INTRODUCTION: CONTINUITIES AND CHANGES FOR AN ALTERNATIVE MODERNITY
Qing Cao, Doreen Wu and Keyan G. Tomaselli
China has been rapidly propelled to global prominence in recent decades, largely due to its economic power rather than its political, military, or technological pre-eminence. China became the world's second largest economy in 2010, and the largest trading nation in 2013. Since the global financial crisis of 2008, China has been the largest contributor to world economic growth. With its growing economic influence, China has moved away from Deng Xiaoping's strategy of "hid[ing| our capabilities and bid[ing] our time" and taken a proactive stance in shaping the global economy In 2009, China became the leading nation in the newly established BRICS group of countries. In 2013, China launched the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), in which 70 nations participate, including all G7 countries except the US and Japan. In the same year, China announced its ambitious Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) for economic collaboration between Eurasian nations that covers 65 countries, but involved bilateral agreements with 133 countries by early 2019. However, as a developing country, China is at pains to manage its own transformation while trying to carve out an international identity amidst its growing global roles and external concerns over its rising influence.
INTERPRETING CHINA IN A GLOBAL CONTEXT
Understanding China and its trajectory of future development has been a major issue in international affairs, one that will inevitably have profound implications in the world for decades to come. Heated debates have occurred in recent years on the assessment of the domestic dynamics in China that might indicate what the country will become. These views range from Daniel Bell's "political meritocracy" (2015) to Tu Weiming's "cultural China" (2010), Martin Jacques's "alternative modernity" (2012), and David Shambaugh's "four alternatives" (2016). At the core of these studies is an appraisal of the roles China's cultural heritage and Western post-enlightenment values play in shaping its modern practices, institutions, and beliefs; but also, more importantly, China's perceptions of and interactions with the Western-dominated modern world (Wu 2008).
As China started moving away from orthodox Marxist ideology in the late 1970s, cultural traditions have increasingly come to the fore of China's development model, with wider internal and external implications. Arguably, China's unique sense of history and identities may, over time, lead to a "contested modernity" (Jacques 2012) or "multiple modernities" (Mahbubani 2013) that are radically different from classical theories of modernisation and the convergence of industrial societies - a view that has been dominant since the 1950s. It has become clear western frameworks of interpreting China have proved largely inadequate as China is moving in a direction few in the west anticipated. China today resembles more its imperial past in governance style and power structure than any other models in the world.
The chapters in this book engage with these debates as contextual background in examining the cultural, social, and spiritual changes seen in China, with a focus on identity formation, self-perception, and the representation and communication of these changes. By considering the representation of Chinese society and its internal dynamics of change in the media, the book explores the emerging, multifaceted "China brand" situated at the juncture of past, present, and future, and between China and the wider world. It is concerned primarily with how hybridised identities are formulated, articulated, and communicated. It examines the way in which they are intertwined with situational, institutional, and societal dynamics of change, portrayed by a diverse array of image producers. However, more importantly, the book investigates how emerging identities that converge with or diverge from China's historical assumptions and beliefs are interwoven with China's evolving international outlook as China rises as a major global power.
IDENTITY TRANSFORMATIONS: CHINA'S INTERNAL STRUGGLE
A crucial issue ill China's modern identity has been the tensions and different modes of struggle between tradition and modernity (Cao 2019). Despite the recent revival of traditional culture, China's modernisation process has been accompanied by intermittent but fierce attacks on tradition. The moderate cultural leader Hu Shi (1891-1962) posed a perceptive question in 1917 that is as relevant today as a century ago: "[T]he real problem therefore may be restated thus: How can we best assimilate modern civilization in such a manner as to make it congenial and congruous and continuous with the civilization of our own making?" (as quoted in Schwarcz 1991, 95). In the constant wrecking of the past in pursuit of modernity that took place during the 20th century, congeniality and congruence were never achieved. Since the 1911 Xinghai Revolution modern identities have been intricately dependent on interpretations of traditions. In imperial China, tradition took the place of religion. Tradition was the source of moral values, guidance, authority, and legitimacy. Historical memory, as the textually anchored attachment to shared experiences, nourished the spirit of the Chinese literati class who sustained the Chinese empire. History, as accumulated traditions, carries weight in the modern construction of authority in a different way - the appeal of defensive nationalism as a rallying call to mobilise support and solidarity for the political project of nation-state building. However, political and ideological battles have been fought over the role of traditions in differing visions of modernity by various national leaders, from Sun Yat-sen and Chiang Kai-shek to Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping (Renwick and Cao 1999). The current leader, Xi Jinping, attempts to combine socialism with tradition in an innovative manner: "Socialist culture with Chinese characteristics is rooted in our brilliant traditional culture refined over 5000 years of Chinese civilisation" (Xi 2017). Traditions are seen not only as congruent with socialism, but as constituting its cultural foundation.
As part of his report to the 19th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in October 2017, Xi's remark quoted above carries extra weight as a policy guideline for the future. It is part of China's renewed effort to underline the power of culture in national development and international politics. In the same report, Xi (2017) stresses culture as "the soul of a nation": "A nation thrives when its culture thrives. A nation is strong when its culture is strong". Traditional culture has become a vital part of China's soft power building strategy (Renwick and Cao 2008). Dirlik (2012, 37) sees this national renewal as part of a global resurgence of indigenous claims to "ways of seeing" and "ways of' knowing". Paradoxically, the appeal to tradition and the return to classical epistemology to reaffirm national heritage are products of modernity. It is natural, therefore, that China's early-stage socialism remains largely abstract and theoretical, while strategies for reviving traditional culture are specific, detailed, and substantial, endorsed by intellectuals and the public. However, history is not simply the past, but a purposeful assembly of materials from the past to construct the future. History is a process of selective exclusion in the creation of the new and therefore remains open to constant revision and contestation (Glassie 1995). It is significant that there is actually no agreement about modernity and its meanings in China. This "conceptual incoherence", as Dirlik observes, demonstrates Chinese modernity exists only in relation to Euro-American conceptions of modernity (Dirlik 2002, 29). It is the negotiation of the meanings of modernity that created a unique space to think about the past, the present, and the future.
STRUCTURE OF THE BOOK
This volume consists of three sections. Each examines a distinct domain of identity transformations. Section 1 Chinese Society between Traditions and Modernity (Chapters 1-4) looks at issues of dilemma in developing a modern society, focusing on traditional values as cultural legacy, the creation of a common speech (Putonghua), possibilities of a civil society, and revival of traditional identities. In Chapter 1 "Rupture in Modernity: A Case Study of Radicalism in the Late Qing Chinese Press Debate", Qing Cao examines the historical roots of modern identities by discussing a crucial historical moment in the early 1900s when China broke with its age-old traditions in pursuit of modernity. From the perspective of organic society, Cao analyses the 1905-1907 press debate between monarchists and republicans as a case study to illustrate the radicalising tendency of the intellectual elite in their advocacy of new values, institutions, and practice. Cao considers how the negation of Chinese traditions laid the foundation for the radicalism that became prevalent throughout the century. The chapter summarises the discourse of radicalism as characterised by the lack of social anchorage, the loss of a benchmark in social practice and institutions, and coercive language in enforcing Utopian visions of the future. Central to the rise of radicalism, Cao argues, is the shattered link between external values and indigenous practice. Cao postulates that the break constitutes a critical rupture in Chinese modernity which the current political elite must deal with in order to achieve the intellectual and emotional integrity of the Chinese cultural self. This chapter sets the scene for the rest of the book, which deals with contemporary materials in discussing a variety of dimensions of modern identities and their relationships with tradition, focusing on their negotiation and contestation in a globalised context from different perspectives.
In Chapter 2, "Putonghua and Language Harmony: China's Resources of Cultural Son Power", Natalia Riva considers the role of language policy in China's projection of soft power. By examining the Party-State's discourse in these two policy areas, Riva considers how the Chinese leadership targets the domestic audience in promoting a higher level of loyalty to Chinese culture and its system of values. Central to language planning as a regulatory framework, Riva argues, is the Party-State's vision of harmonising China's language as cultural capital to enhance national cohesion. Language policies targeting a multi-ethnic, multicultural, multilingual, and multidialectal China testify to how exploiting language resources has become instrumental in developing cultural capital as an important mode of nation building. Riva concludes that promoting Putonghua, or Standard Mandarin, as a means to address multifarious language issues only responds to the need to strengthen the country's cultural power, social harmony, and modern identity as essential components of China's comprehensive power, nationhood, and sovereignty. The Party-State's vision of language as producer of cultural capital is, however, deeply im...
