Waiting for Innovation

The Chinese nation is known throughout the world not only for its industriousness and stamina, but also for its ardent love of freedom and its rich revolutionary traditions.
- Mao Zedong, from The Chinese Revolution and the Chinese Communist Party, December 1949

Today’s global superpower status, according to William Pfaff, requires a very high level of autonomous technological capacity and a sophisticated and innovative industry to make use of it. Regardless of its economic growth and international influence during the past 30 years, China is lacking in both of these requirements, he notes in this opinion piece from the International Herald Tribune.

Here are his reasons:

Lack of innovation: China has recognized the importance of educating the next generation of scientists and technicians crucial for its continuing development by sending them overseas to learn. Once they return, however, they find an “industrial base too limited to put them to proper use.” China makes “unsophisticated goods” which were designed abroad, as is its technology.

Widespread corruption: China’s uncontrolled and corrupt manufacturing sector reaps destruction and devastation on the environment. A modern superpower works against this disruption of the environment. Furthermore, corruption from a similar source in what Pfaff describes as “the massive, backward, impoverished and politically restless Chinese agricultural population” could lead to a “major political crisis in China in the foreseeable future.” The “inadequacies, corruption and political illegitimacy of a self-perpetuating ruling class, whose only claim to authority is its bureaucratic descent from the catastrophic Communist regime of Mao Zedong” have created this predicament.

Backlash from economic exploitation of other countries: China’s foreign investments in “advanced countries” and “massive purchases” of raw materials from underdeveloped and unregulated “resource-rich countries” creates economic influence but also creates a sort of resented dependence on China. China takes what it needs and then abandons these countries, all the while having destroyed local industries that cannot compete with cheap Chinese imports.

Pfaff goes on to recognize the conclusions of François Hauter who, in a series of articles, finds that two Chinas co-exist: the so-called modern China that foreigners see and the hidden China in which nothing has changed in 25 years. Also commenting on the modern lack of innovation, he wonders, where "is the China that gave mankind paper, printing, the compass, gunpowder?" and "Is China's genius now imprisoned in its current role of copyist for the West?”

… it is not at all surprising but entirely to be expected that a capitalist economy will develop to a certain extent within Chinese society with the sweeping away of the obstacles to the development of capitalism after the victory of the revolution.
-- Mao Zedong, from The Chinese Revolution and the Chinese Communist Party, December 1949

Pink Moon and Pop Stars

I discovered the music of Nick Drake in 1985, eleven years after his premature death at age 26. His music was relatively obscure, but had a strong, small following at the time. It wasn’t until Volkswagen used his song Pink Moon in a 2000 television commercial that Drake’s music reached widespread popularity. Within one month of that commercial, more Drake records had been sold than in the previous 30 years.

When I watch this commercial, my heart literally aches with sadness over Drake’s depression and possible suicide, and with the total distastefulness of using his lyrics and music to sell a car. The obvious irony, however, is that now more people can enjoy his work.

Such is the sentiment for many Chinese pop stars, according to this BBC News Asia-Pacific article entitled ‘Chaos' of China's music industry. When an advertiser chooses an artist to promote its product, the artist becomes more commercially popular and can make a lot more money. “Chinese pop stars rely heavily on these types of commercial performances, which make up more than half of their income,” notes the article.

Singer Agi and her band Mika Bomb made $2,000 a month from music royalties and live shows while in the UK. In China, she and her band Long Kuan Jiu Duan can almost double that amount by performing one commercial. In this video, Long Kuan Jiu Duan performs Lotus Flower.

"It's really hard to earn money from records because of illegal downloading from the internet and pirated CDs," Agi said. The Chinese recording industry has given up on trying to halt the piracy, purely by necessity rather than by choice, said Shen Lihui, the head of China's largest independent label, Modern Sky, based in Beijing. According to the article, Modern Sky’s entire record collection can be downloaded for free through the country's largest search engine, Baidu.com. The World Trade Organization is currently investigating the problem of piracy in China.

Shen is still optimistic that China will be at the forefront of the music industry in the future. "You can do anything in China. It's the freest place. Try another business model," he said. Indeed, the future may hold the opportunity for corporate sponsorship of Chinese pop stars.

Evolution and revolution: Chinese dress 1700s-1990s

While doing research for the last paper, I came across this site http://www.powerhousemuseum.com/hsc/evrev/ which describes the changes in Chinese dress from the latter Qing Dynasty through the late 20th century.

Here is a picture of shoes worn during the mid-19th century for women who bound their feet (left). With cloth heels and embroidered silk uppers, they were made in China about 1850.

Powerhouse Museum collection

The cheungsam, seen in the picture to the right, became popular with the growing awareness of women's rights. After such restrictive traditions in dress, Chinese women selected the cheungsam as their national dress. The women portrayed on the calendar posters dressed in sleeveless cheungsam with high side-slits. This picture depicts a 1930s advertising poster for Qidong Tobacco Company showing a fashionable woman wearing a cheungsam.

Powerhouse Museum collection.

Imagine getting married in this (below), a red cotton velvet jacket (xiao'ao) worn by a 26-year-old actor for her wedding in 1977. The jacket was made by the Cultural Revolution Clothing Factory in Peking, though the Cultural Revolution had already ended. Most couples who married at this time wore uniforms (zhifu).

Powerhouse Museum collection.

Below are some more contemporary designs

from 1997 found on this site. They are slightly

reminiscent of the past.

Nine Chevrolets and Neon Lights

Through May 28, the Guggenheim Museum in New York boasts nine white Chevrolet cars suspended from varying heights in its Frank Lloyd Wright rotunda . Upon entering the museum, viewers' "first experience is one of assault, one of confrontation, of tremendous violence" as they take in these cars which "simulate a car bomb explosion" according to Alexandra Munroe, the senior curator of Asian art for the Guggenheim. That explosion, she says, begins on the "rotunda floor, spits in a fury of explosion, tumbles through the void space, ending up on Ground Six."

The artist behind this display, Cai Guo-Giang, is one of the most powerful operating anywhere in the world today, according to Thomas Krens, the Guggenheim's director.

If you care to push aside the thick art-gobbledy-talk emerging from the mouths of elite curators, check out this link to Cai's exhibition in New York http://www.guggenheim.org/exhibitions/exhibition_pages/cai.html

It appears that Cai (who was born in 1957 in Quanzhou, Fujian Province, China, and studied stage design at the Shanghai Drama Institute) has circumvented the preposterous nature of western materialism and propensity towards glamour and bright lights to create an awesome scene that asks the viewer to forget gravity and the drive toward acquiring stuff. Instead, he asks his audience to recognize the beauty of the stuff itself when it is arranged artistically. I think Cai wants us to rethink our desires. Nine white cars suspended from various heights in a stark white six-level rotunda, each adorned with colorful lights shooting out from it, could possibly reawaken the minds of the average American consumer. We can do recognize the beauty of living and the aesthetics of culture.

Here's more about Cai's work around the world: http://www.caiguoqiang.com/shell.php?sid=2ell.php?sid=2.

Implications of China's One Child Policy

According to Independent Online (http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?click_id=3&art_id=nw20080311133052892C490454&set_id, March 12, 2008), China announced that it has lowered greenhouse gas emissions through its family planning policy. Its "one-child" policy has prevented the births of more than 300 million people since its adoption in the late 1970s. (The party has previously claimed that 400 million births have been prevented.) These averted humans would have emitted an additional 1.3 billion tons of carbon dioxide per year, a government environment report said. The report also said that China had likely surpassed the United States as the world's biggest contributor to climate change.

China's communist party implemented the family planning policy as a way to curtail population growth beyond what the country could feed. Nevertheless, thirtysome years later, China still has the world's largest population, approximately 1.3 billion people.

Generally, urban families are allowed to have one child, while rural families and minority groups receive exceptions to the rule. Sterilization, late-term abortions, and a higher ratio of male to female births are all results of China's policy.

Consider these:

A 2000 study (Birth planning and sterilization in China, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?db=pubmed&uid=11640214&cmd=showdetailview&indexed=google) found that sterilization is the most prevalent method of contraception in China and that approximately half of all women of reproductive age report that they or their husbands are sterilized.

Men are required by law to be at least 22 years old and women 20 years old prior to getting married. Because unmarried couples in China are not allowed to have children, many women resort to having mutiple abortions (Today’s Face of Abortion in China Is a Young, Unmarried Woman, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/13/world/asia/13abortion.html 5/13/2007).


In China, 117 boys are born for every 100 girls, whereas the global birth ratio is 103-107 boys for 100 girls. http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2004-07/16/content_349051.htm

Finally, a Chinese national "Care for Girls" project has been established to educate people and persuade them to give up their traditional preference for male children. http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2004-07/08/content_346700.htm

Spit-Free Day

Beijing is considering a "No Spit Day" in its attempt to establish a "Healthy Olympics, Healthy Beijing".

According to ChinaCSR (http://www.chinacsr.com/2008/03/13/2174-beijing-considers-spit-free-day/#more-2174, 3/13/2008), a representative from Beijing Municipal Health Department says that spring is the peak time for people to suffer from various respiratory diseases, and setting a special day for no spitting reinforces the importance of a sanitary lifestyle and confirms the culture's stance on the habit of spitting. A specific date for the "No Spit Day" has not been finalized.

Liaoning Will Shut Down Over 200 Small Paper Making Plants This Year

Liaonig Providence, which is located in the southern part of China’s northeast region and borders the Bohai Sea and the Yellow Sea, announced tomorrow (March 5) that is will shut down more than 200 small paper plants along the Liaohe River basin (the 7th major river basin in China) during 2008 (ChinaCSR.com, www.chinasourcingnews.com/.../04/01161-liaoning-will-shut-down-over-200-small-paper-making-plants-this-year/ ). Removing the “stinky smell from 10 branches of the Liaohe River over the next three years” is another goal.

Since there are several heavy industry cities along the river and more than 1,000 of those industries qualify as “big polluter enterprises”, this part of China’s geography is ranked as the “most seriously-polluted…among all the river basins in China.” Closing 200 paper mills and getting rid of the stinky smell is just the beginning. Fortunately, seven other industries - metallurgy, chemical, medicine, petroleum, nonmetal mining and textile – are also targeted for modification. The article does not indicate how, but Wang Bingjie, director of Liaoning Provincial Environment Department, announced that closing the paper-making plants would eliminate about 400,000 tons of backward production capacities.” By “straightening out a batch of major polluters” the provincial environmental department expects “that the 10 seriously-polluted branches of the Liaohe River would eventually become clean.”

Contrast that statement with PetroChina’s announcement (PetroChina to build 10-mln-ton capacity refinery in Huludao in ... ) that it plans to build a 10-million-ton capacity refinery in Huludao in northeastern China's Liaoning province. PetroChina is the China’s top oil and gas producer, spewing greenhouse gases into the air and metal deposits into the water, although a recent U.S. EPA analysis concluded that in the United States the “risks to human health and the environment posed by oil refinery emissions were low enough to warrant no further regulations” (www.treehugger.com/files/2007/08/epa_lets_ignore.php). Perhaps emissions during refinery have no affect on the environment after all.