China’s Economic Takeover is all about Culture (?)

Last week, I came across an article about how China is planning on redirecting a fair bit of its nationalistic (imperialistic?) energy to dominate the world’s economic scene. During the past few years, every discussion about world economics has involved China as a main character. Many of my non-native-English-speaking friends have decided that their children will study not English in school, but Chinese. Because speaking Chinese is where it’s at if one wants to be a successful businessperson in the future.

Economic Growth = China

So this article that I came across was fascinating (click here to read it!): in it, I learned that that monolith we refer to as “China” has realised that economic dominance will never be complete without cultural dominance. Indeed, too many Chinese youth are attracted to Western Culture! This cannot be. China must be great in its own right, so the Chinese machine is going to start reviving and exporting its culture: “President Hu Jintao of China made headlines in the early days of the new year saying China and the West were engaged in an escalating culture war, calling on Chinese people to strengthen cultural production to defend themselves against the assault.”

Them’s fighting words. The article goes on to explain that China’s cultural power didn’t match its economic dominance, and that culture was key for national unity and world dominance. Yup.

So let’s be looking forward to some interesting East-Meets-West culturtwining in the coming years, with the “big boys” playing a key role!

I found the article interesting, especially in the light of recent controversies about working conditions in China. Even though the factories where suicides have recently occurred produce all kinds of digital electronics, a lot of the debate has focused on the disturbing ethics of buying Apple products when we know that many iPhones, iPads and Macs are made in the same complex of factories as where the suicides happened. Uh-oh. I’m typing this on a Mac.

This radio special from NPR is brilliant; listen if you have the time: Mr. Daisey and the Apple Factory

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