CHINESE POPULAR CULTURE

Chinese Popular Culture

Chinese Popular Culture

Introduction

Recent uprisings over Tibetan districts of ceramic as well as purported terror plots designed by Uighur separatists searching independence for Xinjiang have emphasised the trials that the Chinese Communist Party faces in ruling a Han-dominant but multiethnic China. How ceramic manages the “nationalities inquiry” will be a crucial determinant of communal steadiness going forward. Chinese peak managers have long identified the value to the Party of having ethnic few cadres among the Party-state elites, both for propaganda reasons as well as to inspire minority peoples to outlook the scheme as containing possibilities for their own advancement. Yet the Party has furthermore maintained a firm grab on power in the ethnic minority-dominant political flats by appointing ethnic Hans to the most significant positions. An understanding the changing role of ethnic minorities in Chinese politics is essential for comprehending the dynamics of China's rapidly transforming political landscape.

Discussion

China today is being globalised economically, communally, and culturally. Throughout the 1990s, global retailers such as Carrefour, Walmart and Ikea invested massively in China, and Chinese urban residents became “consumers of transnationally branded foodstuffs, pop-music videos and fashion” (Davis, 2005, p. 692). By the end of 2004, more than 50 per cent of the nearly 3,000 state-owned or state-controlled large major enterprises had changed into stock-sharing companies (People's Daily News, 13 July 2005). The economy has also been increasingly market-wise, with the rise of imported products from its capitalist neighbouring places of Hong Kong and Taiwan (see Chua, 2001; Hopper, 1994). Cultural exchange and the importation of technology were one of the unquestionable by-products of the mainland's modernisation. Artists in Chinese literary and cultural circles are contributing to this international development and recognition. Although economically highly interdependent, Taiwan and mainland China are nevertheless antagonistic in the political arena (Chao, 2003). ...