gang expresses that he would have preferred to see more cultural presentations other than the Four Great Inventions:

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Actually, what I want to see is not what Chinese had invented, [but high culture] such as the dramas, the Story of a Journey to the West [西游记], or the Tale of White Serpent [白蛇传]. Since they have been handed down [for hundreds of years], there must be some reasons [for their sustainability]. They would be less heavy [than the massive performances of the Four Great Inventions] to the audience.99

With this preference for traditional culture, Li and his colleagues have neglected many other aspects that Zhang Yimou and his colleagues want to emphasize in the performance. For example, the commentators almost totally neglect the environmentalistic concerns embedded in the performance in the Nature section, probably because Li is so eager to see how Zhang would interpret the Chinese philosophy “harmony between human and nature [天人合一]” (which is the philosophical foundation of taijiquan). Li accuses the taijiquan performance for being too forceful in the movement, presenting a Western-like philosophy of “man by his efforts can conquer nature [人定胜天]” rather than “tolerance and harmony [包容， 和谐]” of “harmony between human and nature.” According to the commentators, the Opening Ceremony is too heavy and pressuring: the scenes are too grandiose, the group performances too pressuring, and the colors excessively florid. Li infers that the pressure, which is intrinsic in the presentations, would undermine China’s “appeal for friends” through the Opening Ceremony and the overall Games. For example, during the Painting section with the guqin performance, Li comments that China is eager to make friends:

In John Woo’s Red Cliff [赤壁] . . . there are scenes in which Kongming [孔 明] and Zhou Yu [周瑜] are playing the guqin. There are two lines that are

99 Both the Story of a Journey to the West and the Tale of White Serpent are among the most famous novels and tales in Chinese culture. The former was first published in 1592; the latter was believed to be first drafted in the Ming dynasty and finalized in the late Qing dynasty.

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very pertinent. After the “war” of performance, Zhou comments on Kongming’s play and says: “From your play I can figure out that you need friends!” This is because Kongming needs friends to launch the war against the Wei Kingdom . . . I think it is very pertinent here, because China is trying to make friends. And [China] treats the Olympics like a war.100

To “make friends,” according to Li and his colleagues, is the main purpose of the Opening Ceremony, as well as the overall Beijing Olympics. By saying “[China] treats the Olympics like a war,” Li does not mean that China is actually declaring war on the world, but infers that China takes the Olympics extremely seriously and invests abundant resources to secure its success. These two themes, be it the appeal for friends or the treating of the Olympics like a war, are pervasive in their commentaries. However, the way CTV interprets the “appeal for friends” or how China wants to “wave hands to the world” is different from the “peace-loving” image of China constructed during the Olympic Games. Instead of intentionally selecting historical symbols to demonstrate that China is always in peaceful and “harmonious” relationship with neighboring countries, CTV tends to associate this construction with wars and military-related issues, for example, mentioning the historical wartime film Red Cliff as illustration, constantly mentioning the performers’ PLA background, and so forth. These interpretations probably result from the ongoing political and military antagonism across the Taiwan Strait. Not long ago, in 1995–96, there was a so-called Third-Taiwan-Strait Crisis, in which mainland China conducted a series of missile tests in the sea around the Taiwan Island. During 2000–2008 when the Green party (the Democratic Progressive Party) was governing Taiwan, the military tension did not disappear but sometimes re-emerged. It was on 5 December 2008 that the mainland and Taiwan finally reassumed direct air and sea transportation, and postal

100 John Woo’s film Red Cliff [赤壁] was adapted from one of the famous classic novel The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, which tells the tales of the Three Kingdoms roughly from 185 AD to 285 AD. Kongming was the prime minister of the Shu Kingdom. Zhou Yu was commander-in-chief of the Wu Kingdom. The cited story here is about Kongming going to Zhou Yu to make an alliance against the Wei Kingdom, which was attacking his prince’s army.

167 services (also known as “三通,” the Three Direct Links).101 The political and military antagonism then had direct impact on the perception and attitude of Taiwanese media toward mainland China, leading to CTV’s military-related rejoinders to the constructed “harmony” rhetoric in the Opening Ceremony. Furthermore, partly because Taiwan has been economically better off than mainland China since the 1970s, CTV (and the other three live broadcasts in Taiwan) is very sensitive, though still with a mixture of acknowledgement and vigilance, to the construction of a “new” China image based on a prosperous and “high-tech” China. For example, the CTV anchorman comments during the Starlight section:

I think, what is constantly expressed [through the performances] is the glorious sensation. Zhang Yimou wants to, through this glory, this splendor, to illuminate that this is a shining country, a shining Olympics, hoping you will notice it.

The commentators go further to discuss the technology underpinning the Opening Ceremony as a whole. They have a keen interest in the technology employed in the performance. For example, in the Dream section, they have a dialogue as follows:

The anchorman: This is, up to now, the most modern, most technologically advanced performance. Astronauts! Chen Shengfu: It seems that this Olympics has employed TOO MUCH technology. (emphasis added) Li Gang: But China’s space technology and missiles — of course we DON’T LIKE THE MISSILES — are indeed great achievements. They worked hard and developed [these technologies] by themselves. Not easy, indeed. (emphasis added)

101 Before the implementation of this policy, the transportation and postal service across the Taiwan Strait had to, at least symbolically, stay over somewhere (most likely, in Hong Kong).

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As a filmmaker whose job involves complicated on-site collaboration and coordination, Li is obviously overwhelmed by the grandiosity of the spectacle. Triggered by the precise movements of the performers and the immense involvement of the PLA soldiers during the Opera section, Li is amazed at the difficulties of organizing so many performers in such a complex performance, and begins to discuss the difficulties of managing hundreds of thousands of soldiers during the wars in the ancient times. He comments:

I’m always wondering . . . in the time of Qin Shihuang [the First Emperor] . . . hundreds of thousands of people, marching, catering, communication [sic], how did they manage it?

The anchorman rejoins:

I suspect [the coordination of] the three thousand people on the stage are already a big problem to solve, let alone hundreds of thousands of people.

Finally, during the final section of the artistic performance, Dream, they are shocked by the huge globe — which is with a diameter of eighteen meters — rising from beneath the stage; and they again switch the topic to the management: how to rebuild the stage for the track and field matches, given that the games are to be held soon? Finally, Li comments with an exclamation:

So many people, such short time! How could they be gathered and be evacuated?

These comments indicate an unusual recognition of the new Chineseness: the commentators’ keen attention paid to the organization is the only one, in all the

169 examined broadcasts, that has emphasized the technological and management achievements embedded in the Opening Ceremony that are meant to showcase China’s modernity or “modernness” to the world. Meanwhile, when they constantly link the performance involving “high technology” and efficient management to wars and military issues, it reflects the unease of the commentators that results from the political and military confrontations across the Taiwan Strait: for them, the advancement in technology and management in mainland China may mean improvement in its military power, and may subsequently threaten Taiwan’s security. These worries, to some extent, may also be viewed as a unique version of the “China threat” theory.

Conclusion

From the above analysis, we can see that in the live broadcasts of the Opening Ceremony in Hong Kong and Taiwan, the issue of Chinese identity has become a pendulum: TVB tries to evade the local-identity issue in the broadcast, which exactly reaffirms the existence of it; CTV attempts to estrange Taiwan from mainland China, but it finally acknowledges the cultural connection and a shared identity of “we Chinese.” This specific evasion of local identity (TVB) and alienation from the mainland China (CTV) imply a deliberate “disappearance” of what is undesired: the local identity in Hong Kong and the Chinese identity in Taiwan. However, paraphrasing Abbas’s research on the disappearance of colonialist existence in Hong Kong, the “disappearances” in Hong Kong’s and Taiwan’s live broadcasts immediately imply the appearance of the opposite: a failed full alignment with the central government and an unfinished re-building of Chinese identity in Hong Kong, as well as the subtle identity of Chinese and a blurred yet persistent link with mainland China in Taiwan. The pendulum between evasion and claiming identity on Hong Kong and Taiwan television channels reflects the complex geopolitics between mainland China, and Taiwan and Hong Kong. 170

This pendulum implies that neither the new Chineseness nor the concept of cultural China can serve as an ideal resource for Hong Kong and Taiwan, let alone for all the “Chinese” across the world. As I discuss in chapter two, the new Chineseness constructed in the Opening Ceremony is rather monolithic and sino-centric, which allows little space to include elements from the ethnic minorities, Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan, as well as the diaspora communities. Although Chinese traditional culture has, to some extent, served as a cultural bond to unite mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, the culture alone is not sufficient to obliterate the geopolitical concerns among these regions, as we can see in the pendulum of Chinese identity in the live broadcasts of Hong Kong and Taiwan media. On the other hand, the concept of cultural China, which emphasizes anti- communism and holds a presumption of an economically static and culturally anti- traditionalist mainland China, is largely challenged when mainland China reclaims the traditional culture and shows its bewildering economic growth. In spite of strong anti- communism, Tu (1991) does not seriously question the semi-authoritarian governance in Singapore and Taiwan, nor does he challenge the colonial governance in Hong Kong in the 1970s and 1980s, when these regions were undergoing dramatic (economic) modernization. On the contrary, Tu sees the modernization in these regions as a valuable extension of Chinese culture, with which “they [can] assume an effective role in creatively constructing a new vision of Chineseness that is more in tune with Chinese history and in sympathetic resonance with Chinese culture” (1991: 28). In this vein, the bewildering modernization happening in mainland China, which has recently been generalized as the “China model” (Lin 2006) or “Beijing consensus” (Ramo 2004), is logically comparable to those peripheries, and thus should be at least as significant as the peripheries. Both TVB’s and CTV’s responses, although they, to some extent, cover the identity heterogeneity in Hong Kong and Taiwan (together with the reengagement of Chineseness in Southeast Asia after the 1990s as I have discussed in chapter one), show how mainland China has reclaimed

171 the “center,” a claim partly advocated by some parts and some groups of the “periphery.” With the above analysis, I propose that the increasing diversity of the global “Chinese community” calls for more updated and inclusive “new” Chineseness (or other forms of articulations), which can better match the pervasive hybridity in the Chinese communities across mainland China and the world, as the basis for a “global Chinese identity,” at least for those who are willing to engage or reengage in some sort of Chinese identity.

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Chapter Five The New Chineseness as a Zero Institution: Online Resistance, Antagonism, and National Identity

In 2008, one of the most notable phenomena on the Chinese Internet was the surge of patriotic sentiments. The anti-CNN campaign, the initiatives to boycott French products, and the pervasive “love China” symbol on the instant messaging software MSN are just a few examples of the surges that attracted global attention (Latham 2009; Merkel-Hess, Pomeranz, and Wasserstrom 2009; Nyiri, Zhang, and Varrall 2010; Liu and de Kloet 2008; de Kloet, Chong, and Liu 2008; Liu Handing 2008). However, the critical discourses that have emerged online and the digital voices of resistance against the Olympic Games, even if less conspicuous, were also significant. Because of the prevalent censorship in China, the traditional media had very limited space to criticize issues related to the Beijing Olympics. The Internet was one of the very few media outlets where Chinese could articulate and circulate critical discourses against the Olympics. For example, from early 2006, a rock and roll song called “Fuck the Olympics [奥你妈的运]” by a band called Pangu circulated in some online communities.102 Although it was banned in mainland China and gradually disappeared from mainstream video- and audio-sharing websites after May 2007, it successfully attracted substantial attention both on the Internet and in traditional media in and

102 A MTV of this song can be seen on YouTube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kw4Tf6bs7I (accessed 15 Feb 2011).

173 outside China. A number of activists, scholars, and famous bloggers criticized the Beijing Olympics for its extravagance, for overlooking the property and civil rights of the relocated people whose houses had been demolished, and for further worsening social inequality (e.g., X. Liu 2008b; He 2008; Brady 2009). On online forums, BBS (Bulletin Board System), and among the comments on Olympics-related news on the portal websites and Olympics-related videos on video-sharing websites, it is not hard to find criticisms of Olympics-related issues. However, what were these discourses exactly criticizing? What impact did they have in 2008? Did they counteract patriotic sentiments or did they undermine the identification with the official narratives of the new Chineseness? In this chapter, I am trying to answer these questions by examining the online critical discourses related to the construction of new Chineseness before, during, and after the Beijing Olympics, with a focus on the critical discourses related to the Opening Ceremony. These critical discourses, among other discourses related to the Beijing Olympics, take the forms of blogs, short videos, critical posts and comments on online forums and websites, short mobile-phone messages, and many others. They form a notable contrast to the highly supportive voices in the traditional media and on the Internet across China. At the first glance, these discourses largely echo the research works that emphasize the heterogeneity and empowerment effect of the Chinese Internet (G. Yang 2003 & 2009; Tai 2006; Qiu 2007, 2008a & 2008b; Zheng 2007). For example, Qiu argues that “although new ICT connectivity may also lead to more commercial alienation,” the migrant workers who were previously deemed as “have-none” in the information divide have learned to “re-empower themselves by re-appropriating ICTs” (Qiu 2008b: 346). Guobing Yang emphasizes “the power of the Internet in China,” and argues that online activism has been an ever-evolving creative force to propel the Chinese “long revolution”: building up “conceptions and practices of self, society, and politics,” and then gradually evolving to “democracy as a political system” (2009: 213–14).

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However, if one examines the critical discourses related to the new Chineseness, one will immediately notice that the critical discourses are resisting the articulation of the new Chineseness and other official narratives on the one hand, while also resisting each other. Therefore, the heterogeneity of these critical discourses does not simply imply the characteristics of “online public sphere” (N. Fraser 2007), for it does not generate consensus with rationality or more democratic outcomes as G. Yang (2009), Tai (2006), Zheng (2007), and many others have anticipated. On the contrary, as Y. Zhao (2008) argues, the Internet not only empowers individuals, civil societies, and online “communities” to facilitate the “long revolution,” but also facilitates the regime’s sustenance of its governance. Through close analysis of activist cases in urban and rural China, Ian Weber further argues that online activism, mainly carried out by the middle class, is based on the self-interest of the middle class and is carefully managed not to truly offend the government, so that “the middle class can continue to reap the economic rewards of state capitalism” (2011: 25). Consequently, online activism ends up in a way that “benefits the government and the current power structure” (ibid.: 42). These arguments open a space for further political critique of contemporary China about, for example, how criticisms of sovereignty are articulated and practiced, and what impacts such critical discourses have on the constructed new Chineseness. Following Slavoj Žižek’s reinterpretation of Levi-Strauss’ concept of “zero institution” (Žižek 1999), I argue in this chapter that the critical discourses have served to collectively strengthen the identification with the new Chineseness and, to some extent, reinforce the authoritarian governance. With this argument, I do not intend to negate the democratizing power and democratic characteristics of the Chinese Internet that are significant in online activism in China in the past eighteen years since the introduction of the Internet in China in 1995. What I argue is that, under the post-socialist dynamics and engineered nationalistic enthusiasm in China in 2008, online resistance to national identity-building might have functioned differently from other online contentious activities that lead to democratization of the Internet

175 and the society: these contentious activities had actually reinforced government- patronized patriotism and the current governance rather than weakening them.

“Zero Institution” as a Void Symbol

Before going into a detailed analysis of the critical discourses, I would first like to introduce the concept of “zero institution.” Zero institution is a term first coined by the French anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss. He uses this term to analyze the religious belief of Mana as an empty signifier which can “take on any value required”:

At one and the same time force and action, quality and state, substantive and verb; abstract and concrete, omnipresent and localized — mana is in effect all these things. . . . In the system of symbols constituted by all cosmologies, mana would simply be a valeur symbolique zero . . . which can take on any value required, provided only that this value still remains part of the available reserve and is not, as phonologists put it, a group-term. (Levi- Strauss 1950: xlix; qtd. in Derrida 2000[1966]: 99–100)

Later, he uses this term to describe how conflicting groups of people think they belong to the same tribe and take it as a unifying institution of a split society. Levi- Strauss (1963) describes a village of Winnebago that lies in the Great Lake of North America. Winnebago had two sub-groups (moieties) that had frequent conflictions in daily life. Both sub-groups preserved an identity of belonging to the tribe, but they depicted differently their village’s spatial disposition according to their respective perception of the inter-group relationship: “Those who were above” depicted that the two moieties “were separated by an imaginary diameter running northwest and southeast;” and “those who were below” insisted that the village was structured in concentric circles by pointing out that “the lodges of the moieties chiefs were in the 176 center rather than in the periphery” (ibid.: 133). Levi-Strauss calls the socio-cultural institutions, which is signified by this identity with two conflicting elements, as “institutional forms which one might characterize by a zero value” (ibid.: 159; italics original). He says:

These [zero] institutions have no intrinsic property other than that of establishing the necessary preconditions for the existence of the system to which they belong; their present — in itself devoid of significance — enables the social system to exist. (ibid.)

Thus, the zero institution here is an institution that relies on an empty symbol which can contain and pacify the inner conflicts, and to sustain the social system. Žižek (1999), in his famous critique of the film Matrix, applies this concept to analyze how the “real” is constructed and screened. He argues that in Winnebago there is first the “‘actual,’ ‘objective’ arrangements of the houses and then its two different symbolizations which both distort in an anamorphic way the actual arrangement” (1999, n. pag.). However, the tribe identity has united the “different symbolizations” into another “reality” which “is not the actual (spatial) arrangement, but the traumatic core of the social antagonism which distorts the tribe members’ view of the actual antagonism” (ibid.). It is exactly “reference to such a zero institution that enables all members of the tribe to experience themselves as such, as members of the same tribe” (ibid.). Similarly, this institution also exists in the modern national identity, for the modern notion of nation is also such a zero institution. For example, the relationship between the nation, and the Right and the Left factions in the political sector works under the logic of the zero institution as the tribe identity and the moieties in the Winnebago village. Žižek asks (in an affirmative way):

Is, then, this zero-institution not ideology at its purest, i.e., the direct embodiment of the ideological function of providing a neutral all-

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encompassing space in which social antagonism is obliterated, in which all members of society can recognize themselves? And is the struggle for hegemony not precisely the struggle for how will this zero-institution be overdetermined, colored by some particular signification? (1999, n. pag.)

In this way, Žižek argues that the zero institution of a nation is an ideology to obliterate the antagonism of its members; on the other hand, the members’ struggle for hegemony of the interpretation of (and the identification with) the nation in the antagonism is exactly a process showing how (different) ideological meaning is attached to the national identity as a zero institution. In my view, although his main point is to use the “zero institution” to analyze the ideological perception and distortion of the “real,” Žižek’s critique of the zero institution of nation can be borrowed for illustrative purposes to study the construction of new Chineseness in the Opening Ceremony of the Beijing Olympics. In the following, I will examine how the antagonism between patriotic supportive discourses and critical discourses, as well as the antagonism within the critical discourses is obliterated, and how the antagonism serves to unite the discourses to evolve into an identity under the void symbol of the new Chineseness.

Six Critical Discourses

The online critiques related to the new Chineseness proliferated before, during, and after the Beijing Olympics. The launches of the emblem design (Chinese , Dancing Beijing), the five mascots (), the Torch Relay, the Opening and Closing Ceremonies (including the debate on the implications of China’s number one position on the gold-medal list) are just a few examples of the topics of critiques. These form remarkable counternarratives to the supportive discourses generated by the high patriotism in China. The Opening Ceremony in particular, being the most important

178 presentation stage of the new Chineseness, attracted all kinds of critiques, which will be the focus of analysis in this chapter. There are scholars who still try to analyze the Internet according to practical agents of power. However, on the Internet, it is substantially more difficult to identify the “actors” than discourses. Inspired by works of Richard Rogers and Noortje Marres, Jodi Dean (2003: 107–8) argues that public debates on the Internet are in general rather “issue by issue” than actor-centered. The relatively stable actors of a “public sphere,” in the terms of Jurgen Habermas, are much more problematic on the Internet than in a “traditional” society. I propose that the critical discourses related to new Chineseness should also be presented in an “issue by issue” way for similar reasons. Firstly, anonymity on online forums makes it extremely difficult to locate the actors. This is particularly the case in China as sharp critiques of the government are restrained, leading to a situation in which even the noted “IDs” may have a few sockpuppets (pseudonyms). Secondly, the IDs and the celebrity bloggers (except some very adamant bloggers) may also change their points of view with the passage of time and development of the issue. With the “openness” of the Internet, the proliferation of information makes the actors’ opinions more volatile and in constant flux than in the times of television and the press. Thirdly, as a consequence, the discourses presented on the Internet are more evident than the actors, and relatively more stable on the forums, websites, and blogs (if examined on a large scale). Because of the above reasons, rather than speaking of actors of factions in China, I will focus on how the different critical discourses were articulated in the issues related to the Opening Ceremony, and how these discourses worked vis-à-vis the constructed new Chineseness. My data are mainly gathered from scores of forums, websites, blogs, and short messages circulated on mobile phones. These forums and websites are selected according to their popularity and impact in mainland China. The forums include the most popular public forum Tianya Forum [天涯论坛, www.tianya.cn], the neo-patriotic forum People’s Forum [强国论坛, also known as Strengthening the Nation Forum, bbs.people.com.cn] and Tiexue Forum [铁血社区,

179 bbs.tiexue.net], the neo-Leftist forums Utopia Forum [乌有之乡, www.wyzxsx.com] and the Occidentalist forum Kaidi Forum [凯迪网, www.kdnet.net].103 The portal websites are Sina, Sohu, Netease, and qq.com. The top video-sharing websites, youku.com, tudou.com, and 56.com, are also included. The posts on these forums and websites are selected according to the number of comments and page-views: all posts containing words related to the Olympics [奥运] and the Opening Ceremony [开幕式], and with more than ten comments or five hundred page-views, are selected. The blogs are selected according to their popularity, as well as the uniqueness of their narratives as a discourse. Short messages are collected from friends, website posts, as well as my own mobile phone (see Appendix I). Through the discourse analysis on the data gathered from the selected forums, websites, blogs, and short messages, together with academic reflection on the thoughts and social movements in contemporary Chinese society (e.g., H. Wang 2003[1994]; Gries 2004; Shen 2007; Shen and Breslin 2010; S. Zhao 2000; Callahan 2006 & 2010; Xiaomei Chen 1992 & 2002; and many others), I propose that online critical discourses, despite having various constellations, can be grouped into six most notable categories: Occidentalistic, neo-patriotic, neo-Leftist, traditionalistic, interest- related, and playful-cynical. This typology is made according to their viewpoints to the incumbent regime, to the cultural and historical tradition, and to the ways to strengthen China.104 Except the interest-related (which shifts issue by issue) and the playful-cynical discourses, all other four discourses belong to nationalistic thoughts that have long historical origins and complicated entanglements with the international relationships between China and other countries or regions.105 Each of the four categories had enjoyed a prominent position, in variant forms, at one time or another

103 The Utopia Forum was shut down by the government in April 2012. 104 These criteria are partly drawn from S. Zhao (2000). Zhao categorizes the perspectives of Chinese nationalism in the twentieth century as Nativism, Antitraditionalism, and Pragmatism, according to their objectives, sources of modern national weakness, and approaches to national world’s revitalization. I have modified Zhao’s criteria and applied to my findings in this research. 105 Here I can only briefly describe the main characteristics of the discourses. For more detailed discussion on this issue, please refer to Shen (2007); Shen and Breslin 2010; H. Wang (2003[1994]); Gries (1999 & 2004); and many others.

180 in China (as I will discuss later in this chapter). What is new in is that, thanks to the openness and democratic characteristic of the Internet (N. Fraser 1990; Castells 1996; Qiu 2008b & 2008c; G. Yang 2009; Tai 2006),106 nearly every person and every discourse now has access to the public domain despite the prevalent publicity censorship. This means that discourses can coexist and compete with each other more directly and on a larger scale than they have ever been. Furthermore, the open access to the Internet also enables public exposure of those interest-related complaints and resistance, and can sometimes even attract more attention (G. Yang 2009; Tai 2006), circumventing the much stricter censorship on the traditional media in China. Meanwhile, the trend to entertainmentalize everything in the digital age also generates a large group of people who enjoys the “playful-cynical discourse,” which involves taunting and gibing about everything (which will be discussed later). Some people may assume that these criticisms, given the huge number of webpages/posts/blogs involved, would substantially undermine the legitimacy of the new Chineseness and, therefore, of the Chinese government. My analysis will show that this may not always be the case. In the following, I will first briefly introduce the six discourses (see table 5.1). Then, I will analyze how these critical discourses conflict with the new Chineseness, as well as with one another at the same time. I will also show how these antagonisms are eventually united under the new Chineseness and how each of them represents a different voice on some aspects of the construction of the new Chineseness.

106 Although the openness and democratic characteristic of the Internet has been critiqued by current Internet studies, it is quite conspicuous in China when compared with the traditional media.

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Table 5.1: The critical discourses.107

Occidentalistic Neo-patriotic Neo-Leftist Traditionalistic Interest-Related Playful-Cynical Reasons for Tradition Imperialism Imperialism Imperialism N/A N/A China’s Feudalism Feudalism Feudalism Radical Maoism (previous) Authoritarian governance weakness

Attitude toward Extremely critical Strongly Critical Mildly critical Critical Critical and cynical the incumbent supportive regime

Critiques Supporting the Softness to the Softness to the West Mis-presentation of Insufficient Taunting and gibing related to the authoritarian governance West Insufficient the tradition and representation of about everything in new Tradition-eccentric representation of culture the disadvantaged a “wulitou” way Chineseness presentation the disadvantaged Not being people Waste of money Waste of money sufficiently Neglecting the Pretentiousness Supporting the Chinese livelihood of the corruptive disadvantaged government people Pretentiousness

107 The idea of this table is borrowed from S. Zhao (2000), but I have modified the criteria and expanded the categories.

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1. The Occidentalistic Discourse

The Occidentalistic discourse, also known as extreme liberalistic/Rightist discourse in China,108 first thrived in China in the 1910–40s. It revived in the 1980s (H. Wang 2003[1994]; Xiaomei Chen 1992 & 2002) and from the mid-1990s to 2000s in the economic sector (Lee and Zhu 2006). After 2003, with the rise of China’s economic power and the rise of the neo-patriotic and neo-Leftist discourses, the Occidentalistic discourse is rather restrained in political, economic, and cultural sectors, although it remains influential among dissident groups such as liberalists (also known as Rightist in China).109 It sees the reason for China’s weakness as the Chinese cultural tradition and the authoritarian governance. Therefore, the solution is to incorporate the Western economic, cultural, and political system into China, namely, “a wholesale of Westernization.” The Occidentalist sees the United States (and sometimes some countries in Europe) as a model for China’s development, and strongly opposes the incumbent authoritarian regime (H. Wang 2003[1994]; Xiaomei Chen 2002; Liu Handing 2008). Although generally restrained by government censorship, Occidentalistic discourses related to the new Chineseness that were constructed during the Beijing Olympics were abundant on the Internet, especially on the Kaidi Forum and the Tianya Forum, and in the comments on the news released on the portal websites and in some well-known blogs (for example, the blogs of Liu Xiaobo and Ai Weiwei).110 With regard to the new Chineseness, the main points of this discourse are (a) the Beijing Olympics is strengthening the incumbent authoritarian governance rather than accelerating China’s democratization and modernization; thence, the new Chineseness

108 The term Right or Left has very different connotations in China than in Western academia. In China, the Right refers to a position advocating liberalism or democraticism, while the Left upholds socialism or the Maoist tradition. 109 The Occidentalist discourse had quite limited representations in traditional media before and after the Beijing Olympics. For example, even experienced Guardian's China correspondent, Jonathan Watts, commented that he was not aware of the Occidentalistic and liberalistic critiques on the Beijing Olympics for the Occidentalists and liberalists were “relatively low-voiced” (said in an interview). But on the Internet, one of most notable online debates happened between the Occidentalists and the neo- Leftists and neo-Patriots (Liu Handing 2008). 110 One of the most prominent Occidentalistic actions in 2008 was the release of the “Charter 08” compiled by Liu Xiaobo (X. Liu 2008c). This “Charter 08” urges the Chinese government to facilitate political change to guarantee freedom, modernity, and human rights in China.

183 is dubious; (b) the new Chineseness incorporates too much “out-of-date tradition,” and does not encompass enough “modernity” of contemporary China and “universal values” like freedom, democracy, and egality. For example, a typical rejoinder of this group protests on the People’s Forum in response to the news about the success of the Opening Ceremony:

Hope this dynasty [the satirical pseudonym of the People’s Republic of China on the Internet] does not always linger in the shadow of ancient Chinese, hope Democracy, Civil Rights and People’s Livelihood [民主，民 权，民生] thrive on the land of huaxia [华夏](huaxia is a laudatory name for China.111

Another cynical comment on Kaidi Forum reads:

A labor-intensive performance. For the high-technology approaches I only saw steel wires, LEDs, light projections, and fireworks. If these could be counted as high technology, then this Olympics was truly a hi-tech Olympics.112

Both comments well reflect the main concerns of the Occidentalist discourse: they criticize the Opening Ceremony for relying too much on culture and history, with insufficient presentations of modernity and high technology. They also criticize the authoritarian governance that backs up the “pretentiousness” of the Opening Ceremony spectacle.

111 See Bushi Yeshi [不是也是]. 2008. The fourth comment to the post “Dude Yimou’s Creativity Is Fantastic, the Probability for the London Olympics to Surpass China Is Slim [老谋子的创意令人叫 绝，下届伦敦奥运要超中国水平，难，难，难！].” People’s Forum [强国论坛], 9 August. http://bbs1.people.com.cn/postDetail.do?view=1&id=87734795&bid=1 (accessed 13 Apr 2009). The Democracy, Civil Rights, and People’s Livelihood [民主，民权，民生] are called the Three Principles. They were proposed by Sun Yat-sen in the 1920s and are still the official principles upheld by the ROC in Taiwan. 112 Coolgambler. 2008. The 120th comment to the post “Not a Failure, Nor a Success — A Casual Review of the Opening Ceremony [失败谈不上，成功很难说 — 乱评奥运开幕式].” Kdnet [凯迪 网], 9 August. http://club.kdnet.net/dispbbs.asp?boardid=1&id=2387244&page=8&uid=&usernames=&userids= (accessed 13 Apr 2009).

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2. The Neo-patriotic Discourse

The neo-patriotic discourse originated from the neo-patriotism that emerged in the 1990s and thrives thereafter. It is a populist derivation of government-engineered nationalism and is encouraged by China’s rapid economic growth (see Dynon 2008; Gries 1999 & 2004; Callahan 2010). The “neo” here emphasizes the difference between the patriotism engineered in the 1950s–70s with Maoism as the core and the contemporary populist patriotism based on the discourses of the rise of China, the great rejuvenation of the Chinese ethnicity, and socialism with Chinese characteristics.113 It generally supports the incumbent government and keeps pace with the authoritative narratives and propaganda, regarding the oppression and exploitation from Western countries as the main reason for China’s (previous) weakness (this discourse may also take a stand against the government, jeopardizing the government’s international policies in some cases, as I will discuss later in this chapter). It also holds a controversial attitude toward tradition by seeing it as both a factor for China’s (previous) weakness and as a source of patriotic pride. The solution, then, is to realize the “the great rejuvenation of the Chinese ethnicity” or even to build up a new Chinese empire. The neo-patriotic discourse largely supports the representations of China in the Opening Ceremony, but it still has some, sometimes very strong, contestations. One example is a post on the People’s Forum:

What is exchange and communication? What is equality and elegance? What is naturalness and authenticity? . . . In the Opening Ceremony of the Olympics Games, what I smelled was the sourness of a pretentious parade of wealth and self-contempt.114

113 Nationalism has been one of the most notable political phenomena in China since the late eighteenth century, but its framework and target have been constantly changing. For example, in the 1920–30s, the framework was about anti-colonialism, and its target was to “save the country [救亡] ”; in the 1950–70s, the framework was anti-imperialism and anti-revisionism (1960–70s), the target was to be “self-dependent [自力更生] ”; in the 1980s it changed to “Earth-ship [球籍问题] ” and modernization. In the 1990s and 2000s, the previous frameworks and targets were almost no longer mentioned, and the “socialism with Chinese characteristics” and “the restoration of China” have become the new framework and target. 114 An Congmin [安崇民]. 2008. “The ‘Paralympic’ Opening Ceremony Was Truer, Better and More Beautiful Than the Olympic[ ‘残奥’开幕式比‘奥运’开幕式真、善、美！].” People’s Forum [强国 论坛], 10 September. http://bbs1.people.com.cn/postDetail.do?view=1&id=88315125&bid=43 (accessed 13 Apr 2009).

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Another post, created by an ID of Zhendou [镇铎] says:

(Thirdly,) the lyrics of the theme song did not showcase the Olympic spirit, did not showcase the spiritual outlook of China; its melody was too soft, having nothing to do with a sports event.115

These examples show how the neo-patriotic discourse evaluates the Opening Ceremony of the Beijing Olympics: not self-confident enough, not strong enough, not showcasing the “spiritual outlook of China” enough. However, this discourse does not go further to criticize other aspects of the Olympics, which forms a sharp contrast to the neo-Leftist discourse.

3. The Neo-Leftist

The neo-Leftist discourse shares the view of the neo-patriotic discourse in terms of China’s weakness, while maintaining a tougher attitude toward tradition. This discourse also poses sharp critiques toward the incumbent government by pointing out the increasing social and economic inequalities that accompany the rapid economic growth in China and by emphasizing the welfare of poor and underprivileged groups. Some narratives of this discourse even seek to revert to Maoist development, which is one of the reasons that this discourse, as well as the group of people who upholds this discourse, is called neo-Leftist, implying a connection to and a difference from the Maoist Leftist radicalism.116 The neo-Leftist discourse is articulated mostly by young generations (Latham 2009; Liu Handing 2008). For example, one rejoinder critiques the extravagance of the Opening Ceremony as a sign of neglecting the poor:

115 Zhendou [镇铎]. 2008. “The Opening Ceremony of the Beijing Olympics Is Not Very Satisfying, the Reasons Are as the Following [北京奥运开幕式不能算很让人满意，理由如下].” People’s Forum [强国论坛], 14 August. http://bbs1.people.com.cn/postDetail.do?view=1&id=87843388&bid=43 (accessed 13 Apr 2009). 116 The rise of the neo-Leftist discourse has been a very important cultural and political phenomenon in the recent two decades, which has profound impact on the Chinese society. I can only briefly describe it in this section; for more detailed analysis, see Hook (2007); Ren (2006); and Fang (2006).

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How much money have we spent on this? Socialism is good after all, we can centralize the money and spend it collectively! Please focus on helping the poor after the Olympic Games!117

Helping the poor, namely, maintaining social and economic equality, is one of the key concerns of the neo-Leftist discourse. However, the characteristic of this discourse is more aggressive than egalitarianism. Another post written by a young student shows the aggressiveness of the neo-Leftist discourse and deserves lengthy quoting:

What does the Opening Ceremony have except for the grand scenes? . . . Is the Chinese culture the sad and mild song A Hymn to My Country? Is it the pathetic and touching “all within the four seas are brothers [四海之内皆兄 弟也] ”? Is it You and Me, which sounds like the complaints of an abandoned woman? Is it only harmony? No! Chinese culture is Kuafu’s chasing the sun [夸父追日], is the bird Jing Wei’s filling up the sea [精卫 填海], is the boy Chen Xiang’s struggling to save his mother [沉香救母], is the old man Yu Gong’s moving the mountain [愚公移山] . . . is “those who dare to confront us strong Han will be killed, however far away they may be”. . . . Where is the sense of national pride of the Chinese people? . . . The grand scenes [of the Opening Ceremony] conceal a weak core. The Opening Ceremony is a plea to the western world and a weakening to the Chinese nation.118

This post criticizes that the Opening Ceremony has totally failed to present Chinese culture. While negating the elements and presentation of the Ceremony, it defines

117 One of the 282 comments to the post “Dude Yimou’s Creativity Is Fantastic, the Probability for the London Olympics to Surpass China Is Slim [老谋子的创意令人叫绝，下届伦敦奥运要超中国水平， 难，难，难！].” 2008. People’s Forum [强国论坛], 10 August. http://bbs1.people.com.cn/postDetail.do?view=2&treeView=2&id=87753648&boardId=1&pageNo=1 (accessed 13 Apr 2009). 118 “The Olympic Opening Ceremony Is a Plea to the West [奥运会开幕式是对西方国家乞怜].” 2008. Utopian Forum [乌有之乡], 14 August. http://www.wyzxsx.com/Article/Class22/200812/62431.html (accessed 25 Sep 2009. This website was banned in April 2012, and is not accessible anymore). Kuafu, Jing Wei, Chen Xiang, and Yu Gong are all characters in traditional Chinese stories who had astonishing resolution and persistence to accept challenges that are regarded as mission impossible.

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Chinese culture as persistence, strong determination, and pride by using a series of metaphorical examples: the classic Chinese stories of persistence (Kuafu’s chasing the sun, Jing Wei’s filling up the sea, Chen Xiang’s struggling to save his mother, and the old man Yu Gong’s moving the mountain). All are about accomplishments of impossible missions, strong determination to resist enemies (exterminating the enemies regardless of the distance), and the pride of the establishment of the “new China” in 1949 (quoting the declaration of Mao). Another notable characteristic is that this discourse solicits the Maoist tradition, both by quoting Mao’s statement directly and the examples of persistence (like Yu Gong’s moving the mountain), and by calling for pride and antagonism against the imperialistic West.

4. The Traditionalistic Discourse

The traditionalistic discourse was also one of the mainstream discourses in the 1920s– 40s, but was rather feeble from the 1950s to the early 1990s due to the anti- traditionalism of Maoism and Occidentalism. However, it has revived in China since the early 1990s and has become an increasingly important discourse thereafter, inspired by the success of the “four Asian dragons”119 and by the regime’s “patriotic education” program after 1990, which encourages patriotism partly through soliciting “national pride” in the rich Chinese traditional culture and long history.120 It shares the viewpoint of the neo-patriotic and neo-Leftist discourses with regard to China’s weakness. However, it proposes a return to the Confucian tradition as the solution; and the first step is to reeducate Chinese people about traditional culture and to promote its revival.121

119 The “four Asian little dragons” refer to South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore. These four regions had rapid economic growths in the 1970s–80s, which is regarded as a success of Confucianism in the economic sector (Tu 1996). 120 The revival of traditionalism has a complex social, political, and cultural context. For more detailed studies, see Tu (1994 & 1996); and Fei (1997). 121 The traditionalist discourse has multiple levels. The first level views Confucianism as the solution to the predicament of the modernity (Tu 1996; Fei 1997; Ji 1992 & 1993). The second level is about how to absorb “positive elements” of traditional and cultural institutions into the ongoing modernization in China. The third level devotes to the reeducation of the Chinese about the traditional culture. This discourse is increasingly influential in China. Examples of the impact of this discourse include the adoption of some traditional elementary books, for example, the Three Character Primer [三字经] and Standards for Being a Good Student and Child [弟子规], into some municipal education system in recent years, and the putting up of a Confucius statue in the Tiananmen Square.

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The traditionalistic discourse accuses the new Chineseness for mis-presenting traditional culture. For example, right after the Opening Ceremony, there were blog entries and posts on the Internet critiquing the fou instrument in the welcoming section of the Opening Ceremony. Historians criticize that the fou that appeared in the Ceremony is not the “fou” in history (L. Zhang 2008; Wang Jichao 2008). Zhu Dake,122 a cultural study scholar based in Shanghai, points out in his blog that the fou was an instrument for funerals rather than ceremonies, and accuses the use of fou in the Opening Ceremony as a symbol of cultural disruption, indicating a necessity for an enlightenment of tradition and history. He writes:

I don’t think this discussion should be limited to the fou drum itself, but should be led to the bigger topic of cultural rupture and historical enlightenment. Just as The Song of Chu [楚辞]123 depicted, [no matter whether the fou is] a despicable equipment or a funeral equipment, the famous verse “bronze bells are ruined and discarded, whereas the clay tiles and fous are hooting wildly [黄钟毁弃，瓦釜雷鸣]” written by [ 屈原] two thousand years ago implies the symbolic meaning of the Olympic fou drum to modern China. . . . My point is that the Olympic fou is an important cultural symbol, which is “hooting wildly,” revealing the reality that culture is despised and dying. (Zhu 2008)

In this widely circulated blog, Zhu criticizes that the fou was traditionally and ritually a “despicable equipment or a funeral equipment,” which is an improper instrument for welcoming guests from all over the world in such a dignified occasion. By quoting the famous verse “bronze bells are ruined and discarded, whereas the clay tiles and fous are hooting wildly” of Qu Yuan, he accuses that cultural tradition has been ruined in China and that no one knows how a proper and decent welcoming performance should be conducted. His point is that the Fou Formation, as well as many presentations of the culture and history narrated in the Opening Ceremony, is rather

122 Zhu Dake, strictly speaking, is not a traditionalist, but his point of view in this blog does articulate a traditionalist discourse. This case may serve as a good example of the “issue by issue” character of online actors and discourses. 123 The Song of Chu [楚辞] was a poem anthology of Qu Yuan (339 BC–278 BC), a poet who lived in the Spring and Autumn Period.

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“fake,” reinvented, appropriated, and improper. Upholding the importance of authenticity, Zhu does not agree that the fou in the Ceremony is actually a hybridity of the traditional fou, and that what Zhang Yimou intends to have is “a percussion instrument other than a drum”124 and modern technology, but not a traditional fou. For him, authenticity and accuracy are more important than Zhang’s imagination of traditional culture and expectation of a spectacular performance. The discourse in Zhu’s blog represents the main points of the traditionalist critiques of the Opening Ceremony: the fou, costumes of Confucius’s disciples, the compass, and other discussions related to traditional culture.

5. The Interest-Related Discourse

The new Chineseness, as a systematic and ideological construction to react to international and national changes, was partly designed to appease the social and economic tensions, for example, social polarization and regional imbalance, brought by the rapid economic growth and authoritarian governance. Partly because of this, the Opening Ceremony and the new Chineseness emphasize the harmony and modernness of the Chinese society. However, the Beijing Olympics, which was organized in a manner of mass mobilization, disturbed and disrupted many people’s life and interests: since 2001, many people’s homes had been demolished for the construction of sports centers and venues, roads, subway, and other infrastructures; from June to late September 2008, real estate constructions had to stop; factories, markets for building materials, a substantial number of lower-class restaurants, and other small businesses had to close temporarily; thousands of cars were put off the road. These disadvantaged groups also use the Internet to voice out, resist, and protest. Their criticisms vary from complaining about daily inconveniences to critiquing the problems of the social system, many of which are closely related to the new Chineseness. The following is a typical example:

[Let’s] nevertheless wish the Noisy-Olympics [闹运会] would finish smoothly and quickly; I do not want to either receive the whatsoever honor

124 S. Luo 2009: episode 2; and Olympic Archives: episode 1.

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of a rising superpower, or experience the whatsoever lofty sentiments of the “trials and tribulations revitalize a nation” [多难兴邦]; I just want to live a normal life of ordinary people.125

The term, Noisy-Olympics [闹运会, naoyunhui], was a pervasive parody byname of the Olympics [奥运会, aoyunhui] because the Olympics interrupted the daily life so much, especially during the few months leading up to the event when the ordinary people’s life were increasingly affected. This post, written by Absolute Hermit [绝对 隐士] on 19 July 2008, specifically condemns the inconveniences brought by the Olympics (in shopping, hiring day-laborers, renovating apartments, moving, and so forth), and wishes the Noisy-Olympics would go away quickly.

6. The Playful-Cynical Discourse

G. Yang (2009: chapter four) and Xiao (2011) have already noted that online activism is, compared to the protest on the streets in 1989 in China, significantly more “playful” than the traditional forms of protest. However, they still understate the significance of the playful cynicism on the BBS, online forums, and in the text message exchanges on mobile phones. It is a notable trend in China that people are extremely enthusiastic in taunting and gibing about everything through short messages on mobile phones, and through posts on the online forums and websites. Such criticisms appear in a way similar to the “weapon of the weak” (J. Scott 1985) or Kynicism, which was first coined by Peter Sloterdijk and cited by Slavoj Žižek, as a means and procedure “to confront the pathetic phrases of the ruling official ideology — its solemn, grave tonality — with everyday banality and to hold them up to ridicule, thus exposing behind the sublime noblesse of the ideological phrases the egotistical interests, the violence, the brutal claims to power” (2008[1989].: 57). A broadly circulated text message says:

125 This is the concluding remark of a blog, Absolute Hermit [绝对隐士] . 2008. “Let the Noisy- Olympics Hurry Away [闹运会赶紧过去吧].” 19 July. http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_4d588bd801009wqk.html (accessed 7 Apr 2009).

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The biggest originality of the Opening Ceremony: the Opening Ceremony started on the 8th, but the cauldron was lit on the 9th! The biggest characteristic of the Opening Ceremony: there are numerous people! The biggest unexpectedness of the Opening Ceremony: there is no fuwa [the mascots of the Beijing Olympics] from the beginning to the end! The most internationally popular good after the Opening Ceremony: the Chinese fan.

Another widely circulated short message mocks the Fou Formation performance and the involvement of the idea of harmony [和]:

The best originality of the Beijing 2008 Olympics Opening Ceremony: there are 2008 majiang tables in the beginning! Essence of the culture! Essence of the culture! Absolute essence of the culture! Three more people needed? The meaning is that since friends have come from afar, shouldn't we play a couple of rounds [of majiang]? What is the result? The majiang formed three different he characters, meaning we win three consecutive times!

These two short messages illustrate the aesthetic and practical tactics of the playful- cynical discourse. The taunting and gibing do not directly protest against or oppose what they resist, but they play around by joking at some specific but important parts by using the “wulitou [无厘头]” tactics, a way originated by a Hong Kong film star Stephen Chow, who likes to make jokes at something unexpectedly or nonsensically in his comic films. The first message jokes about the timing control, the massive performance, the missing of the well-advertised mascots, and the hot and humid weather at the night of the Opening Ceremony (the Chinese fan). The second jokes about the Fou Formation performance and the Movable Type-printing performance as shows of playing “majiang [麻将]” a traditional Chinese game that involves four people and a rectangular table, and taunts the he[和], meaning harmony, which is one of the essential discourses of the new Chineseness, as hu, which means winning a majiang game and shares the same character with he [和], but has a different pronunciation. The proliferation of these gibing and taunting messages and web-posts, confronting and ridiculing the new Chineseness and the Opening Ceremony, was a notable phenomenon in August and September 2008.

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The New Chineseness: A Void Symbol with Fierce Antagonism

In the last section I have briefly described the six categories of critical discourses I have identified. These six discourses argue against those highly supportive discourses of traditional media and, especially those on the Internet, forming a notable phenomenon similar to the two different ways of depicting the Winnebago’s spatial arrangements. The critical discourses seemingly critique the new Chineseness, protesting that the new Chineseness does not sufficiently include or represent the elements or aspects that they think China and Chinese should be (e.g., more aggressiveness, more modernity, and high technology), and protesting that it does not represent some people’s interest. However, the critical discourses, especially the first four (I will discuss the last two discourses later in this chapter), do not reject the idea of new Chineseness; what they emphasize is that it must include or exclude certain elements so as to represent China better. When patriotism was highly mobilized in 2008, these critical discourses were retorted by the reactive patriotic voices. For example, Nyiri, Zhang, and Varrall describe how the “cosmopolitan Chinese youths” across the world “express a natural desire . . . to redress China’s inferior position amongst other nations” with strong nationalistic sentiments (2010: 26) when they reacted to the criticism and protests in the Western societies after the Lhasa riot on 14 March 2008 in Tibet, in China, and during the Olympic Torch Relay in Paris, London, and some other cities in April and May 2008 (see also Latham 2009). De Kloet, Chong, and Liu argue that “[i]ronically, a discourse [from the Western media] that critiques China for its human rights and international policies backfires when we observe the response in China,” because “a narrative of (self-)victimisation is channelled to the [Chinese] audience [by the Chinese authorities], together with other performative national humiliation discourses . . . constituting a means of identification against the assumed Western ‘media hegemony’” (2008: 29; see also Liu Handing 2008). There has been extensive discussion on the general reactive voice to any criticism of China and the new Chineseness in 2008. I will not go into detailed discussion of this contestation, yet I will focus on the antagonism among the critical discourses, because this type of

193 antagonism is also an integrative and illustrative part of the overall splits under the new Chineseness: in addition to their criticisms of the constructions of new Chineseness, these critical discourses also attack each other to argue for a set of better representations of new Chineseness, struggling for its monopoly.

Table 5.2: Most notable antagonisms among the critical discourses.

Supportive Issues Negative Traditionalist Historical authenticity and cultural Occidentalist Neo-patriotic representability Neo-Leftist (weak) Playful-Cynical Neo-patriotic (weak) Neo-patriotic “Harmony” of the society Occidentalist Neo-Leftist Neo-Leftist (weak) Interest-Related Playful-Cynical Neo-patriotic Love/hate to Chinese government Occidentalist Neo-Leftist Interest-Related Playful-Cynical Neo-patriotic Love/hate to foreign countries (e.g., the Occidentalist Neo-Leftist U.S., Japan, France) Playful-Cynical Neo-patriotic Ongoing modernization and urbanization Occidentalist Neo-Leftist Interest-Related Traditionalist Playful-Cynical Neo-patriotic Stronger military power Occidentalist Neo-Leftist Interest-Related Playful-Cynical

The data I have gathered show that the most notable antagonism surrounds the presentation of traditional culture, the “harmony” of the society, China’s self- positioning and international relationship, and the legitimacy of the government. In addition, these critical discourses not only criticize the new Chineseness, they also criticize each other when their opinions clash on the Internet (see table 5.2). As Žižek warns, it is easy to “slide into ideology under the guise of stepping out of it” (1994: 17). Although the antagonism is apparently fierce, the critical discourses do not significantly undermine or truly reject the new Chineseness, nor do they undermine identification with it. The main points of these critical discourses (with non- significant deviation in the interest-related discourse) are to argue what should or

194 should not be included when presenting China and the Chinese, and how to present it perfectly. These discourses are largely engaged in refining, thus enhancing, the new Chineseness and the identity attached to it, instead of undermining it. In the following, I will analyze these antagonisms with three most notable examples.

1. Historical Authenticity and Cultural Representability

All in all, the criticisms to the presentation of traditional culture in the Opening Ceremony performance can be divided into three categories: the authenticity of some historical elements, the overall evaluation of tradition, and the overall evaluation of Confucianism. In the first category, besides the fou-instrument argument mentioned above, the traditionalistic discourse blames the Opening Ceremony for mis-presenting the costume of Confucius’s disciples, the compass [司南, sinan], and many other historical elements.126 For example, D. Yang (2008) claims that the sinan displayed in the Maritime Silk Route section is not an authentic one:

The widespread “sinan” model with a magnet spoon on a copper plate emerged precisely in the 1940s. An alternative viewpoint from the academic is that this model is by no means the true sinan in the history. (para. 1)

Another post argues what the “true” compass of the four great inventions of China should be:

The compass as one of the four great inventions refers to the compass invented in Song dynasty for navigational purposes, namely, the aqua compass . . . sinan was used by the wizard to check the fengshui [风水] of housing and tombs while the aqua compass was a marine device. So the

126 Besides the fou, which is regarded as an invented “traditional instrument,” the costumes of Confucius’s disciples are criticized for being too noble, and for disregarding the diversity of social status of Confucius’s disciples; the compass displayed during the Marine Silk Route section is criticized for being a model of the East-Han dynasty instead of the Ming-dynasty model that Zheng He used in his seven long voyages to the mid- and west Asia and Europe. Similar criticisms also go to other costumes and symbols of traditional culture.

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sinan was a petty invention with limited usage, while the compass was a great invention which influenced the world.127

Despite their sharp accusations, what these criticisms find fault with is merely that the presentations of these Chinese historical inventions are not authentic enough. They strongly appreciate the long Chinese history and grand culture, seeing it as an adorable part of Chineseness, instead of rejecting it. According to these discourses, what should have been done is to make the presentations more accurate and authentic. Meanwhile, some comments sharply argue against these criticisms by pointing out that these posts are themselves also full of mistakes. For example, one comment argues that sinan was not used for fengshui, for the fengshui theory was formally developed in Song dynasty (960 AD–1279 AD), while sinan was used in Han dynasty (202 BC–220 AD) already. He summarizes:

Thus, claiming that the Han wizards were using ‘sinan’ to check fengshui for housing and tombs is nearly a joke. What was sinan used for? I tend to believe it was for astrology.128

Besides these authenticity-oriented, traditionalist rejoinders, there are also some general, more neo-patriotic comments arguing that the Opening Ceremony is after all an artistic performance and not a process for “historical verification.” Some fiercer criticisms even call the authors “idiots.”129 Another type of criticism stems from Occidentalistic, neo-Leftist, and (some) neo-patriotic discourses, which tend to demonstrate to the world China’s modernity

127 Dongfang Zhilong [东方智龙]. 2008. “(Original) Sinan Is Not One of China’s Four Great Inventions: A Mistake in the Olympic Opening Ceremony [(原创) 司南不是中国的四大发明 — 记奥运会开幕式的失误].” Tiexue Forum [铁血社区], 19 August. http://bbs.tiexue.net/post_2991544_1.html (accessed 14 Mar 2010). 128 This is a post by the same author and was posted on another forum. The link was provided by the author himself. The cited comment is in the middle of the page: The 22nd comment to the post “Sinan Is Not One of China’s Four Great Inventions — A Mistake of the Olympic Opening Ceremony [司南不 是中国的四大发明 — 记奥运会开幕式的失误].” 2008. Guoxue Shudian Forum [国学数典论坛], 26 August. http://bbs.gxsd.com.cn/forum.php?mod=viewthread&tid=169205 (accessed 11 Apr 2009). 129 See the comments to the post “Sinan Is Not One of China’s Four Great Inventions — A Mistake of the Olympic Opening Ceremony [司南不是中国的四大发明 — 记奥运会开幕式的失误].” 2008. Tiexue Forum [铁血社区], 19 August. http://bbs.tiexue.net/post_2991544_1.html (accessed 9 Apr 2009).

196 and achievements of the thirty years of open and reform policy. In an online interview on the People’s Forum, a question raised by a seemingly neo-patriot to the dance director, [沈伟], is a typical example:

May I ask the director: “When you were designing the performance for the Opening Ceremony of the Beijing Olympics, why did you not present the modern China to the world, but pursue the elusive ‘ancient charms’? Thank you!”130

In contrast to the traditionalist discourse that emphasizes the authenticity and accuracy of the traditional-cultural elements in the performance, this question implies a very skeptical attitude toward the presentation of tradition by calling the traditional- cultural performance (“ancient charms”) “elusive.” An even more radical critical discourse in this regard comes from the Occidentalist discourse. For example, Liu Xiaobo, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate in 2010 and one of the most radical Occidentalist discourse articulator in China, expresses his view that “the four greatest inventions, silk route, Chinese operas, china, ritual music, tea, taiji, terracotta warriors, calligraphy, painting, Confucius” are “out-of-date” and “banal” traditional elements that serve the dictatorial aesthetics of the Chinese authorities, and are thence not desirable symbols of China (X. Liu 2008a). For the Occidentalist discourse, the tradition should be replaced by a “wholesale of westernization,” which is believed to be the only effective way to truly revitalize China.131 However, the neo-patriotic and neo-Leftist discourses split on this issue. Quite a lot of posts and comments in these categories praise the artistic performance of tradition, believing that the performance has well presented Chinese culture to the world. What these less radical voices find fault with is that the Opening Ceremony presents too much traditional culture or has mis-presented the culture, but they do not propose to eliminate the traditional-cultural presentations altogether in the performance or the traditional-cultural elements in the new Chineseness. For example,

130 Huang Chenghao [黄晨灏]. 2008. “May I Ask the Director [请问总监].” People’s Forum [强国 论坛], 10 August. http://bbs1.people.com.cn/postDetail.do?view=1&id=87759404&bid=1 (accessed 13 Apr 2009). 131 For a detailed discussion on Occidentalism, please refer to Xiaomei Chen (2002); and Jing Wang (1996); for the variants of Occidentalism in the 1990s and the 2000s, please refer to Yao (2011).

197 the neo-Leftist post cited above condemns the historico-cultural presentations in the Opening Ceremony (e.g., the reciting of Confucius’s Analetics), but it proposes a series of cultural stories (Kuafu, Jing Wei, Chen Xiang, and Yu Gong) as substitutions. These voices reflect the general attitude of the neo-patriotic and neo- Leftist discourses toward tradition: absorb the essence and discard the dross [取其精 华，去其糟粕]. This was a principle set by Chairman Mao and is taken as the mainstream principle for policy-makers to deal with traditional culture, and has been inherited by neo-Leftists and neo-patriots. What is essence and what is dross, however, is never an easy question. Chairman Mao and his successive policy-makers had never elaborated on how to differentiate essence from dross, which has led to hot debates about policy-making on tradition. This can also be seen in the criticisms of the tradition-involved performances, disputing which traditional elements should or should not be included, as already mentioned above. At the heart of these criticisms is whether Confucius and Confucianism should be included. In 2007, a prestigious historian and a traditionalist, Ji Xianlin, proposed that Confucius should be uplifted to the stage in the Opening Ceremony.132 The unexpected highlight on Confucius’s disciples and Confucius’s Analectics in the Writing section of the Opening Ceremony has indeed pleased traditionalists. Yet, apart from the abovementioned Occidentalistic contestation over the involvement of Confucius and Confucianism, there are also some neo-patriotic and neo-Leftistic discourses criticizing it. For example, one comment says:

The Confucian idea of “Let the emperor be the emperor, ministers be minister” [君君臣臣, junjun chenchen] hindered China to have fallen behind others for hundreds of years.133 If it had not been the Mao Zedong-led Chinese Communist Party, would we have the Olympics today? . . . If we say we have to de-politicalize (the Opening Ceremony) and spare our governmental culture [the propaganda rhetorics], then neither should we

132 For a more detailed report, please refer to “Debates Triggered by Ji Xianlin’s Suggestion of Uplifting Confucius to the Opening Ceremony [季羡林建议奥运开幕式抬出孔子引发激辩(组图)].” 2007. china.com.cn [中国网], 30 August. http://www.china.com.cn/city/txt/2007- 08/30/content_8767616.htm (accessed 12 Apr 2009). 133 Junjun chenchen [君君臣臣] has very different explanations in the Confucianism hermeneutics. This interpretation is a popular one.

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mention Confucianism — bureaucrat-state culture, which had hindered China.134

This neo-patriotic comment again attributes the cause for China’s lagging behind to Confucianism, and strongly objects to the inclusion of Confucianism in the Opening Ceremony. Yet, even with such a harsh criticism of the Opening Ceremony, it does not oppose to the inclusion of other traditional-cultural elements, such as the four great inventions, kunqu Opera, taiji, and other things. Amidst all this antagonism, only the Occidentalist discourse sometimes unveils some degree of historical nihilism, like what Liu Xiaobo does in his blog. However, following Žižek’s neo-Laconianism (2008[1989]), Liu’s specific naming of the long list of “out-of-date” and “banal” traditional elements still implies his recognition of the importance of these “traditional elements,” despite through an apparent contestation. The antagonism around tradition and historical culture is rather a struggle for the monopoly of an ideal set of traditional-cultural representations in the new Chineseness.

2. “Harmony” of the Society

Except the neo-patriotic discourse, almost every other discourse expresses its discontent toward the construction of a “harmonious society” in contemporary China. These discourses believe that the ongoing policy is not leading China to a more harmonious society, but to a more polarized, fragmented one. The most frequently criticized aspects are the neglected livelihood of ordinary people, social polarization, regional (economic) imbalance, and other social problems caused by the rapid modernization and urbanization. Criticisms of political despotism or authoritative governance, mostly from the Occidentalistic discourse (and sometimes from some mild neo-Leftist discourse partakers), are less obvious than above-mentioned social issues. For example, a post, drafted by a famous dissident He Qinglian [何清涟],

134 Mingming Langlang [明明朗朗]. 2008. “The Confucian Idea of ‘Let the Emperor Be the Emperor, Ministers Be Minister’ Hindered China to Have Fallen Behind Others for Hundreds of Years. If It Had Not Been the Mao Zedong-Led Chinese Communist Party, Would We Have the Olympics Today? . . . [儒家的君君臣臣害了中国比别人落后了几百年，要不是毛泽东领导的共产党…]” People’s Forum [强国论坛], 9 August. http://bbs1.people.com.cn/postDetail.do?view=2&pageNo=1&treeView=1&id=87739979&boardId=1 (accessed 13 Apr 2009).

199 criticizes the ongoing national sports system as evidence of social injustice and resource misplacement:

[As for the financial investment in the Beijing Olympics and in building an image of a “strong China,”] even if we take the deliberately underestimated figure, forty-three billion dollars, published by the Chinese government, the investment still far exceeds the [governmental] investment . . . in education . . . and in health care in China. But the [ordinary people’s] excessive expense on education and health care have been teased by the Chinese as two of the new “three big mountains” that are pressuring the ordinary people [the third one is the housing expense].135

This post criticizes that reigning policy neglects the livelihood of ordinary Chinese people, comparing the Olympic investment with the education and health care investment in China, and by quoting the term “the three new big mountains,” which refers to medical care, education, and real estate property that are increasingly burdening people’s livelihood. The term “three new big mountains” is an analog to the “three big mountains,” namely, imperialism, feudalism, and bureaucratic capitalism that had been identified as the main burdens of ordinary people before the establishment of the People’s Republic of China, according to the propaganda of the Chinese Communist Party. This kind of criticism is rejoined by the neo-patriotic discourse (and sometimes by the neo-Leftist discourse), which points out the pervasive similar practices in the West. They compare today’s China with the Maoist times and the time before 1949, and solicit the political rhetoric of Chinese revolutionary history.136 One of the these

135 This is an excerpt of a post “(Repost) Resource Misplacement and Social Injustice in the ‘National Sports System’ [(转贴)‘举国体制’的资源错置与社会不公]”, 2008. Kaidi Forum [凯迪网], 2 September. http://club.kdnet.net/dispbbs.asp?id=2425208&boardid=1&page=1&1=1#2425208 (accessed 10 Jun 2009). This post was drafted by He Qinglian [何清涟], a famous dissident who is now a resident in the United States. It was first published on the BBC website http://news.bbc.co.uk/chinese/simp/hi/newsid_7590000/newsid_7591600/7591621.stm (accessed 20 Jun 2009), and has been widely re-posted on the Chinese Internet. On 1 November 2011, there were more than 17, 000 search results of this article on the Google search engine. 136 On the Chinese Internet, there is a large group of “wumao dang [五毛党] ” (literally the 50-Cents Gang or Red Vests), who are organized and paid by Chinese government institutes to defend or provide supportive opinions for government actions, rhetoric, and policies. They are officially called

200 rejoinders is a post on the Tianya Forum, titled “The United Kingdom Invested 50 Million Pounds in Yachting and Rowing,” which talks about the huge investment of the United Kingdom government in the yachting and rowing sports for the Beijing Olympics. The comments to this post add that the United Kingdom was also investing heavily in equestrian sports, and so was France in some sports. Then the comment protests:

The democratic national sports systems are not national sports systems; only the totalitarian national sports system is the national sports system. Hahaha.137

This rejoinder argues that some sort of national sports system that is financed by the state also exists in Western countries, thus China’s national sports system should not be criticized. Obviously, this rejoinder has neglected the investment ratio of expenditure in medical care, education, and other social welfare in these “Western” countries, and focuses only on the ostensible similarities between China and Western countries on sports investment. This tactic, namely, focusing on ostensible similarities while neglecting systematic differences, is broadly used in supportive discourses to argue against the criticisms, and was pervasive on the Chinese Internet in 2008. Partly because of media censorship (which would more or less delete or screen out some critical posts or comments) and partly because of the high patriotic sentiment, the neo-patriotic defensive discourse probably outperforms the critical discourse. With the help of censorship, there are significantly more supporting posts and comments for the Olympics, the Opening Ceremony, and the constructed new Chineseness on all the five forums (Tianya Forum, People’s Forum, Tiexue Forum, Kaidi Forum, and

“Internet commentator” in the government administrative system. Appeared first in the early 2000s and thriving since 2007 when the Central Government delivered a policy requiring the government institutes to organize the Internet commentator groups, “wumao” has been an increasingly notable and important online source of supporting and defending opinions for the government. In my research, firstly, all differentiable “wumao” posts, comments, and blogs are technically ruled out. Secondly, I treat some of the less extreme “wumao” opinions, which are not technically differentiable, as a normal source of pro-government discourses for they are a part of the encompassing nationalistic surges on the Internet in China. Thirdly, as F. Liu (2012) and many others have observed, many people in China, consciously or unconsciously, hold a supporting position to the government; thus, wumao-like discourse may not necessarily come from wumao. 137 A commentary to the post “The UK Invested 50 Million Pounds in Yachting and Rowing [英国仅 帆船和赛艇项目就投入五千万英镑（转载）].” 2008. Tianya Forum [天涯论坛]. 26 August. http://www.tianya.cn/publicforum/content/worldlook/1/188650.shtml (accessed 18 Apr 2009).

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Utopia Forum).138 The pugnacious neo-patriotic discourse partakers (and the neo- Leftist discourse in many cases, especially in debates with the Occidentalistic discourse) energetically rejoin all criticisms of this kind, and nearly every critical topic is outperformed by corresponding supportive arguments on the forums. Ironically, criticisms of the “harmonious society” as a political rhetoric by pointing out the social polarization, the regional imbalance, and the affected interests of the disadvantaged groups, do not deny that China should be a “harmonious society.” The main point of these criticisms is to argue for a “better” way, other than the ongoing policies including the extravagant spending on the Olympics, to build up such a harmonious society, that is, to facilitate political change in China. As He Qinglian argues at the end of her article:

Anyway, this systematic arrangement with misplacement of resources and unconcern of people’s livelihood should not continue. (2008: n. pag.)

This kind of argument does imply a weakening of the legitimacy of the incumbent government. However, it will be risky to be optimistic about the effects of these criticisms. The defensive discourses tend to argue that China has gone through great difficulties to gain the achievements that bring about the hosting of the Olympics, and that China is not yet perfect but it has a promising future. One widely circulated article by a famous TV news presenter Yang Jinling says:

Critics from the West and the East have ignored a basic fact: Although today’s China still has many problems, it has gone through thirty years of opening and reform. China, hosting the Olympics and after the hosting [sic], will continue to be open. . . . This ancient civilization country . . . in the process of actively learning from and aligning with the world, will be

138 Although it is quite notable that the supporting discourse outperforms the critical discourse, it is very difficult to make statistics on the ratio of the supporting and critical discourses. One of the reasons is that many of the critical posts and comments have been deleted because of media censorship. The ratio of critical and supporting discourses ranges from 1:7 (done in April 2009) to 1:10 (done in August 2011) in the four forums from which I draw the data. It will be very risky to draw a conclusion whether the “actual” ratio of supporters and dissidents in the society (or on the Internet) is also similar to these figures, but it does demonstrate that the patriotic sentiments on the Internet outperformed the opponents in 2008.

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greeting a more open future in a more self-evident and leisurely way. (2008: n. pag.)

Yang’s article is an exemplar of the supporting arguments and viewpoints that are most frequently published in 2008: admitting the existing problems in China (and often with pleas for change), but expecting a promising future with optimism. These articles, with a pragmatic reasoning rather than a Leftist or Occidentalistic idealism, share the rhetoric of a “harmonious society” in depicting contemporary China as a triumph in the evolutionary progress of the Chinese society and in calling for collaboration and solidarity of all Chinese to build up a harmonious Chinese society and a harmonious world. It may also be categorized as a kind of mild neo-patriotic discourse.

3. Love/Hate toward the Chinese Government and Foreign Countries

One often-contested issue that is closely related to the debate on “harmonious society” is the attitude toward the Chinese government. The discourses that criticize the neglect of people’s livelihood usually hold a stance against the incumbent Chinese government. For example, the Occidentalistic discourse often articulates a statement like this:

The Beijing Olympics will definitely be a rare-in-the-world political Olympics. The so-called great performance that the Chinese Communist Party [CCP] achieved with the Olympics will help it reinforce its one-party despotism . . . In a word, the honor of the Beijing Olympics belongs to the CCP regime but not to the ordinary people in China.139

There are also discourses defending the Chinese government on the Internet. The first type is the obvious supporting neo-patriotic voices that were quite evident in China in 2008. Frequently seen praises like “[the success of the Opening Ceremony or hosting the Olympics] is evidence of the success of the open and reform policy” or “a symbol

139 Liu Xiaobo. 2007. “The Political Olympics in Beijing [政治奥运在北京].” 21 May. http://www.newcenturynews.com/Article/gd/200705/20070521233403.html (accessed 17 Sep 2010).

203 of the return of the Oriental dragon” are typical examples. The second level repeats the above-mentioned pragmatic-sympathetic understanding toward the government, supporting the government with pragmatic reasoning that emphasizes the concrete difficulties for the Chinese government to gain the achievements in the past three decades. The third type is what can probably be called “politically indifferent nationalism/patriotism,” voiced out mainly by Chinese youths. Liu Fengshu (2012) analyzes how the “politically indifferent youths” in China engage in nationalism. By claiming “the nation is higher and greater than the party-government” (2012: 62) and patriotism is apolitical, as F. Liu proposes, these youths have found a way to uphold nationalism without violating their self-defined “apolitical” position, and then widely engage in “national issues” as “angry youths.”140 They strongly defend China or the Chinese nation especially when they think China and the Chinese nation are being discriminated by “biased” Western media or countries. In most cases, these criticisms naturally coincide with the support of the government and become one of the main resources of the neo-patriotic discourse. The “politically indifferent nationalism/patriotism” is sometimes non-differentiable from the first type of supporting voices, but at other times it is easily recognizable. For example, one comment to a post titled “We Cannot But Love the Country” says:

But I still love the country, regardless how others would badly comment on the CCP. I allow myself to grumble about [the CCP], but I don’t allow others to trample on my country [referring to the disruption to the Torch Relay in Paris in 2008]!!!!! [sic]141

140 The term Angry Youth[愤青] originally emerged in Hong Kong in the 1970s, referring to the younger generations who were dissatisfied with the status quo of the Chinese society, and sought changes and reform. In China, this term is used to refer to younger generations who are either strongly nationalistic or strongly Occidentalistic. The former is usually called “Leftist Angry Youths [左愤] ”, but it actually includes neo-patriots and neo-Leftists. The latter is also called “Rightist Angry Youths [右愤]. ” The academics and media usually pay more attention to the former, but neglect the latter. For a general description of the logic of these two groups of angry youths, see Liu Handing (2008). 141 Yunnan Zhilian [芸楠之恋]. 2008. A comment to the post “We Cannot but Love the Country － Thinking on the Blockages of the Torch Relay [我们不能不爱国－奥运火炬海外传递受阻给我的思 考].” by Forever Stone [永远 DE 石头]. Tianya Forum [天涯论坛], 10 April. http://www.tianya.cn/publicforum/content/free/1/1186294.shtml (accessed 11 Apr 2009).

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Another similar comment says:

No matter how discontented [we are] with the government, [we] do not allow the foreign bastards insult [our] motherland.142

However, when the government fails to meet their expectations, these “neo-patriots” may also become “dangerous” to the Chinese government. The most frequently seen scenarios are the neo-patriotic discourse blaming the government for being too soft to the West, particularly when China is engaged in territorial disputes with neighboring countries or in diplomatic disputes with other countries, for example, the territorial disputes with Japan on the Diaoyu Islands (Senkaku Islands for Japan).143 In 2008, there were several cases of this kind. For example, in the summer of 2008, the angry “neo-patriots” called on the public several times to boycott Carrefour, a supermarket chain headquartered in France, as a protest against French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s claim to reject the invitation to the Opening Ceremony of the Beijing Olympics, as well as his plan to meet Dalai Lama (the Tibetan in-exile religious leader) after the 3/14 Lhasa riot in Tibet, and as a protest against the interruption that happened during the Torch Relay in Paris. When the government dismissed the protesting crowds around the Carrefour supermarkets in dozens of cities in China, discontents with the government’s “cowardice” on the Internet grew for months, though to a milder extent than the discontents over territorial disputes. The protests and discontents were finally pacified by Sarkozy’s final decision to attend the Opening Ceremony and by the Chinese government’s rhetoric of supporting the Olympics by not confronting “foreign friends.” This event shows how neo-patriotism may also at times be going against the government.

142 Tianya Qian Xiaosheng [天涯千小生]. 2008. A comment to the post “We Cannot but Love the Country －Thinking on the Blockages of the Torch Relay [我们不能不爱国－奥运火炬海外传递受 阻给我的思考].” by Forever Stone [永远 DE 石头]. Tianya Forum [天涯论坛], 10 April. http://www.tianya.cn/publicforum/content/free/1/1186294.shtml (accessed 11 Apr 2009). 143 Diaoyu Islands (Senkaku Islands for Japan) are three small islands located in the East China Sea. Both China (including the PRC and the ROC) and Japan claim the sovereignty over these islands (which are currently under Japanese control). The territorial dispute has led to protests in all the three regions. In mainland China, it has increasingly been a source of anti-Japanese sentiments since the 1990s.

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However, it will be risky to overestimate neo-patriotism’s disruptive power to the Chinese government and its legitimacy. As F. Liu (2012) argues, when the “politically indifferent youths” claim to be good Chinese “citizens,” namely, “country-living” citizens, they risk to become “subjects” rather than “citizens” of the country:

With the emphasis upon “obedience” and loyalty, hence on duties rather than rights, the Chinese understanding reminds one of the “subject” rather than the “citizen”, thus begging the question whether or not the Chinese young people, even the educated elite, have deserted their status as “subjects” and assumed the role of citizens in the true sense of the word. (2012: 62)

Although I am not so convinced that there is an idea of the citizen “in the true sense of the word,” I agree with Liu that neo-patriotism has entrapped itself into a “subject” role that, in most cases, practically supports the state, even when it sometimes tries to take a stance against the policies and actions of the government, as the abovementioned cases demonstrate. In fact, Xi Chen contends that even when collective actions in China involve confrontational tactics, they are still “generally perceived as essentially submissive rather than rebellious” (2007: 254). He maintains that today “Chinese protesters have a strong tendency to operate close to authorized channels and to take dramatic actions to demonstrate their obedience.” (ibid.) With the three examples analyzed above, I propose therefore that, although the critical discourses render resistance to, discontents with, and different reading and reconstruction of the new Chineseness, all of them agree that there should be an ideal (set of) representation of China and Chineseness: in the end, the criticisms and debates on the new Chineseness constructed in the Opening Ceremony do not negate the idea of “new Chineseness.” The issues of argument are more about what should or should not be included in the new Chineseness and to what extent. For instance, the neo-patriotic discourse wants to be tougher to the West in order to show the strength of the rising China as a world superpower; the neo-Leftist wants to be even tougher to the West than the neo-patriotic, anticipating a more Maoist egalitarian development; the Occidentalist expresses a strong aspiration toward democratization and further modernization. Paraphrasing Levi-Strauss, these critical discourses work like the

206 different descriptions given by different groups to depict the ideal representation of China, which unexpectedly unify these groups under the name of new Chineseness. Even the playful-cynical and interest-related discourses are hardly exceptional. The interest-related discourse appeals for better protection of individual and organizational interests or less intervention in people’s daily life. Its protest against the rhetoric of a “harmonious society” is actually, to a certain extent, an appeal for a more or “truly” harmonious China. The playful-cynical is a little more complicated. Yet, as Žižek suggests, once we yield to the temptation of intervening into the critique of ideology, we are back in ideology (1994:17). For example, the playful-cynical, despite their criticisms, somehow implicitly acknowledges the new Chineseness. Back to the second short message quoted earlier in “The Playful-Cynical” section, it jokes about the harmony and solicits support from majiang, a popular folk-culture form to counteract or deconstruct the intellectual culture forms like Confucianism, calligraphy, and the reinvented “ancient” instrument fou. The substitution of folk culture for intellectual culture is partly back to the debate of what should or should not be included as representations of China and the Chinese. Thus, the antagonism related to the new Chineseness practically stimulates further enthusiasm to the new Chineseness and consequently supports the state. On the one hand, the criticism and antagonism have led to different versions of the ideal new Chineseness and turned the constructed new Chineseness into a zero institution as well as into a slippery signifier with various versions of signified meaning. In that case, isn’t the antagonism within the critical discourses to new Chineseness exactly the struggle of how the Chineseness as a zero institution should be defined or redefined, or paraphrasing Žižek, “be overdetermined,” colored by some particular signification that they appeal? And isn’t the ideological function of the constructed new Chineseness to provide “a neutral all-encompassing space in which social antagonism is obliterated, in which all members of society can recognize themselves” (1999: n. pag.)? In other words, these critiques and antagonism establish the necessary preconditions for the existence of a “nation” to which they belong and a national identity that they strongly possess. Their presence — in itself devoid of significance — enables the new Chineseness to exist, to assert its ideological power, and thus to some extent, reinforced the regime. On the other hand, as mentioned above, the criticism and antagonism of government opponents encourage the pugnacious neo-patriotic discourse (Liu and de

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Kloet 2008; Nyiri, Zhang, and Varrall 2010; Latham 2009; Liu Handing 2008). In the post-socialist era in China, the incumbent regime has to rely on its ideological, rhetorical control to deal with the profound problems resulting from the rapid capitalistic economic growth and the authoritarian governance. The ideological and rhetorical control engineers patriotic fever as part of the tactics to perpetuate the governance. This engineered patriotic fever, with extremely reactive characteristics, is reinforced when encountering critiques from either inside or outside China (Liu Handing 2008). As de Kloet, Chong, and Liu observe, the “oppositional discourses surrounding the BOG that emerge in the Western media have the ironic effect of strengthening nationalistic discourse, alienating the Chinese citizens from the global media, and reifying assumed cultural differences” (2008: 29). The antagonism in the form of critiques to the new Chineseness unexpectedly fuels the already high patriotic fever.

Conclusion

In 2008, the Western media, international NGO’s and activists, Chinese dissidents, and many other individuals or bodies actively engaged in criticizing China, believing that criticism might accelerate political change in China, or, at least, undermine the legitimacy of the Chinese government. Meanwhile, many scholars studying Chinese Internet propose that the openness and the democratic characteristics of the Internet open up more possibilities for China’s democratization. For example, G. Yang (2009), Tai (2006), and Zheng (2007) advocate that the Internet has facilitated the development of China’s civil society and thus has, to some extent, accelerated the possible democratization process. However, as Y. Zhao (2008) warns, the regime may also use the Internet and new communication technology to strengthen its governance. In the meantime, online activism may also have some degree of conspiracy with the government (Weber 2011). In this chapter, I argue that the criticisms related to the new Chineseness and their appearance on the Internet unexpectedly reinforce the new Chineseness and consequently the legitimacy of the Chinese government. I have described how the critical discourse related to the new Chineseness has turned the constructed new Chineseness into a zero institution, a slippery signifier with various versions of

208 signified meaning. I have also examined how the critiques and the antagonism within this zero institution have not deconstructed the new Chineseness. I propose that these critiques and antagonism, on the contrary, reinforce the constructed new Chineseness. Meanwhile, the patriotic fever in the post-socialist China, engineered by ideological and rhetorical control, is increasingly sensitive and reactive to the critiques from both inside and outside China. Under such circumstances, all critiques around the Opening Ceremony have in fact encouraged the engineered patriotic fever, and as a consequence, reinforced the incumbent regime. With the above arguments, I am not negating that the Internet has some degree of democratizing power (sometimes it has, see G. Yang 2009). What I am trying to emphasize here is that, under the particular circumstances in which patriotism was highly mobilized, the criticisms of the constructed new Chineseness, the Beijing Olympics, and China have not worked as democratic power as those in other famous events of online activism in China,144 but have worked in the opposite direction. I also do not intend to assert that only offline events can substantially undermine the Chinese government’s rhetoric and legitimacy. In fact, the online criticisms on food safety (e.g., the scandal about the poisonous dairy products in 2008), political corruption (e.g., Red-Cross corruption crisis in June–August 2011), the several self- immolations during the forced demolitions across China, the high-speed train crash in July 2011, and many other events have indeed significantly weakened the regime’s legitimacy and the constructed discourse of an ideal China. My point is that under the particular circumstances of the year 2008, with a highly mobilized patriotism, the criticisms of the constructed new Chineseness and the Chinese government did not achieve their political goals as many had expected.

144 Examples include the Xiamen and Panyu PX project incidents (Huang and Yip 2012). The environmental actions organized by online and mobile communications successfully prevented the launch of the highly environmental-risky project in Xiamen, Fujian; though similar actions in Panyu, Guangdong were less successful. Another example is the positive role the Internet played in rights protection [维权], including the Sun Zhigang [孙志刚] incident in 2001 and the black kiln [黑砖窑] incident in 2007, that have, to some extent, improved the human rights conditions in mainland China (G. Yang 2011).

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Epilogue Communicating Chineseness in a De-imperialized World?

At 9:00 pm, 27 July 2012, twelve days to four years after the opening of the Beijing Olympics, the Opening Ceremony of the London Olympics was on the show. Director Danny Boyle presented a truly different opening ceremony from that of the Beijing Olympics. It was a mixture of self-reflections on industrialization, world wars, and women’s rights movements; symbolic British pop culture (such as James Bond, Mr. Bean, rock and roll music, Harry Potter); the British celebrities (e.g., Kenneth Branagh, David Beckham, Paul McCartney, and Queen Elizabeth II); and the national “pride” — the public health care. Compared to the “pressuring” majestic spectacle of the Opening Ceremony of the Beijing Olympics, the presentation style of this Opening Ceremony was regarded to be more individualistic and joyous, equipped with deliberately embedded humanism and liberalist values.145 The London Opening Ceremony also did not include the ancient British history (before industrialization) but focused on the modernization and the contemporary pop culture, which formed a sharp difference to the heavy reliance on traditional culture and ancient history in the Beijing Opening Ceremony. Beijing highlighted the grand technology, such as space exploration and the largest LED screen, while London paid homage to Tim Berners- Lee, who invented the Internet. The differences between the opening ceremonies of the Beijing and the London Olympics reflect the different situations that Beijing and London are in. The United Kingdom, as a long-existing power that had hosted three Olympics, was one of the major propellants of industrialization and modernization, and is still an important power in the world: although its political, economic, and military power declined in the twentieth century, its cultural industry (one of the main resources of soft power) has remained prominent in the past several decades. Meanwhile, China is still a rising

145 BBC. 2012. “London 2012 Opening Ceremony Wows World Media.” 28 July. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-19026951 (accessed 1 Aug 2012).

211 power trying hard to “catch up” with the world (which is still largely dominated by the Western countries): the Beijing Olympics was widely believed to be China’s “coming out” party. Therefore, in the two Opening Ceremonies, London indulged itself in presenting the British leading role in the world industrialization and in the contemporary global cultural industry, while Beijing cautiously presented China as an “amicable” global power. The idealized “China” constructed in the Ceremony was a normal, orderly, prosperous, modernized, and peace-loving country, which partly was to demarcate the contemporary China from the “revolutionary” China. London straightforwardly highlighted the “humanistic values” (e.g., performances around the women’s rights movements, the homage paid to the unattended and to the construction workers, and so on). On the contrary, Beijing very cautiously presented its performances, eager to show China’s friendliness to the world. To minimize the association with “China threat,” Beijing deliberately coated its articulation with “determined romanticism” and “world universalism” (humanistic values and the western aesthetics) and avoided any direct “political” representations (e.g., the socialist ideology). Similar to the highlights of the British strengths in the modern and contemporary history in the Opening Ceremony of the London Olympics, the Opening Ceremony of the Beijing Olympics relied on Chinese grandiose ancient history and traditional culture to articulate a “new” set of Chineseness. With the discourses of history and culture, harmony, Chinese modernity, and “determine romanticism,” the idealized “China” was constructed as a normal, orderly, prosperous, and modernized country, as well as an amicable global power. Within this construction, the history and culture discourse was the main thread of the idealistic representations of China, showing China as a continual and glorious civilization that had greatly contributed to world and had always had a harmonious relationship with the world. The culture was also integrated into the construction of the Chinese idealistic and modernistic future: a harmony between human and nature, which is a cultural interpretation of the political rhetoric of “scientific development values.” These similarities and differences between Beijing and London open up possibilities for further discussions about the construction and mediation (and the accompanying contestations) of the new Chineseness and the new image(s) of China during the Opening Ceremony of the Beijing Olympics.

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New Chineseness and Its Contestations

This dissertation examines how a “new” set of Chineseness was constructed in the Opening Ceremony — as an initiative to improve the image(s) of China in the world and to foster national identity inside China; and how this new Chineseness was mediated and responded to in the media in mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, and the English world. In chapter two, I have analyzed the systematic construction of this “new” set of Chineseness as the thematic core of the Opening Ceremony. With the interwoven discourses of history and culture, harmony, and Chinese modernity, this new Chineseness emphasized the Chinese particularity to distinguish China from the rest of world, mobilized dual universalisms to guarantee its acceptance, and meanwhile hinted at the potential of this set of Chineseness (at least some aspects of it) as an alternative to the Western modernity. This new set of Chineseness articulated an ideal China: China is a “superpower” with a long continuous history and grand culture, a harmonious society that has long been advocating and contributing to the harmonious world, and a modern and prosperous society with harmonious and scientific development values emphasizing green development and the harmony between human and nature. In addition to these essentialist narrations of the “tangible” Chineseness, the Opening Ceremony further constructed the temperament of the “new” Chinese: self-confident, friendly, romantic, and determined (with perseverance) to build an even better China. I argue that this “new” Chineseness was a twofold construction: On the one hand, it was arguably a “strategic essentialism” that aimed to internally foster national identity and externally improve China’s national image to facilitate its “rise” and “rejuvenation,” to strengthen its acceptance in the world (or at least the interactions with other countries), and to promote its soft power. On the other hand, in order for it to be accepted (especially in Western societies), it was constructed with a sense of “to-be-looked-at-ness,” a state- prescribed non-Western cultures’ self-representation, constructed or produced with dominant Western perspectives, aesthetics, and production methods. Through the examination of the “thickening” and “centering” (Hepp and Couldry 2010) of the Opening Ceremony, the following chapters have analyzed the responses and contestations from media in different media cultures. Chapter three

213 examines how the binary images of China as “cutely panda” and “evil dragon” were mobilized, and how the particular interests in (criticizing) the “evil dragon” image were embedded in the live/rebroadcasts of the Opening Ceremony on the television channels of the English world. BBC, as a public television channel, appropriated the live broadcast of the Opening Ceremony (by criticizing the new Chineseness) to reaffirm the “public value” it upheld, echoing the criticisms that proliferated in the Western media before the opening of the Beijing Olympics. NBC as a commercial television channel, trying to gain maximum commercial interests out of its rebroadcast, intentionally spectacularized the Opening Ceremony and presented relatively “friendly” commentary on the “new” Chineseness and the Opening Ceremony. Nonetheless, NBC still had to negotiate a space between the commercial interests and the overall media atmosphere that tended to criticize China. However, despite the ostensible differences, both television channels articulated China as an “other”: for NBC, China was an exotic and Orientalistic “other”; while for BBC, China was an evil and authoritarian one. Therefore, although the “new” Chineseness and the Opening Ceremony were constructed with “to-be-looked-at-ness,” this new Chineseness was rather contested on BBC and NBC, which for some observers means “a weak soft power” of the Opening Ceremony and the Beijing Olympics in the Western societies (Manzenreiter 2010; see also Luo and Richeri 2012; Bonde 2009; Naka and Kobayashi 2010; Tarantino and Carini 2010; Papa 2010; Hong 2010; Mangan and Ok 2010). Meanwhile, these centerings have provided another case revealing the obstinacy of (cultural) imperialism and cold-war mentality in the English media. In chapter four I analyze the reception and contestations of the new Chineseness and the Opening Ceremony on Hong Kong’s and Taiwan’s televisions. I argue that the new Chineseness was itself rather monolithic and sino-centric (containing few representations of the ethnic cultures and local cultures from Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Chinese diaspora communities), thus it was not so effective in “uniting” Hong Kong and Taiwan as the organizers had wished. In the live broadcasts of the Opening Ceremony, Hong Kong and Taiwan presented a pendulum of Chinese identity: TVB (Hong Kong) tried to evade the local-identity issue in the broadcast, which exactly reaffirmed the existence of it; CTV (Taiwan) attempted to estrange Taiwan from mainland China, but it finally acknowledged the cultural connection and a shared identity of “we Chinese.” Although Chinese traditional culture had, to some

214 extent, served as a cultural bond to unite mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, the culture alone was not sufficient to obliterate the geopolitical concerns among these regions, as we can see in the pendulum of Chinese identity in the live broadcasts of Hong Kong and Taiwan media. Thus, a set of more updated and inclusive “new” Chineseness (or other forms of articulations), which can better match the pervasive hybridity in the Chinese communities across mainland China and the world, is called for to serve as a better identity basis for (at least) those who are willing to engage or reengage in some sort of Chinese identity. Chapter five examines the responses and contestations on the Chinese Internet. I argue that, in 2008 when patriotism was highly mobilized, the six critical discourses to the new Chineseness and the Opening Ceremony had more or less reinforced the new Chineseness, instead of undermining it. The critical discourses related to the new Chineseness were not necessarily objecting the concept and contents of the new Chineseness; instead, these critical discourses (and the antagonisms among themselves) worked like different descriptions given by different groups to depict the ideal representation of China, which unexpectedly unified these groups under the name of new Chineseness. Thus, the critical discourses and their internal antagonisms had turned the new Chineseness into a zero institution (a slippery signifier with various versions of signified meaning), and worked (more or less) to enhance the new Chineseness and the legitimacy of the Chinese government. This chapter also provides a case demonstrating that although there are still quite pervasive viewpoints regarding the Internet as just a supplement to the traditional media, the Internet as a “new” media covers no fewer audiences, and sometimes involves deeper with the social, political, and cultural issues than traditional media like television. The new media is independent (and not supplementary) and no less “powerful,” if not more powerful, than the traditional media. The examination of the different “thickenings” and “centerings” of the new Chineseness and the Opening Ceremony resonates with what Hepp and Couldry (2010) argue that in the contemporary world, the global media event is highly localized: the local broadcasting is not necessarily “loyal” to the script of the organizer; the “integrative” moment of media events is not something, as Dayan and Katz assume, “that may be assumed in advance as characteristic,” but “something uncertain that must be investigated from one case to another” (Hepp and Couldry

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2012: 12). This approach reintroduces the power relations into the study of media events in the global age. Despite the different centerings and the contestations, we can see from the various chapters in this dissertation that some kinds of “we/s,” though not a shared global “we,” might persist in the mediation and contestation of the new Chineseness and the Opening Ceremony. Chapter three reveals a common preference of and particular interests in “negative” reports of China in the English media (and arguably in most Western media), a cold-war mentality, and an everlasting perspective seeing China as an “other.” Chapter four demonstrates that a certain kind of “common cultural identity” is observable in the Hong Kong’s, Taiwan’s, and mainland China’s live broadcasts of the Opening Ceremony. Chapter five demonstrates that the criticisms to the Chineseness on the Chinese Internet have more or less reaffirmed the new Chineseness. However, despite these persisting “we/s” in the global mediation of the Opening Ceremony of the Beijing Olympics, the contestations revealed in the chapters are reflections of cultural and political differences that might lead to further communication crashes between China and the Western countries (and other countries like those in Southeast Asia), and between mainland China, and Hong Kong and Taiwan. These crashes, at worst, may deepen the already existing tensions among these countries, regions, and beyond. In the following, I will try to scratch the surface of developing more constructive communication strategies and tactics, with Kuan- Hsing Chen’s idea of “de-imperialism” (K-H. Chen 2010).

Communicating Chineseness in a De-imperialized World?

1. Should the Western Media Be De-imperialized?

As I have discussed in chapter three, the Anglo-American televisions’ centering of the Opening Ceremony reflects the overall Janus-faced image of China in the Western society and the particular interest in an “evil” China in the Western media. This particular interest in negatively reporting China is not a single case in the English television, but a common practice in the Western society. In comparison with the

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Opening Ceremony of the London Olympics, this interest is even more evident. One of the typical examples is the different performativity in reporting and commentating on the “omission” of the historical periods in the London and Beijing Opening Ceremonies. During the broadcast of the Opening Ceremony of the Beijing Olympics, BBC specifically criticized the “omissions” of the Chinese history from the Opium War to the Maoist China. As I have discussed in chapter one and chapter two, the omission of these periods was a gesture of friendliness (to articulate a discourse of a “harmonious world”) and a reflection of the Chinese government’s political disjuncture with radical Maoism. However, for BBC, this “omission” was a deliberate cover-up. Similar criticisms were pervasive in Anglo-American newspapers, as well as on television channels in other major Western societies.146 On the contrary, BBC, not being “impartial” as it claimed to be, totally “neglected” the missing of the history of British colonialism, imperialism, or slavery in the Opening Ceremony of the London Olympics. Hardly any major English newspaper even mentioned this “omission.”147 These different thickenings reveal the obstinacy of the (cultural) imperialism and cold-war mentality in the Anglo-American media (and arguably the general Western media). This obstinacy is a reflection of the ongoing Western neo- imperialism in the form of globalization. The Taiwanese cultural studies scholar Kuan-Hsing Chen sees globalization rather as a process in which “capital-driven forces which seek to penetrate and colonize all spaces on the earth with unchecked freedom, and that in so doing have eroded national frontiers and integrated previously unconnected zones” (2004: 4). This neo-imperialism is an inheritance and development of the imperialist world order built after World War II, when the United States and other major Western countries established a West-dominated world order through the mixture of Cold War and imperialism. With this mixture of neo- imperialism and cold-war mentality, the Anglo-American televisions and press media

146 See Papa 2010: 1976; Tarantino and Carini 2010: 1275. Shiozawa Eiichi [鹽澤英一], Kyodo News Agency’s China correspondent, commented on this “omission” in a similar way (in a softer tone, though) in an interview in 2010: “it was quite out of my expectation that there was no performance about [the history after] establishment of PRC in the Opening Ceremony of the [Beijing] Olympics.” 147 I have briefly scanned through more than six major newspapers in Anglo-America (including Washington Post, New York Times, and Journal in the United States, and Guardian, The Times, Daily Telegraph in the United Kingdom), but there was not a single article reporting or criticizing this “neglect.”

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(and arguably general Western media) are more likely to view China as more or less an enemy or dangerous challenger of the established West-dominated world order, and are more interested in the negative reports of China (discussed in chapter one and chapter three; see also Brownell 2008; deLisle 2008). At best, China is viewed as an exotic or Orientalistic “other,” as we can see in the case of NBC. As I have mentioned in previous chapters, these “negative” representations of China in the Western media have been fueling the already strong nationalism in China. Similarly, this way of reporting China is also likely to fuel the skepticism about China’s rise in Western societies (as well as in Taiwan and Hong Kong, which will be discussed later). This situation thus calls for interventions, like Kuan-Hsing Chen’s idea of “de-imperialism.” Chen proposes that if we wish to establish “a peaceful new world” in the globalized times (but not meaning to build a “new” world that is dominated by new forms of imperialism or colonialism), then the world must perform a process of de-imperialism, a triadic process of de-imperialization, de-colonization, and de-Cold War, which should be undertaken simultaneously (2010: Introduction). Firstly, for the colonizers and imperialists, de-imperialization means that they must “examine the conduct, motives, desires, and the consequences of the imperialist history that has formed its own subjectivity”, and then reflect on the relationship with their former (and current) colonies (ibid.: 4). De-colonization means, for the colonized, to “reflectively work out a historical relation with the former colonizer, culturally, politically, and economically” (ibid.: 3). Meanwhile, de-imperialization must go with de-Cold War, a process “to confront and explore the legacies and ongoing tensions of the cold war” (ibid.:4). Chen argues that these three processes “have to proceed in concert, precisely because colonization, imperialization, and the cold war have become one and the same historical process” after World War II (ibid.). Here, if we follow Kuan-Hsing Chen’s argument (2010) and Edward Said’s Culture and Imperialism (1993), then should the Anglo-American televisions and press media (and arguably the general Western media) actively involve in a process of “self- negation, self-critique, and self-rediscovery” to reflect on the cultural influence of imperialism and cold-war mentation, and to facilitate change? If even imperialism and cold-war mentality in media representations are not totally reflected upon and removed, a peaceful world is hardly imaginable, indeed.

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2. Should Chineseness Be De-colonized and De-imperialized?

Although it has never been totally colonized, China had been a “semi-colony” of various Western countries and Japan from the first Opium War (1839–1942) to 1949, with Hong Kong and Macao remaining as colonies of the United Kingdom and Portugal until 1997 and 1999 respectively. Meanwhile, it is a pervasive viewpoint in mainland China that China, as many other non-Western societies, has always been an object of Western cultural (for some critics political and economic as well) imperialism.148 The feeling of being humiliated by Western (and Japanese) colonialism and imperialism is fueling strong antagonistic or revengeful nationalism in China (discussed in chapter five; see also Callahan 2010; Shen and Breslin 2010). In contemporary China, the patriotic emotions against Japan and Western countries (especially from the neo-patriots and neo-Leftists, as I have discussed in chapter five), and an aspiration to be a superpower equivalent, or even superior, to the Western countries is ubiquitous in China. Although the new Chineseness constructed an “always peace-loving China” and aspired to a “harmonious world” (which resonated with China’s constant claim and promise of a “peaceful rise”), the proposition of the Chinese modernity as an alternative to the Western modernity was more or less a reflection of a strong nationalistic aspiration, though in a softer tune. This nationalistic sentiment also infiltrated the idea of improving China’s “soft power” through the construction of new Chineseness, the Opening Ceremony, and the overall Beijing Olympics (and many other similar campaigns like the Shanghai Expo in 2010, the national image branding in 2011), as I have discussed in chapter one and chapter two. However, this setting of the construction of the new Chineseness and the Opening Ceremony may give rise to questions. The soft power is, after all, an instrumental power. As Joseph Nye himself admits: “No country likes to feel manipulated, even by soft power” (2004: 25). The discussion on the relationship between “American soft power” and “American cultural imperialism” emerges as soft power theory proliferates (M. Fraser 2003; Fan 2008; Schiller 1991). For example, soon after Joseph Nye published his first paper on soft power in 1990, Herbert

148 In chapter five I have mentioned some discourses related to this viewpoint. Generally, the neo- Leftists and neo-patriots are more likely to share this viewpoint.

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Schiller proposes a strong argument against soft power: “Soft power, as Nye defines it, is essentially the control of communications and definitional power. This is cultural imperialism with a semantic twist” (1991: 18). Some arguments are less acute, for example, Matthew Fraser cautiously dissociates his research on soft power from the study of cultural imperialism, but he still claims that in the post-cold-war world, the United States has become “an undisputed imperial power whose soft-power umbrella overreaches the entire world” (2003: 32). These critiques beg reflections on China’s soft power campaigns, such as the new Chineseness and the Opening Ceremony. For example, if the Chineseness is an alternative to the Western modernity, how and why will the Western societies not resist this construction? How and why will they abandon the imagination of China as an “evil dragon” (which will discussed later)? If the new Chineseness does uphold an idealism of “peaceful coexistence” or “harmonious world,” then is it also necessary for China to simultaneously reflect on its own potential “neo-imperialism” within the idea of “Chineseness as an alternative modernity”? Drawing on Edward Said’s Culture and Imperialism (1993), Kuan-Hsing Chen argues that:

Said’s analysis convincingly demonstrates that — consciously or not — cultural discourses [of colonialism and imperialism], together with cultural practices and politics, produces a system of domination that extends throughout the space of the cultural imaginary, shaping the parameters of thought and defining the categories of the dominant and the dominated. It justifies and affirms the imperialist right to expand, and it closes off possibilities for alternative modes of imagination. (2010: 25)

This dominant cultural system of colonialism and imperialism has practical restriction on the formerly “colonized.” In a similar vein, Frantz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth (1968) analyzes the colonial and imperial impulses in the former colonies. Kuan-Hsing Chen summarizes that Fanon’s analysis predicts a “structural experience common throughout the third world: colonization is followed by decolonization, which is then followed by a stage of internal colonization and eventually incorporation into the system of neocolonial capitalism” (K-H. Chen 2010: 23). For example, Chen regards Taiwan’s “Southward Advance” campaign in the 1990s

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(which aimed to expand Taiwan’s political, economic, and cultural influence in Southeast Asia) as a typical case, he argues:

The ubiquity of the postcolonial trajectory, in which decolonization is followed by recolonization or neocolonization, shows that the ideological condition that permits the subimperial desire to take shape exists precisely because there has been no critical reflection on decolonization. (ibid.: 63)

As mentioned above and in chapter five, China has never been totally colonized, but it was a subject of capitalist imperialism from the 1840s to 1949, and has been a target of “new” cultural and economic imperialism since World War II. According to Kuan- Hsing Chen, it is also possible for China to be trapped in this neo-imperialism. For example, although the Beijing Olympics upheld a typical cosmopolitanism, China’s eagerness to strengthen its soft power and the suggestion of the Chineseness as an alternative to the Western modernity might open up the possibility of China moving toward neo-imperialism. Considering that China had long maintained a large empire in history that had several neighboring vassal states, this may not be a groundless concern. For example, the iconic Singaporean historian, Wang Gungwu, calls the rise of China in recent decades as the “fourth rise” of China, a successor of the previous three rises: Qin-Han unification of the first bureaucratic empire (roughly from third century BC to AD third century), Sui-Tang reunification (581 AD–907 AD), and the Ming and Qing dynasties (1368 AD–1912 AD) (G. Wang 2004: 312). During these rises, China had deepened its cultural impacts to its neighboring regions and countries (with its peak in the second rise). He proposes that the rise of China “needs to be seen in a longer perspective”: if we take the culture of modernity that originated from and is dominated by the Western culture, the fourth rise allows for “the possibility that China would so transform that culture of modernity in its own way that a new manifestation might emerge,” since China had a record during the past three rises that “Chinese culture had made universalist claims as a civilization” (ibid.). Similar to the previous three rises, the “new manifestation” might have significant influence on China’s neighboring countries and regions. Here the “new manifestation” of the culture of modernity is probably not identical to the new Chineseness constructed in the Opening Ceremony, but more like a more “sophisticated” and “developed” version that would emerge along with the development of this “fourth rise” in future.

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However, no matter what it exactly is, this “new manifestation” more or less hints a “new” Chinese empire comparable to the previous three. The strong and pervasive neo-patriotism and neo-Leftism (and traditionalism, to some extent) equipped with strong nationalism, may even push China further ahead in this direction, as we can observe in recent years. For example, China’s active role in solving the financial crisis and the succeeding fiscal cliff in the United States and the Euro Zone since 2009, and its military developments (e.g., the launch of the first aircraft carrier in 2012) have ignited stronger nationalistic sentiments that expect “stronger” communication with the West (and Japan).149 Under such circumstances, when China criticizes the West for “demonizing China,” should China also reflect on its possible involvement with “neo-imperialism” and, at least, develop more peacefully constructive communication strategies and tactics?

3. Should More Inclusive Chineseness Be Built Up through De-imperialized and De-Cold War Communication?

If the two issues discussed above are largely involved in the broad discussion on the “clash between China and the West,” the communication between mainland China, and Hong Kong and Taiwan is more complicated. In the following I will scratch the surface of this issue to imagine a more constructive communication among these regions. The new Chineseness, as I have discussed in chapter two, did not contain any cultural representative of Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Chinese diaspora communities (only the “Gaoshan Ethnicity [高山族],” referring to the indigenous Taiwan ethnic groups, was symbolically included in the rituals and ethnic performances), but focused on the Han culture in the central China. This monolithic or one-dimensional representation reflects the sino-centrism long held in mainland China, and a de facto negation of “local” cultures beyond the central China. Here the representational routine is a manifesting case of the official attitude that, by default, takes Hong Kong and Taiwan as a part of China, and Hong Kong and Taiwanese cultures as a marginal part of the central-Chinese culture.

149 For more details, see Nye (2010) and Ross (2011).

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However, the pendulum of identity in Hong Kong and Taiwan indicates the existence of localism in both places. In chapter three I have analyzed how the evasion of local identity on TVB implies the existence of the local identity resulting from the British colonialism for more than 150 years, and how the estrangement from mainland China on CTV indicates the de facto gulf between mainland China and Taiwan resulting from fifty-nine years of separation. One dimension I wish to add here is the legacy of Cold War. After World War II, it was the Cold War that redefined the territorial relationship in northeast Asia: Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Hong Kong (and Philippines and Singapore in the southeast Asia) were united in the NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) by the United States; while mainland China and North Korea were “demonized” as evil countries, enemy of the liberal world.150 The Cold War arguably ended in 1991 (the collapse of the Soviet Union); however, as Kuan-Hsing Chen argues, “[t]he effects of the cold war have become embedded in local history, and simply pronouncing the war to be over will not cause them to dissolve” (2010: 118). For example, in Tu Weiming’s idea of cultural China, the sentiment of anti-communism is manifest.151 In the commentary of the Opening Ceremony on CTV, the military tension, as part of the legacy and consequences of the Cold War, was still a key issue for the imagination of the relationship between mainland China and Taiwan. Research studies also show that the independence movement in Taiwan since the 1990s and the recent anti-mainland China protests in Hong Kong are also related to the legacy of the Cold War (Cummings 1999; Vukovich 2012). Thus, it should not be surprising that in the commentary of the Opening Ceremony, CTV specifically alienated Taiwan from mainland China, and paid particular attention to the military connotations of the artistic performances, while contesting many aspects of the new Chineseness. Similarly, TVB’s deliberate alignment with mainland China was also a result of an uneasy relationship with mainland China. Also, the commentator’s focus on the interpretation of the Chinese culture implied their “indifference” or “resistance” to other aspects of the new

150 For more details please see Cummings (1999), K-H. Chen (2010: Introduction and chapter three). 151 A similar but more recent academic campaign is the articulation of the “Sinophone world.” The concept of “Sinophone,” literally Chinese-speaking people, refers to Chinese-speaking people across the world, including mainland China in the twentieth century. In the last decades, the concept was specifically rearticulated to exclude mainland China and to feature a separate “Sinophone world” (Shih 2004, 2007).

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Chineseness. The relationship between mainland China, and Hong Kong and Taiwan is far more complicated than what I have discussed above and in chapter four. However, we can still see how the sino-centrism and the cold-war mentality have a strong impact on the communication among these regions. A de-imperialized and de- Cold War communication should be carried out simultaneously in these three regions in order to imagine a more constructive communication in these regions, and to negotiate a set of more updated and inclusive “new” Chineseness (or other forms of articulations) to serve as a better identity basis for at least those diaspora Chinese who are willing to engage or reengage in some of Chinese identity.

Coda

As Hepp and Couldry (2010) argue, in the globalized age, it is unlikely to expect “loyal” broadcasting and mediation of global media events. The global mediation of the Opening Ceremony of the Beijing Olympics and new Chineseness were thickened, centered, and contested very differently on various television channels and on the Chinese Internet. However, despite the differences, some common “we/s” are still observable in these centerings. More importantly, we can observe certain clues of neo-imperialism and cold-war mentality in the “we/s,” which may probably lead to more misunderstanding and conflicts. Thus, although I do not expect an identical, “loyal” mediation of global media events, I propose that mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, and Western societies should imagine a less contentious relationship and more constructive mediascape through the processes of de-imperialization, de- colonialization, and de-Cold War in the meantime. It is vital for China to reflect upon the “humiliations” from the West (and Japan) and to resist the imperative of imagining a “new empire.” It is equally important for the Western media to reflect upon the imagination of China based on cold-war mentality, the particular interests in an “evil” China, and the neo-imperialist imagination of the world in which China should remain a “subordinated” partner. Also, in order to imagine a more peaceful relationship between mainland China, and Hong Kong and Taiwan (as well as the diaspora Chinese), de-imperialized and de-Cold War communication should be carried out simultaneously in these three regions.

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It is true that the imagination and construction of a more peaceful world is far more complicated; and communication and mediation (especially that of global media events) are subject to complicated power relations. However, building more de- colonized, de-imperialized, and de-Cold War communication is a vital step, given the mighty power of media in constructing the reality.

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Appendix I Notes for Data Collection and Analysis

This PhD dissertation is a sub-project of the NWO (Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek)-funded project “Celebrations and Contestations of Chineseness — The Beijing 2008 Olympics and 21st Century Imaginations of Place, Culture and Identity.” This project contains three components (respectively about the governmentality, mediation, and appropriation of the Beijing Olympics). My project is about the mediation of the Beijing Olympics, with a focus on the construction of “new” Chineseness in the Opening Ceremony; and its mediation and contestations in mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, and the English-speaking world (taking the United States and the United Kingdom as examples). In addition to the analyzing methods that I have described in chapter one, I will explain in the following some key aspects of data collection and analysis.

Television Broadcasts Collection and Analyzing

During the Beijing Olympics, before I joined the research team, the team had made live recordings of broadcasts of the Beijing Olympics on various television channels. The initial plan was to examine how the “new” Chineseness was constructed and mediated in national (mainland China), regional (Hong Kong and Taiwan), and global media. The selected television channels were CCTV (mainland China), TVB (Hong Kong), CTV (Taiwan), NBC (the United States), BBC (the United Kingdom), and NOS (the Netherlands). “Choice of countries is based on cultural proximity (Taiwan, Hong Kong), global power (US, UK) and location of the research team (Netherlands); choice of channel based on outreach and Olympics coverage” (de Kloet 2007: 6). When I joined the research team in June 2009, the research team had accumulated more than three hundred DVDs of live/rebroadcasts of the Beijing

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Olympics. I soon found myself in a dilemma: on the one hand, it was impossible to review and examine all the collected video data, for it would cost more than one month just for a brief browse of these discs; on the other hand, given that the Beijing Olympics had ended for almost one year already, it was also quite difficult to broaden or alter the research settings on geographical coverage or television choice. After several discussions with my supervisor (professor Jereon de Kloet) and promoter (professor Josè van Dijck), my solution was to focus my examination on the Opening Ceremony (instead of the overall Beijing Olympics), one of the vital junctures in which the Chineseness was constructed and mediated to audiences inside and outside mainland China. Later, the NOS (the Netherlands) was also left out for the same reason, so I could focus more on television channels in the English world. After narrowing down the research scope, two questions spontaneously emerged. Firstly, the focus on the construction of new Chineseness in the Opening Ceremony and its mediation and discontents generated demanded more data about the production of the artistic performances and the organization of the Opening Ceremony. The analysis on the sheer representations in the Opening Ceremony would lead to misunderstanding and misinterpretations of the construction of the new Chineseness, and would neglect some vital aspects about how the performances were contextualized in the construction of the Chineseness in accordance with the changes in the contemporary China. The latter was closely related to the contestations of the Chineseness inside China. In order to better understand the production and contextualization of the performances, I collected nine documentary videos (including documentary series broadcast on the television channels) and more than fifty feature reports in the press on the production of the Opening Ceremony. These documentaries and reports provide background information helping me to understand the implications and connotations of the new Chineseness. Secondly, it was very difficult to examine the contestations of the new Chineseness, the Opening Ceremony, and the overall Beijing Olympics just by examining the television broadcasts in mainland China. Mainland China television channels, with strict censorship and highly mobilized patriotism, were mostly supportive to the new Chineseness and the overall Beijing Olympics. On the contrary, various criticisms proliferated on the internet. So I decided to examine the contestations in mainland China through the scrutiny of online criticisms.

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Online Data Collection and Analysis

The data for chapter five, the online contestation of the new Chineseness constructed in the Opening Ceremony is mainly gathered from scores of forums, websites, blogs, and short messages circulated on the mobile phones. These online forums and websites are selected according to their popularity and impact in mainland China. The forums include the most popular public forum Tianya Forum [天涯论坛, www.tianya.cn], the neo-patriotic forums People’s Forum [强国论坛] (also known as Strengthening the Nation Forum, bbs.people.com.cn) and Tiexue Forum [铁血社 区, bbs.tiexue.net], the neo-Leftist forum Utopia Forum [乌有之乡， www.wyzxsx.com], and the Occidentalist forum Kaidi Forum [凯迪网， www.kdnet.net].152 The portal websites are Sina, Sohu, Netease, and qq.com (all companies listed on nasdaq). The posts on these forums and website are selected based on the number of comments and page-views: all posts containing the words Olympics [奥运] and Opening Ceremony [开幕式], and with more than ten comments or five hundred page-views, are selected. I used Maxqda to code the key words I drew from the top ten (with most comments or page-views) selected posts from each website and forum. The total number of the coded posts is ninety posts (with an additional forty posts for a project that has been ruled out in this dissertation). Based on these coding I have categorized the six different discourses contesting the new Chineseness constructed in the Opening Ceremony. However, I also quote those posts (or comments to these posts) that were less commented or viewed if they better reflect the respective discourse categories they belonged to. The blogs are selected according to their popularity (number of page-views), as well as the uniqueness of their narratives as a discourse. I have specifically included active and popular bloggers who had written more than five blogs on the Beijing Olympics to see if the discourses drawn from the data of the websites and online forums are compatible with the popular bloggers (who are, mostly, also

152 The Utopia Forum [乌有之乡, www.wyzxsx.com] was shut down by the government in April 2012. Some other influential websites, e.g., the liberal website for high-level politicians and intellects Yanhuang Chunqiu [炎黄春秋, www.yhcqw.com/], have not been included because they were either less involved in Olympic-related debates, or they shared too many similarities with the selected websites.

229 cultural celebrities themselves). I have intentionally included more Occidentalism- oriented bloggers to balance the relatively “low-voiced” situation (compared with the neo-patriots and neo-Leftists) that the liberalists and Occidentalists were in (see table A.2). Besides the popular bloggers, I have also included some “ordinary” bloggers through “blogsearch” in Google and Baidu (the prominent Chinese search engine) with the key words “Beijing Olympics [北京奥运] ” and “Opening Ceremony [开幕 式] ”: I have picked up the most-viewed blogs in the first ten pages, and then chose the bloggers who had written more than ten articles (at least two about the Olympics). Through these two ways, I set up a blog database on the Opening Ceremony of the Beijing Olympics from twenty bloggers, and analyzed this database in the same process that I researched the posts and comments on the websites and online forums. However, as time passed by, some of the selected bloggers’ homepage were totally censored and removed (see table A.2). Luckily the blogs were reposted or archived somewhere else. In those cases, I have tried to locate the alternative links for these blogs that I have cited in my dissertation, as shown in chapter five. Short messages were collected from friends, website posts, as well as my own mobile phones (I stayed in Beijing in 2008). I collected forty-seven different messages, most of which were widely circulated (though the actual number of circulation was unclear to me) for they could be found in the phones of my friends and informants. I coded these messages in the same procedure that I processed the posts and comments, but in a separate file. The outcome was that most of these well- circulated short messages were playful-cynical, two of which are cited in chapter five.

Table A.1: Investigated websites. Category Name Link Orientation Remarks Discussion Tianya Forum www.tianya.cn Neutral A battlefield for Forums [天涯论坛] different discourses People’s bbs.people.com.cn Neo-patriot Forum [ 强国论坛] Tiexue Forum bbs.tiexue.net Neo-patriot [铁血社区] Utopia Forum www.wyzxsx.com Neo-Leftist Banned in April 2012 [乌有之乡] Kaidi Forum www.kdnet.net Occidentalist [凯迪网] Portal Sina www.sina.com.cn Neutral Comments of the news Websites [新浪网] and posts are periodically

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inaccessible Sohu www.sohu.com Neutral Ibid. [搜狐网] Netease www.netease.com Neutral Ibid. [网易网] (www.163.com) Tencent www.qq.com Neutral Ibid. [腾讯网]

Table A.2: Investigated blogs.

Sequence Blogger Blog Name Link Remarks 1 Ai Weiwei N/A Most of Ai’s blogs were Liberal [艾未未] (Not available since archived at: Activist March 2010) www.bullogger.com/blogs/ai ww/ 2 Liu Xiaobo N/A Some of his articles and blogs Liberal [刘晓波] (Not available since were archived at: Activist 2009) minzhuzhongguo.org/SearchR esults.aspx?AuthorID=34 3 Zhu Jianguo Zhu Jianguo Anthology blog.boxun.com/hero/zhujiang Liberal [朱健国] [朱建国文集] uo/ Activist (Overseas) 4 Liao Tianqi Liao Tianqi’s blog.boxun.com/hero/liaotq/3 Liberal [廖天琪] Anthology 7_1.shtml Activist [廖天琪简介] (Overseas) 5 Han Han’s Blog blog.sina.com.cn/twocold Writer and [韩寒] [韩寒的博客] Automobile Racer 6 Li Li Chengpeng’s Blog blog.sina.com.cn/lichengpeng Writer Chengpeng [李承鹏的博客] [李承鹏] 7 Wuyue Three Levels of blog.sina.com.cn/wysr2007 Pro-liberal Sanren Constitutionalism Freelancer [五岳散人] [三级宪政] 8 Zhang Fang Zhang Fang’s Blog blog.sina.com.cn/zhangfangcn [张放] [张放博客] 9 Kong Dongbo Academy blog.sina.com.cn/kongqd Neo-Leftist Qingdong [东博书院] scholar [孔庆东] 10 Sima Nan Sima Nan’s Blog blog.sina.com.cn/simanan Neo-Leftist (司马南] [司马南的博客] 11 Ma Weidou Ma Weidou’s Blog blog.sina.com.cn/mazhahuchu [马未都] [马未都的 BLOG] ang 12 Zhu Dake Whisper behind the blog.sina.com.cn/u/119252547 Cultural [朱大可] Barriers 0 Studies [栅栏后的絮语] Scholar 13 Han Song Han Song’s Blog blog.sina.com.cn/hansong Sci-fiction [韩松] [韩松的博客] Writer 14 Sky-high Sky-high Flying blog.sina.com.cn/zhongtianfei Flying Swan Swan’s Blog [中天飞 hong [中天飞鸿] 鸿的 BLOG] 15 Zhao Hualu The Writing Workshop blog.sina.com.cn/qwzxzhl Teacher [赵化鲁] of A Poor Intellect in The Fertile Land [沃地寒士写作坊] 16 Zheng Zheng Yuanjie— blog.sina.com.cn/zhyj Writer

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Yuanjie Creator of Pipilu [郑渊洁] [郑渊洁 — 皮皮鲁之 父] 17 Rose Lüqiu Rose Garden blog.sina.com.cn/luqiuluwei Phoenix TV Luwei (Hong Kong) [闾丘露薇] Journalist 18 Mao Ah Mao’s Blog blog.sina.com.cn/maodanqing Scholar based Danqing [阿毛博客] in Japan [毛丹青] 19 Absolute Leading to Civil blog.sina.com.cn/jueduiyinshi Hermit Society [绝对隐士] [通往公民社会] 20 Zhao Bandi Zhao Bandi’s Blog blog.sina.com.cn/zhaobandi Artist [赵半狄] [赵半狄的博客]

Online Discourses and Censorship

One issue I must emphasize is internet censorship. Although it is increasingly becoming a general issue for every country (MacKinnon 2012), Internet censorship in the media is generally more related to China, Iran, and other authoritarian countries. In my examination of the critical discourses, I did encounter the issue of internet censorship. However, the internet censorship had only a minor, if not insignificant, impact on my research in China. Firstly, the internet censorship in China targets more at the online activism that may actually lead to collective actions. As Gary King, Jennifer Pan, and Margaret E. Roberts argue:

Contrary to previous understandings, posts with negative, even vitriolic, criticism of the state, its leaders, and its policies are not more likely to be censored. Instead, we show that the censorship program is aimed at curtailing collective action by silencing comments that represent, reinforce, or spur social mobilization, regardless of content. Censorship is oriented toward attempting to forestall collective activities that are occurring now or may occur in the future — and, as such, seem to clearly expose government intent. (2012: 0).

Secondly, my examination aims to categorize the different critical discourses to the new Chineseness, the Opening Ceremony, and the overall Beijing Olympics; and to analyze the cultural and political impacts of these critical discourses. My

232 categorization is mainly drawn from the analysis of the numerous webpages. Besides the abovementioned blogs (which I use as secondary data), I do not pay keen attention to the prominent online activists or “dissidents” who are more likely to be under strict censorship (as we see in the cases of Liu Xiaobo and Ai Weiwei in table A.2). On the online forums and news websites, some of the “most extreme” criticisms were indeed deleted, and I noticed complaints on the forums protesting against the deletion of comments and posts that criticized the Opening Ceremony, the Beijing Olympics, and the Chinese government. However, even if these “most extreme” criticisms were deleted, the critical discourses to which those deleted criticisms belonged were still ubiquitous on the Chinese internet, given that other similar (maybe arguably less “extreme”) critical posts, comments, and blogs were still ubiquitous on the websites, online forums, blogs, and so on. Meanwhile, the criticizing short messages circulated on the mobile phones were much less censored, because of the technical difficulties of censoring the short messages and because these messages were usually compiled in parody forms.

Follow-Up Fieldwork and Press Media Scanning

In order to better understand the mediation of the new Chineseness as well as its construction, I have also conducted follow-up fieldwork from June to September 2010. The fieldwork included casual talks and in-depth interviews on the new Chineseness, the Ceremonies and the overall Olympics, and similar mega-media events like the 2010 Shanghai Expo and the Asian Games (2010) in Guangzhou. The interviewees included journalists from mainland China, Hong Kong, Japan, the United States, and the United Kingdom who were involved in reporting the Beijing Olympics; and participants of the Opening and Closing Ceremony and the Olympics (see table A.3). Most of the interviews included semi-structured and open-ended sections. In the semi- structured section, I asked each interviewee a set of prepared questions (though the questions for journalists were different from those for participants). My questions to the journalists focused on how their reports/reviews (as well as their interview experiences with their informants) on the Opening Ceremony were written, and on their opinions on the new Chineseness, China’s national image building, and nation identity construction. The questions to the participants focused on their personal

233 experiences involved in the Beijing Olympics and their opinions to the new Chineseness. After the semi-structured interviews, we usually switched to broader conversations related to the construction and mediation of the new Chineseness and the Opening Ceremony. Since my purpose was to have a better grasp of the construction and production of the new Chineseness (but not to collect data for discourse analysis), it is not surprising that I often found the open-ended conversations more inspiring and informative for my research. Some of the informants asked to be anonymous, so I have not indicated the names of some informants in my writing, except those who had clearly granted permission during the interviews. In addition to these interviews in mainland China, I went to the Chinese University of Hong Kong to scan the press media reports of the Beijing Olympics in Hong Kong and Taiwan, with a focus on the reports on the Opening Ceremony. In both the Netherlands and mainland China, few libraries have purchased the database of Hong Kong and Taiwan press media, and quite some websites of these press media limit the viewing of reports published to one year ago, so I had to go to Hong Kong to finish this data collection. With the help from the University Service Centre for China Studies in the Chinese University of Hong Kong, I was allowed to use the University Library in August 2010 to track all the relevant press reports in Hong Kong and Taiwan. The data gathered greatly deepened my understanding of the responses to the new Chineseness in Hong Kong and Taiwan, although I have not heavily quoted these collected press reports. Compared to the scanning work for the Hong Kong and Taiwan media, it was less strenuous to scrutinize the press reports in the English world. Through the library of the University of Amsterdam I could find the database for most of the media I targeted. This scanning was also helpful in contextualizing the responses to and contestations of the new Chineseness in the English world.

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Table A.3: Composition of interviewees.153

Category Sequence Location of Media/Range of Service Numbers Remarks Journalists 1 Beijing, mainland China 3 2 Guangzhou, mainland China 2 3 Hong Kong 2 4 Japan 1 5 The United States 2 6 The United Kingdom 1 Participants in 7 Opening Ceremony Logistics 1 the Beijing 8 Performer 1 Olympics 9 Security 2 10 Artistic Organizer 1

153 Some interviews were conducted for other Olympics-related research projects. The interviews conducted directly for this dissertation were ten (seven journalist and three participants). However, all these interviews have helped me better understand the new Chineseness construction in the Beijing Olympics.

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Samenvatting

De totstandkoming van China: de constructie van Chineesheid tijdens de Olympische Spelen in Beijing

Dit proefschrift onderzoekt hoe een “nieuwe” set van Chineesheid werd geconstrueerd in de Openingsceremonie van de Olympische Spelen in Beijing – als een initiatief om de beeldvorming over China in de wereld te verbeteren en om de nationale identiteit binnen China te bevorderen; en hoe deze nieuwe Chineesheid werd bemiddeld en besproken in de media in het vasteland van China, in Hong Kong en Taiwan, en de Engelstalige wereld. Hoofdstuk één “Chineesheid en daarbuiten” bespreekt hoe Chineesheid als essentialistische term betrekking heeft tot het/de beeld(en) van China en Chinese identiteitsconstructie, en hoe het zich verhoudt tot de Openingsceremonie, evenals de totale Olympische spelen in Beijing. Tevens introduceer ik mijn uitwerking en benadering van het concept “global media events” (Hepp and Couldry 2010) als het analytisch kader.

In hoofdstuk twee “Bijzonderheid, universaliteit en alternatief: de constructie van nieuwe Chineesheid”, analyseer ik de systematische constructie van deze “nieuwe” set van Chineesheid als de thematische kern van de Openingsceremonie. Met de verweven discoursen van geschiedenis, cultuur, harmonie en Chinese moderniteit, benadrukte deze nieuwe Chineesheid de Chinese bijzonderheid om China te onderscheiden van de rest van de wereld, mobiliseerde een tweeledig universalisme om haar aanvaarding te garanderen, en zinspeelde ondertussen op het potentieel van (een aantal aspecten van) deze set van Chineesheid als een alternatief voor de westerse moderniteit. Deze nieuwe set van Chineesheid verwoordde een ideaal China: China is een “supermacht” met een lange, ononderbroken geschiedenis en een rijke cultuur, een harmonieuze samenleving die al lang pleit voor en bijdraagt aan de harmonieuze wereld, en een moderne en welvarende samenleving met harmonieuze en wetenschappelijke ontwikkelingen, met waarden die duurzame ontwikkeling en de harmonie tussen mens en natuur benadrukken. Naast deze essentialistische vertellingen van de “tastbare” Chineesheid, construeerde de Openingsceremonie het temperament van de “nieuwe” Chinezen: zelfverzekerd, vriendelijk, romantisch en vastberaden (met doorzettingsvermogen) om een nog beter China te maken. Ik betoog dat deze “nieuwe” Chineesheid een tweeledige constructie was: aan de ene kant was het waarschijnlijk een “strategisch essentialisme”, gericht op het intern bevorderen van nationale identiteit en het extern verbeteren van China’s nationale imago om diens “opkomst” en “verjonging” te vergemakkelijken, om de

255 aanvaarding in de wereld te versterken (of in ieder geval de interactie met andere landen) en soft power te stimuleren. Aan de andere kant, om geaccepteerd te worden (voornamelijk in westerse samenlevingen) werd de “nieuwe” Chineesheid geconstrueerd met een gevoel van “to-be-looked-at-ness”, een door de staat voorgeschreven zelfrepresentatie. In de Openingsceremonie werd deze nieuwe Chineesheid geconstrueerd of geproduceerd binnen dominante westerse perspectieven, esthetiek en productiemethoden.

Door het onderzoeken van de “verdikking” en “centrering” (Ibid) van de Openingsceremonie, analyseren de volgende hoofdstukken de reacties en betwistingen van media in verschillende mediaculturen. Hoofstuk drie “Het Janusgezicht van China: hoe wordt China gepresenteerd in Anglo-Amerikaanse media?” onderzoekt hoe de binaire beelden van China als “schattige panda” en “kwaadaardige draak” werden gemobiliseerd, en hoe de specifieke interesses in (het bekritiseren van) het “kwaadaardige draak” beeld verankerd waren in de live- en heruitzendingen van de Openingsceremonie op de televisiezenders van de Engelstalige wereld. BBC, als publieke televisiezender, eigende zich de live uitzending van de Openingscermonie toe (door de nieuwe Chineesheid te bekritiseren) om de “publieke waarde” die het had opnieuw te bevestigen, in navolging van de kritiek die zich verspreidde in de westerse media voor de opening van de Olympische spelen in Beijing. De commerciële televisiezender NBC probeerde maximale commerciële belangen uit de heruitzending te verkrijgen, maakte de Openingsceremonie opzettelijk spectaculair en presenteerde relatief “vriendelijk” commentaar op de “nieuwe” Chineesheid en de Openingsceremonie. Desalniettemin moest de NBC een plaats zien te vinden tussen de commerciële belangen en de sfeer onder de algemene media, die de neiging hadden om China te bekritiseren. Ondanks de ogenschijnlijke verschillen verwoordden beide televisiezenders China echter als een “ander”: voor de NBC was China een exotische en oriëntalistische “ander”, terwijl voor de BBC China een kwaadaardige en autoritaire “ander” was. Daarom, hoewel de “nieuwe” Chineesheid en Openingsceremonie werden geconstrueerd volgens “to-be-looked-at-ness”, werd deze nieuwe Chineesheid nogal betwist op BBC en NBC, wat voor sommige waarnemers een “zwake soft power” van de Openingsceremonie en de Olympische Spelen in Beijing in de westerse samenlevingen betekent (Manzenreiter 2010; zie ook Luo en Richeri 2012; Bonde 2009; Naka en Kobayashi 2010; Tarantino en Carini 2010; Papa 2010; Hong 2010; Mangan en Ok 2010). Ondertussen hebben deze centreringen een andere kant van zaak getoond die de halsstarigheid van (cultureel) imperialisme en Koude Oorlog-mentaliteit van de Engelse media openbaart.

In hoofdstuk vier “De slinger van Chinese identiteit: Chineesheid, geopolitiek en de live-uitzendingen van de Openingsceremonie in Hong Kong en Taiwan”, analyseer ik de receptie en betwistingen van de nieuwe Chineesheid en de Openingsceremonie op televisie in

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Hong Kong en Taiwan. Ik beargumenteer dat de nieuwe Chineesheid zelf nogal monolitisch en sinocentrisch was (met enkele representaties van de etnische- en lokale culturen van Hong Kong, Taiwan en Chinese diaspore gemeenschappen), waardoor het niet zo effectief was in het “verenigen” van Hong Kong en Taiwan zoals de organisatoren hadden gewenst. In de live-uitzendingen van de Openingsceremonie presenteerden Hong Kong en Taiwan een zogenaamde slinger van Chinese identiteit: TVB (Hong Kong) probeerde het probleem van lokale identiteit in de uitzending te ontwijken, wat precies het bestaan ervan bevestigde; CTV (Taiwan) poogde Taiwan van het Chinese vasteland te vervreemden, maar uiteindelijk erkende het de culturele verbinding en een gedeelde identiteit van “wij Chinezen”. Hoewel Chinese traditionele cultuur, tot op zekere hoogte, had gediend als een culturele verbinding die het Chinese vasteland, Hong Kong en Taiwan verenigde, was de cultuur alleen niet voldoende om de geopolitieke problemen tussen deze regio’s uit te wissen, zoals we kunnen zien in de slinger van Chinese identiteit in de live-uitzendingen van media in Hong Kong en Taiwan. Derhalve wordt een bijgewerkte en meer inclusieve set van “nieuwe” Chineesheid (of andere vormen van uitspraken), die beter kan voldoen aan de alomtegenwoordige hybriditeit in de Chinese gemeenschappen in het gehele vasteland van China en de wereld, en kan worden opgeroepen om te dienen als een betere identiteitsbasis voor (in ieder geval) diegenen die bereid zijn (opnieuw) verbintenis aan te gaan met een vorm van Chinese identiteit.

Hoofdstuk vijf “De nieuwe Chineesheid als een “zero institution”: online verzet, antagonisme, en nationale identiteit” onderzoekt de reacties en betwistingen op het Chinese internet. Ik betoog dat, in 2008 toen patriottisme sterk gemobiliseerd was, de zes kritische discoursen rondom de nieuwe Chineesheid en de Openingsceremonie de nieuwe Chineesheid min of meer versterkten, in plaats van het te ondermijnen. De kritische discoursen gerelateerd aan de nieuwe Chineesheid maakten niet per se bezwaar tegen het concept en de inhoud van de nieuwe Chineesheid; in plaats daarvan werkten deze kritische discoursen (en de tegenstellingen onderling) als verschillende beschrijvingen gegeven door verschillende groeperingen om de ideale representatie van China te tonen, wat tevens deze groepen onverwachts verenigde onder de noemer van nieuwe Chineesheid. Zo veranderden de kritische discoursen en hun interne tegenstellingen de nieuwe Chineesheid in een “zero institution” (een dubieuze betekenisgever met verschillende betekenissen), en werkten ze (min of meer) om de nieuwe Chineesheid en de legitimiteit van de Chinese overheid te versterken. Dit hoofdstuk bevat tevens een case study die aantoont dat, hoewel er nog steeds alomtegenwoordige standpunten zijn die het internet als slechts een aanvulling op traditionele media beschouwen, het internet als een “nieuw” medium niet minder publiek dekt, en soms dieper verwikkeld is in sociale, politieke, en culturele kwesties dan traditionele media zoals

257 televisie. De nieuwe media zijn onafhankelijk (en niet slechts aanvullend) en niet minder “krachtig”, zo niet krachtiger, dan de traditionele media.

Het onderzoeken van de verschillende “verdikkingen” en “centreringen” van de nieuwe Chineesheid en de Openingsceremonie is in lijn met de bewering van Hepp en Couldry (2010) dat in de hedendaagse wereld, het globale media evenement in hoge mate gelokaliseerd is: de lokale uitzending is niet noodzakelijkerwijs “loyaal” aan het script van de organisator, het “integrerende” moment van media evenementen is niet iets dat, zoals Dayan en Katz aannemen, “may be assumed in advance as characteristic,” maar “something uncertain that must be investigated from one case to another” (Hepp and Couldry 2012: 12). Deze benadering herintroduceert machtsrelaties in de studie van media evenementen in een globale wereld.

Ondanks de verscheidene centreringen en betwistingen kunnen we uit de verschillende hoofdstukken in dit proefschrift zien dat sommige soorten van “wij”-zijn, hoewel niet een gedeeld globaal “wij”, zouden kunnen standhouden in de bemiddeling en betwisting van de nieuwe Chineesheid en de Openingsceremonie. Hoofdstuk drie openbaart een gemeenschappelijke voorkeur voor en specifieke interesses in “negatieve” berichten over China in de Engelstalige media (en misschien wel in de meeste westerse media), een Koude Oorlog-mentaliteit, en een onvergankelijk perspectief dat China als een “ander” ziet. Hoofdstuk vier laat zien dat een bepaalde vorm van “gemeenschappelijke culturele identiteit” waarneembaar is in de live-uitzendingen van de Openingsceremonie in Hong Kong, Taiwan en het vasteland van China. Hoofdstuk vijf toont aan dat de kritiek op de Chineesheid op het Chinese internet de nieuwe Chineesheid min of meer heeft bevestigd.

Ondanks deze aanhoudende vormen van “wij”-zijn in de globale bemiddeling van de Openingsceremonie van de Olympische Spelen in Beijing, zijn de betwistingen die in de hoofdstukken naar voren komen reflecties van culturele en politieke verschillen, die zouden kunnen leiden tot verdere botsingen in communicatie tussen China en de westerse landen (en andere landen als die in Zuidoost-Azië), en tussen het vasteland van China, Hong Kong en Taiwan. Deze botsingen kunnen, in het ergste geval, de al bestaande spanningen tussen deze landen, regio’s en daarbuiten, versterken. Met Kuan-Hsing Chens idee van “de-imperialisme” (K-H Chen 2010) stel ik voor dat het vasteland van China, Hong Kong en Taiwan, en westerse samenlevingen een minder omstreden relatie en meer constructieve “mediascape” moeten voorstellen door in de tussentijd processen van de-imperialisatie, de-colonisatie en de- Koude Oorlog te ondergaan. Het is van vitaal belang voor China om te reflecteren op de “vernederingen” uit het westen (en Japan) en om weerstand te bieden aan de noodzaak zich een “nieuw imperium” in te beelden. Het is net zo belangrijk voor de westerse media om te

258 reflecteren op de verbeelding van China op basis van Koude Oorlog-mentaliteit, de specifieke belangen bij een “kwaadaardig” China, en de neo-imperialistische verbeelding van de wereld waarin China een “ondergeschikte” partner blijft. Tevens, teneinde een meer vreedzame relatie tussen het vasteland van China, Hong Kong en Taiwan voor te stellen, zou de- geïmperaliseerde en de-Koude Oorlog communicatie gelijktijdig moeten worden uitgevoerd in deze drie regio’s.

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