Globalization and Cultural Trends in China Globalization and Cultural Trends in China Liu Kang University of Hawai‘i Press Honolulu © 2004 University of Hawai‘i Press All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America 04 05 06 07 08 09 1 2 3 4 5 6 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Liu, Kang Globalization and cultural trends in China / Liu Kang. Includes bibliographical references and index. p. cm. ISBN 0-8248-2704-X (alk. paper)—ISBN 0-8248- 2759-7 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. China—Civilization—20th century. 2. Globalization—China. 3. Popular culture—China. I. Title. DS775.2 .L564 2004 951.05'9—dc21 2003013834 University of Hawai‘i Press books are printed on acid- free paper and meet the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Council on Library Resources. Designed by University of Hawai‘i Press Production Staff Printed by The Maple-Vail Book Manufacturing Group To Julia and David, my beloved daughter and son, and to Yazeng, who has nurtured us all with love, intelligence, and endurance Contents Acknowledgments ix Introduction 1 CHAPTER 1 Is There an Alternative to (Capitalist) Globalization? 23 The Debate about Modernity, Postmodernity, and Postcoloniality CHAPTER 2 What Is “Socialism with Chinese Characteristics”? 46 Issues of Culture, Politics, and Ideology CHAPTER 3 The Rise of Commercial Popular Culture and the Legacy 78 of the Revolutionary Culture of the Masses CHAPTER 4 The Short-Lived Avant-Garde Literary Movement and Its 102 Transformation: The Case of Yu Hua CHAPTER 5 The Internet in China: Emergent Cultural Formations 127 and Contradictions Notes 163 Bibliography 185 Index 203 vii Acknowledgments have benefited from many comments and criticisms on the essays I have written since the mid-1990s, and this book reflects those numerous in- Iteractions. Although I take full responsibility for my viewpoints and any factual errors, I would like to express my deep gratitude to those who helped make the experience of observing, thinking, and writing about China delightful. As always, I feel grateful for the friendship and support of Fredric Jameson, Wang Fengzhen, Masao Miyoshi, Qiguang Zhao, Yang Hengda, Zhu Weiyi, Li Xiguang, Yan Xiaobao, Li Chen, Lu Tiecheng, Lee Li, Zhu Yaoyin, Gao Jian, Arif Dirlik, Tonglin Lu, Rey Chow, Kang-I Sun Chang, Xudong Zhang, Sheldon Xiao-peng Lu, Q. S. Tong, Tianjian Shi, Xinshu Zhao, Zhiyuan Cui, Gregory Lee, Jonathan Arac, Paul Bove, Wendy Larson, Kam Louie, Jaime FlorCruz, Zhou Xian, Zhang Yiwu, Huang Ping, Wang Xi, Meng Fanhua, Li Shulei, Wang Ning, Chen Xiaoming, Zhou Xiaoyi, Meng Hua, Ding Ersu, Tao Dongfeng, Zhang Fa, Wang Yichuan, Zang Ce, Xu Baogeng, Hu Xianzhang, Liu Qinghui, Cao Shunqing, Cheng Aimin, and Xu Dai. I want to thank Marshall Brown and Yomi Braester for their constructive criticism on an earlier version of chapter 4; David Leiwei Li for reading and commenting on an earlier version of chapter 5; and Dubravka Juraga for encouraging me to participate in a project on rethink- ing global socialist cultures, which resulted in my essay on “socialism with Chinese characteristics” (chapter 2). My colleagues at Pennsylvania State University have always been sup- portive. I thank Caroline Eckhardt, Gerhard Strasser, Thomas Beebee, Thomas Hale, Robert Edwards, On-cho Ng, and Ronnie Hsia for their con- tinued support of my research. I am indebted especially to Djelal Kadir, a scholar of great intellectual caliber and social commitment, who not only inspired me to explore the Chinese avant-garde and Yu Hua in his seminar ix x Acknowledgments on inter-American cultural and literary studies but also encouraged me to attend a month-long seminar on globalization in Avignon, France, in 2000. During the latter seminar, I had the opportunity to engage in discussions with Mike Featherstone, Vlad Gozich, and others on a variety of issues on globalization. I want to thank especially my former doctoral students: Anbin Shi, who now is a professor of media studies at the prestigious Tsinghua University, China, helped me tremendously in the conception and writing of many chapters; and Carol Motta, whose Ph.D. dissertation on the global cultural revolution of the 1960s, particularly in France and Brazil, was inspirational for my own research. I also want to thank Songyi Zheng, a doctoral student of mine, whose research on traditional folk arts and popular culture in China today is a genuine collaborative project that has opened up many unexpected new venues for my research. My research at Leiden University, Holland, in 1997 enabled me to exchange views with scholars on modern and contemporary China, particularly Woei Lien Chong and Stefan R. Langsberger. I remain thankful to the International Institute for Asian Studies in the Netherlands, which awarded me the Senior Research Fellowship at Leiden. The Fulbright Scholarship in 1998 allowed me to spend six months at the National Chengchi University in Taipei, Taiwan, as a visiting professor in its Department of Radio and Television. Thanks must go especially to the Fulbright Institute in Taipei, and many colleagues and friends in Taiwan, including Wang Jin-ping, Wang Hsiao-po, Chen Kuan-hsin, Kao Hsin-chiang, Chen Ying-chen, Chu Kao-cheng, Liu Kai-ling, Wu Tsui-chen, Luo Wen-hui, and Gong Peng- cheng. A research grant in 1997 and an endowed professorship for East Asian Studies, 2000–2001, both from Pennsylvania State University, have supported my frequent research trips to China since 1997. Of course, I am greatly indebted to numerous individuals and institutions in China, whose assistance and guidance are indispensable for my understanding of con- temporary Chinese culture. Thanks must go to friends and colleagues at Beijing University, Tsinghua University, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Nanjing University, Nanjing Normal University, Zhejiang University, Sichuan University, Tibet University, Hunan Normal University, Northwestern Normal University, Shaanxi Normal University, Fudan University, Shanghai Foreign Language University, China Central Television (CCTV), Xinhua News Agency, and the Information Office of the State Council, People’s Republic of China. I am very grateful to Pamela Kelley, editor of the University of Hawai‘i Press, for her unfailing support, which resulted in the prompt publication Acknowledgments xi of my book. Thanks also go to two anonymous reviewers whose generosity and insights, coupled by often unrelenting critique, were invaluable for re- vising and rethinking my ideas. I also want to thank Ann Ludeman, man- aging editor at the University of Hawai‘i Press, and Rosemary Wetherold, whose copyediting made my prose much more readable. I had the good fortune to meet both Pam and Ann in their offices while attending a con- ference on globalization at the University of Hawai‘i in December 2002. That was a truly memorable moment for me. Chapters 1 through 4 have been adapted from articles published else- where: chapter 1, “Is There an Alternative to (Capitalist) Globalization? The Debate about Modernity in China,” Boundary 2 23.3 (fall 1996): 245–269; chapter 2, “What Is ‘Socialism with Chinese Characteristics’? Debates about Culture, Ideology, and Modernity in China in the 1990s,” in Dubravka Juraga and M. Keith Booker, eds., Rereading Global Socialist Cultures after the Cold War (London: Praeger, 2002), 91–115; chapter 3, “Popular Culture and the Culture of Population in Contemporary China,” Boundary 2 24.3 (fall 1997): 99–123; and chapter 4, “The Short-Lived Avant-Garde: The Transformation of Yu Hua,” Modern Language Quarterly 63.1 (March 2002): 89–118. I thank Duke University Press/Boundary 2, Modern Language Quarterly, and Praeger for their permission to use previ- ously published materials. Introduction undamental structural transformations are taking place in Chinese culture and society. The watershed in China’s recent history is widely Fregarded as Deng Xiaoping’s gaige kaifang (reform and opening up) project that began in 1979. Unlike the now almost forgotten perestroika of Gorbachev that led to the collapse of Soviet-style socialism, gaige kaifang has succeeded in bringing high-speed economic development and material prosperity while managing to maintain the political status quo under the rule of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The last two decades, how- ever, witnessed not only phenomenal economic growth but also spectacu- lar political crises and unrest (which culminated in the Tiananmen events of 1989) and profound social, ideological, and cultural changes. These crises and changes are fundamental and structural, first because the politi- cal mechanism of the state and the CCP has become increasingly dysfunc- tional in the course of the reform, and the country faces imminent danger of disintegration. Second, the revolutionary ideology and its discourses, which legitimated the rule of the CCP in the past and are still being used by the post-Deng regime today, have lost their legitimating power. Changes in political, social, and cultural spheres are taking place in spite of the ruling power’s resistance. Even though the fate of gaige kaifang is unpredictable, it is certain that China’s political and social life has entered a postrevolution- ary phase, even if only in a narrow, chronological sense. Practices that ex- isted under Mao for thirty-odd years have become irreversibly outmoded, and there seems no possibility of returning to the past. New political and social formations, new sets of values and beliefs, new social identities, and new subjectivities have emerged. These emergent for- mations, transformations, and reformations cannot be understood merely as the result of China’s unique experiments, or “socialism with Chinese 1 2 Introduction characteristics” as they are labeled by communist ideologues. Instead, they must be seen within the broad context of globalization. Globalization is not simply a new international or global conceptual framework by which China’s changes can be understood. Rather, it is both a historical condition in which China’s gaige kaifang has unfolded and a set of values or ideologies by which China and the rest of the globe are judged.