Written by Rui Su.

Urban heritage tourism in China reflects the major changes in recent decades in the country’s economy, society, politics and governance. There has been a gradual but substantial transformation from a centrally planned economy to a more market-oriented economy “with Chinese characteristics” (Sofield & Li, 2011).  There are continuities as well as changes in this gradualist transformation.  China’s long-standing tradition of commerce and entrepreneurialism, for example, has re-emerged, following its suppression. This is one influential factor in the dramatic expansion of domestic tourism.  Chinese society continues to value social order and harmony, and often also believes in the subordination of individual desires to the greater whole (Sofield & Li, 2011, p.506).  In terms of governance, there has been the retention but also the evolution of a strong state sector, which continues to be led by the Chinese Communist Party. Despite an absence of any significant shift to western forms of democratic governance within this one-party state, there has been some greater tolerance of dissenting voices.  Sofield and Li (1998, p.364) suggest that, in China, the approach to heritage “has tended to be carefully controlled by the state; and its use for tourism has often been driven by ideological tenets of politics (in this case, socialism as defined by the Chinese government)”. Thus, at times, the state has sought to use cultural heritage to disseminate messages and values which are supportive of the Chinese Communist Party (Henderson, 2002; Yan & Bramwell, 2008).

Interpreting urban heritage tourism in China is different from other Western perspectives. Western tourists often seek a way of understanding knowledge and truth, while Chinese tourists often put the emphasis on imaginative memories and cultural values. A Chinese interpretation is very important to understanding Chinese heritage at tourist sites, as it is tied up with spiritual experiences deriving from China’s 4000 years or so of history. In Chinese history, emperors established different dynasties, and many historic resources depict “emperor-gods and animistic spirits” within “mountains, rivers, lakes, and other natural features” (Sofield & Li, 1998, p. 366). In addition to these imaginative messages and poetic contexts, broad Chinese contextual factors such as the history of wars, population migrations, dynasty change, and social changes, have affected the development of heritage tourism and have created different interpretations in China.

My research has been conducted in Nanjing, a city with a population of over 8 million in 2011 and which was historically prominent as the national capital at various times during the Six Dynasties (220-589), Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), and Republic of China (1919-1949) periods (Nanjing Tourism Bureau, 2010).  Nanjing’s legacy of major cultural heritage resources has led to it becoming a major tourist city, attracting 79 million domestic tourists in 2012. According to the Nanjing Statistics Department, the city’s tourism industry revenues in 2009 was 82 billion CNY, representing 19.7% of Nanjing’s GDP (Nanjing Tourism Bureau, 2010). Information on Nanjing’s heritage tourism was collected in February–April 2011 and May–June 2012, including semi-structured interviews, observations, policies, plans, annual reports, newspapers, and photographs, together with official websites and Weibo.

Fig 1: Pictures on exhibition at the Nanjing Massacre Memorial Hall

There are particular interpretative issues at Nanjing’s Memorial Hall of the Victims in the Nanjing Massacre, a site which explains how Japanese troops killed 300,000 unarmed Chinese soldiers and civilians during the second Sino-Japanese War (1936-1945). Since 2014 February, Nanjing city government decided to set up December 13 as National Memorial Day to commemorate the deaths during the Nanjing Massacre.

The Nanjing Massacre Memorial Hall had an official role for the Chinese state in promoting patriotic education. While visiting the Memorial Hall in 2004, the Chinese Communist Party General Secretary asserted, “Here is a good place to carry out the education of patriotism. Never forget to educate the adolescents on patriotism at any time” (Zhu 2007, p.62). It has been suggested that the nationalism promoted at such sites can provide a cohesive ruling strategy and that this can help legitimize the Chinese Communist Party’s position (Coble, 2007; He, 2007; Seo, 2008). Some innovative media was used at the Memorial Hall to encourage tourist empathy, including sculpture groups at its entrance. Another exhibit involves drops of water falling, and a light next to the photograph of a victim which turns on and then off every twelve seconds.

Fig 2: Visitors watching videos in the Nanjing Massacre Memorial Hall

The Memorial Hall’s interpretations emphasise that China’s former national weakness provides us with historical lessons for today, as reflected in the Nanjing Massacre.  A Nanjing Tourism Bureau official suggested that, at this attraction, “The historical past memory may always record and present sad or negative information […] and at the same time help us to consider our further social development”.  In the Memorial Hall, a high wall displays the motto: “Past experience, if not forgotten, can serve as a guide for the future”.

The Nanjing Massacre is a notorious incident in China’s collective memory, and this encourages many domestic tourists to visit the Memorial Hall. The tourists who were interviewed generally had been prompted to reflect on the horrors experienced by the massacre’s victims. One tourist interviewed at the Memorial Hall described how, “My boy asked me about that, why unarmed Chinese people were killed by the Japanese? I suggested that he should forgive the Japanese…and Chinese people should become stronger, so that their country cannot be invaded by other foreigners”.  Another tourist took away the message that, “Backwardness leaves you vulnerable to being attacked. In the past, we had this miserable history of the Nanjing Massacre […] Our Chinese people should become stronger so that no one can invade us any more”.  More generally, Zhao (2004, pp.232-3) argues that recent nationalist rhetoric in China involved people being “asked to bear in mind that weakness, disunity, and disorder at home would invite foreign aggression and result in loss of Chinese identity, as China’s century-long humiliation and suffering before 1949 demonstrated”.

Fig 3: An exhibition of skeletons

Yet there could also be tensions between the Memorial Hall’s interpreted messages and the tourist reactions. A Nanjing Tourism Bureau planner suggested, for example, that there were limits to what the site’s patriotic education could achieve: “The Chinese government encourages patriotic education to increase Chinese people’s national pride and sense of national identity. However, it does not actually work very well. People may be more open-minded now than they were many years ago. Thus, they may not fully accept this patriotic education”.

Another tourism official considered that tourists were increasingly questioning what was presented. He argued that: “The government probably cannot easily affect people’s values, especially when the Internet is widely used in everyone’s lives. People can search for any information online and they become more open-minded. Therefore, they can think critically about the messages which the Chinese government has promoted at different patriotic attractions”.

Indeed, one tourist stated, “I know that some of Nanjing’s tourism attractions are patriotic education places. However, the reason for visiting those places is their history and culture, and not for the patriotic education on offer”.  Other tourists commented, “I do not like the patriotic education at some tourist sites. It looks like a brainwashing activity”, and “Patriotic education might have been useful fifty or sixty years ago, but not for now. I do not think that it is very useful for the future either”. Such responses support Ashworth’s suggestion that the acceptability of tourist products and their associated messages is likely to depend on whether they are “incorporated into the existing experience, expectations and historical understanding of the visitor” (1994, p. 25).    

Fig 4: Translated captions at the Nanjing Massacre Memorial Hall

The research here only identifies the importance of interpreting urban heritage tourism and relevant issues in the case of the Nanjing Massacre Memorial Hall. Influenced by the governance system, the Chinese government seeks to interpret the political purposes very substantially at historic sites, sometimes in the belief that some historic messages are beneficial in uniting people and establishing national identity. Meanwhile, a few tensions also raised in terms of China’s rapid economic and socio-cultural urban dynamics exist in most cities, including Nanjing. The discussion can be opened up to other policy makers, industrial operators and academics who are interested in cultural heritage, urban planning and tourism development.

Rui Su is Associate Lecturer in Tourism at Middlesex University. Image credits: Rui Su. 

References:

Ashworth, G. (1994). From history to heritage – from heritage to identity. In search of concepts and models. In G. Ashworth & P. Larkham (Eds.), Building a new heritage. Tourism, culture and identity in the new Europe (pp. 13-30).  London: Routledge.

Coble, P. (2007). China’s ”new remembering” of the anti-Japanese war of resistance, 1937-1945. The China Quarterly, 190, pp. 394-410.

He, Y. (2007). Remembering and forgetting the war: Elite mythmaking, mass reaction, and Sino-Japanese relations, 1950-2006. History and Memory, 19(2), pp. 43-74.

Henderson, J. (2002). Heritage attractions and tourism development in Asia: A comparative study of Hong Kong and Singapore. International Journal of Tourism Research, 4(5), pp. 337-344.

Nanjing Tourism Bureau (2010). Nanjing statistics report in 2009. Retrieved June 6, 2009, from website:  http://www.nju.gov.cn/news/20105/20105712451367307.html

Seo, J. (2008). Politics of memory in Korea and China: Remembering the Comfort Women and the Nanjing Massacre. New Political Science, 30(3), pp. 369-392.

Sofield, T., & Li, S. (1998). Tourism development and cultural policies in China. Annals of Tourism Research, 25(2), pp. 362-392.

Sofield, T., & Li, S. (2011). Tourism governance and sustainable national development in China: A macro-level synthesis. Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 19(4/5), pp. 501-534.

Yan, H., & Bramwell, B. (2008). Cultural tourism, ceremony and the state in China. Annals of Tourism Research, 35(4), pp. 969-989.

Zhao, S. (2004). A nation-state by construction: Dynamics of modern Chinese nationalism. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

Zhu, C. (2007). The interpretive words for the Memorial Hall of the Victims in Nanjing Massacre by Japanese Invaders. Nanjing: The Memorial Hall of the Victims in Nanjing Massacre by Japanese Invaders.

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Written by Haiyan Lee.

In a satirical novel by Christopher Buckley called They Eat Puppies, Don’t They?, a lobbyist seeking to stir up anti-China sentiments in Washington declares in a column for the conservative National Review that “there are one point three billion reasons to be afraid—very afraid—of China today.” After enumerating China’s many “offenses,” she adds: “and if that’s not enough to keep you awake at night, let’s not forget—they eat puppies, don’t they?”

Apparently, over the past month at least, the last offense has been keeping a group of Hollywood celebrities awake at night. On June 21, summer solstice, the annual Yulin Lychee and Dog Meat Festival (玉林荔枝狗肉节) in Guangxi Province took place as planned. A video jointly released by Matt Damon, Rooney Mara, Joaquin Phoenix, Maggie Q, and others in protest of the festival flashes disturbing images of dogs in cages, on chopping blocks, and on meat hooks, intercut with the mournful faces of the actors pleading for the barbarous practice to stop.

Perhaps due to its rough coincidence with the Orlando massacre and the Brexit referendum, not to mention the election year circus in the U.S., the Yulin story did not gain the same traction as it did last year when the festival was first widely reported in international media. Then, in the midst of global outrage, Peter Li of the University of Houston (also a consultant for Humane Society International) reminded us in a NYT interview that the number of dogs consumed annually in China was miniscule compared with the 48 million cattle and 716 million pigs chowed down by Chinese consumers, though on a per capita basis these numbers are dwarfed by those in the U.S. The veritable holocaust of animal lives that goes on non-stop worldwide has drawn fire from animal rights activists in the West for decades. Yet in this case, moral opprobrium is reserved for the killing and eating of a relatively small number of dogs. What gives?

People eating at Yulin Dog Meat Festival (Image credit: CC by Animals Asia/flickr)

Anthropologists have long maintained that food is more than sustenance and nutrition. Across cultures and societies, people use food to communicate meaning and value, that is, to define group identity, mark class distinction, and signal moral conviction. They do so through allegiance to culinary traditions, dietary taboos, and consumer choice. Moreover, our food habits are informed by cultural logics, so that what is deemed edible and inedible is not always justifiable in terms of nutritional, ecological, or economic advantages.

The cultural logic that informs the typical American diet, Marshall Sahlins tells us, is the taboo against cannibalism. Consider the scale of edibility of cattle, pigs, horses, and dogs: it’s not hard to see that degrees of edibility correspond inversely to degrees of domestication, or proximity to humans. In other words, the closer a creature is to us, the less edible it becomes. Americans’ ambivalence toward eating horses is particularly telling: horses are a cross between friends and servants, whose edibility falls in a grey zone and is not as unthinkable as that of Fido and Fluffy—who are practically family.

The traditional Chinese diet, however, tracks a very different logic: the logic of the supplement 补. In this tradition, food is indistinguishable from medicine in that a diversity of substances are needed to replenish the body and help it balance between yin and yang, hot and cold. The rule of thumb is “eating what’s deficient, weak, or diseased in you” (吃啥补啥). One of the most arresting sights in a traditional medicine shop (for a first-time visitor at any rate) is the glass jars of pickled animal penises intended for men with erectile dysfunction. This belief in sympathetic magic is coupled with a belief in the potency of exotic foods, a combination with grave consequences for certain animal species and the environment in the age of rapid urbanization and global commerce. Loving something to death has become all too literal when it comes to the Chinese craving for 山珍海味: flora and fauna from geographically distant, hazardous places (bird’s nests, shark fins, rhinoceros horns, tiger bones) or things that defy common categories (pangolin, ginseng, caterpillar fungus). Robert Weller informs us that these exotic comestibles are believed to have far greater “supplementary” powers than ordinary foodstuff.

A medicine shop (Image credit: CC by egorgrebnev/flickr)

The point is that aversion or abhorrence toward eating certain animals has more to do with culture than with whether it is inherently more abominable to eat one species or another. In the Anthropocene, however, it may be beside the point to fuss over the moral merits of dog stew versus rib eye steak. We know that the livestock sector accounts for 15% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Our food preferences are no longer merely a matter of culture or tradition, for we are literally holding the planet’s future on our chopsticks and forks and knives.

Karl Gerth has written about the ecological and political ramifications of the rising purchasing power of the Chinese consumer. Indeed, with over 50% of the population living in urban centers since 2011 and striving to achieve “moderate prosperity” (小康), appetites for luxury commodities have not only enriched the Euro-American designer goods industry, but also hastened deforestation in Southeast Asia and spurred the poaching of endangered species in Asia and Africa. Within China, livestock factory farms, bear and tiger farms, zoos and wildlife parks, and pet breeding grounds and markets have mushroomed.

In the meantime, tales of cruelty and abuse have periodically cropped up in a mediasphere that is generally mum about malpractices that have public health implications. The state has found itself caught between a rock and a hard place: On the one hand, having staked its legitimacy on its role as the driver of the Chinese economy and guardian of Chinese culture, it is compelled to defend native crafts and alimentary practices that utilize animal parts (such as ivory carving). This is why it has refused to ban ivory importation outright. On the other hand, it has set ambitious goals of boosting China’s soft power in a world that harps constantly on human rights and increasingly on animal rights/welfare.

Not surprisingly, both the central and local governments have distanced themselves from the Yulin Festival, claiming it to be a “folk custom” sponsored by civil groups. In point of fact, the festival got its start only in 2010 with indispensible local government backing. After the negative publicity of last June, dogs are no longer slaughtered in the open and “canine meat” has disappeared from restaurant signage. Yet the fact that the festival was permitted to go forward this year in the teeth of vehement protests indicates the state’s delicate position on a matter that touches the pocket, the stomach, as well as face. It is a quintessential case of what Michael Hertzfeld calls “cultural intimacy.”

For centuries dog meat has been consumed in parts of China for its protein and its putative ability to fight “heat,” long before petkeeping becomes de rigeur for urban residents and long before diet and sustainability are inexorably yoked together. But it has never been a staple meat for most Chinese people. Even today with an aggressive market economy ready to fill and bloat any consumer niche, dog meat is still an uncommon ingredient on the average dinner plate. Yet in Yulin, local residents and gourmets from around the country are said to dine on illegally farmed dogs, stolen pets, and strays that are transported in appalling, unsanitary conditions and brutally slaughtered. Dog dealers and butchers are reported to extort large sums from volunteer rescuers (mostly affiliated with domestic and foreign NGO’s) who have converged there risking harassment and threats of harm.

This is not a fight between tradition and modernity, or between China and the West. It is rather a case of divergent foodways being brought to a head by the marriage of consumer capitalism and identity politics. In the end everyone is worse off in some ways: the profiteers, the patrons, the rescuers, and most of all, the poor dogs. Chinese paw-litics is not for the faint of heart.

Haiyan Lee is Associate Professor of Chinese and Comparative Literature at Stanford University. Image Credit: CC by Marc Veraart/flickr.

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Written by Meiqin Wang.

Along with its apparent prosperity and great wealth, China’s top-down and profit-driven urbanization has provoked ever intensive and perplexing social changes and environmental degradation. In response, a growing number of critically-minded Chinese artists have investigated the downsides of this process in art making. Shanghai artist Yang Yongliang is such an artist who examines the sweeping geographical and physical reconfigurations of Chinese cities and their destructive consequences. Since 2006, he has created several conceptual photographic series and video works which reveal a unique personal style through which he visually engages with various problems brought about by mainstream urbanism. These works include Phantom Landscape, Heavenly City, The Peach Blossom Colony, Artificial Wonderland, and The Day of Perpetual Night.

Fig 1: Yang Yongliang, Artificial Wonderland 1, 2010. Courtesy of the artist.

Yang’s work Artificial Wonderland 1 (Fig. 1) exemplifies his perception of the rampant urban development in China. This large digital photograph looks like a reproduction of a typical Chinese landscape painting of the Song dynasty, with its broad vista, overlapping mountain ranges and misty atmosphere, and the opulent presence of rivers and lakes. Upon close observation, however, one might be greatly surprised and even shocked. The beauty of nature, a topic rhapsodized about in Chinese paintings and literature throughout the ages, is achieved by the artist’s careful piecing together of numerous photographed images of the cityscape that he took with his digital camera in and around Shanghai.

What seem to be mountain ranges and hills, trees and plants, boulders and foliage, and pathways, are actually formed by various urban structures such as skyscrapers, elevated highways, voltage lines, electrical towers and poles, and construction cranes. Through his painstaking arrangement of countless urban structures and motifs, Yang has constructed an artificial landscape, a megalopolis disguised as natural landscape, with a wide range of details that can be readily associated with the consequences of China’s consumerist urbanization.

Fig 2: Yang Yongliang, Artificial Wonderland 1, 2010, detail. Courtesy of the artist.

In the foreground, by the shores and in the water, what seem to be villages, boats, and greenswards are actually construction sites, collapsing buildings, and rubble-covered ground, speaking to the endless construction and demolition. Behind all this at the center of the composition, there emerges an amusement park whose giant Ferris wheel and roller coasters hint at the hedonism of contemporary urban culture (Fig. 2).

This section is full of ambiguous details, and the amusement park exists in a complex architectural environment. In front of it are ruins of ancient Greek structures with remaining stone sculptures standing over a field of debris. An edifice of Roman style is to the right of the park, and behind it emerges a number of Chinese palatial buildings. To the left and in front of it is a forest of electric towers over a group of overlapping high-rises. Further left and behind those is a cluster of European-style villas, and next to that is an empty thatch-roofed pavilion. The ground that supports all these structures is a mix of earthy land, heaps of concrete rubble, and trash dumps. This is a space where old and new, Eastern and Western, fictional and real randomly co-exist without any inner logic. History and time do not make sense in this zone, which very much reflects how urban development unfolds in China. In the rush to urbanize and prompt GDP growth, the history of a place seems to bear minimal value in the mind of decision-makers. And ironically, when authentic historical sites are demolished, new structures in vulgar and fragmented pseudo-antique styles (Chinese and European) are often established.

This work and those others mentioned above are informed by Yang’s first-hand experience of the disruptive process of Shanghai’s urban expansion. Yang was born in the historical county of Jiading, near the old Shanghai city and renowned for its beautiful scenery, historic cultural sites, and residential quarters and streets built in the characteristic southern architectural style. In the early 1990s, Shanghai began rapid economic development and found itself in need of more land to fuel its economy. Its solution was to expand its urban territory by annexing its neighboring rural counties, including Jiading.

For Yang, that was when the destruction of his historical county began. As the speculative and commercialized urban development took hold of the ancient country (renamed ‘Jiading district’), a lot of historical sites were torn down and the beautiful landscape was destroyed to make way for industrial complexes, commercial districts, and apartment compounds. Many of these new urban structures, oddly, are made to resemble the style of the authentic traditional buildings that were demolished. Having traveled to other cities across China, Yang sees similar phenomena everywhere and laments: “A country that carries a long civilization and is full of traces of history shall have been replaced by a new, soulless kingdom which is littered with concrete cement!”[1]

The work clearly expresses Yang’s critical assessment of the mode of development Shanghai and China as a whole is taking. Numerous buildings of similar architectural style populate the foreground of the composition. Other than obvious ruins, it is often unclear whether the standing structures are being spared from demolition, or if they are in the middle of collapsing and will be reduced to rubble. This is a state of transition between construction and demolition, a condition that has actually become perpetual in China’s nonstop urban renewal and expansion. The ambiguity and uncertainty here reflect the artist’s response to an observed reality and reveal a certain level of psychological truth. The distant skyscrapers are piled up in a congested and precarious way so that the whole situation looks horrendous, especially when one considers that these structures are where human beings live. This photographic image bears the atmosphere of an apocalyptic prediction: the once tranquil and pristine nature has been entirely abolished with the invasion and infiltration of the urban world. It might well be seen as an urban dystopia.

In Yang’s meticulously simulated image of the traditional landscape painting, however, there is one important element missing: the human figure. This intentional omission might serve as a pointed comment on the anti-humanistic nature of recent urban development in Shanghai, which bears typical features of overall Chinese urban transformation. As many scholars point out, the development is predominantly driven by the desire to accelerate economic growth, maximize financial profit and political prestige, and enhance the competitiveness of the city to attract foreign investment and international tourism.[2] In the drive to create a global city, the everyday life of ordinary local residents is ignored by the grand scheme of social progress designed by a few political and economic elites.

Fig 3: Yang Yongliang, Artificial Wonderland 1, 2010, detail. Courtesy of the artist.

Therefore, the human-less urban environment portrayed in Yang’s work is essentially an alienated one. The tightly overlapped skyscrapers appear threatening and fundamentally unsuitable for organic life, while the collapsing structures and rubble-covered ground look like a scene after an epic disaster (Fig. 3). Either as a comment on the increasingly estranged contemporary lifestyle or a critique of the problems embedded in Chinese urban development, or both, this work can be seen as an honest and poignant representation of the conflicting and distressing urban space that Yang sees himself living in. The magnificence of Shanghai’s newly built urban environment renders the destruction of heritage and communities, and the distress inflicted upon its inhabitants, invisible, much like the beautiful and orderly surface of the photograph which conceals such disturbing and chaotic content.

Meiqin Wang is Associate Professor of Art History at California State University Northridge. Her research focus is on the recent developments of contemporary art from China and their social, political, economic, and institutional implications in the context of the commercialization, urbanization and globalization of the Chinese world. Recently, she has begun working on socially engaged Chinese art, including rural reconstruction through art, social activism through art, and community building through art. A longer reading of Yang Yongliang’s work can be found in chapter 4 of her recent book Urbanization and Contemporary Chinese Art (Routledge, 2016). Image credit: Image: Yang Yongliang, courtesy of the artist. 

[1] Mikala Tai, “In Conversation: An interview with Yang Yongliang,” in Yang Yongliang, eds. Bryan Collie et al (Victoria, Australia: Melbourne International Fine Art, 2010), p.26.

[2] Fulong Wu, “Place Promotion in Shanghai, PRC,” Cities, vol.17, no. 5 (2000): 349-361; Jiang Xu and Anthony Yeh, “City Repositioning and Competitiveness Building in Regional Development: New Development Strategies in Guangzhou, China,” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, vol. 29, no. 2 (2005): pp.283-308.

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Written by David Cockayne.

Wang Jianlin of Wanda Dalian. Jack Ma of Alibaba. Heard of them? Not many people outside of China have, but they are the modern-day moguls powering China’s entrepreneurial sprint towards economic supremacy. They are also largely responsible for the surge of interest in Chinese sport, at home and abroad.

Until his early 40s Ma was a high school teacher, now he is the founder of e-commerce giant Alibaba, an organisation that dwarfs the likes of Amazon and eBay in both scale and scope of operations. Wang, founder of the Wanda Dalian group, monopolises Chinese retail and entertainment and in 2012 acquired the US cinema chain AMC for US$2.6 billion to aid his global ambitions. Some might argue that Wang has been raised with a “red spoon in his mouth” given his father’s role alongside Chairman Mao in the cultural revolution, but his desire to see China rival the West on every level is undisputed.

Traditional views of markets tend to focus on supply and demand. This leads us to overlook the intermediaries that help shape, craft and bring supply and demand together in markets. Chinese sports market could be viewed as a blend of suppliers (manufacturers, club teams, and athletes) and demand (customers, consumers, and sports fans). But what draws them together? This is where Ma and Wang come in – they, and their firms, are the intermediaries driving investment, development and interest. So how have they done it?

Alisport

One route was created by premier Xi Jinping’s relaxation of barriers to entry in the Chinese sports market.

One man to take advantage was Ma. In September 2005, Alibaba launched AliSport. The aim is to revolutionise sports media events, ticketing, coaching, fan experience, and access to sports services using Alibaba’s e-commerce, digital marketing, and cloud computing network. Alibaba’s technology arsenal is seen as the tool which will connect Chinese consumers to the sports industry.

Through Alipsort, Chinese sport consumers have a gateway into this new sector. From live events and streamed content to next-day delivery of sporting goods, memorabilia and risk-free ticket purchases, Alisport is trying to immerse people in their favourite sports.

Alisport CEO Zhang Dazhong cited the ability of sport to create and share “happiness”, and “encourage healthy lifestyles”. He argued that by surrounding the the Chinese sports industry with a constant online feed of access and content, people will get better products and services. From an economics perspective, these could be seen as the positive cultural effects that will build demand and help sustain the Chinese economy in the long term. From a sporting perspective, future investment and sustainability hinges on strong, resilient consumer activity.

Alibaba’s horizons extend beyond this domestic intermediary network. As well as owning half of China’s most successful football club, Guangzhou Evergrande Taobao FC, Alisport recently agreed a multi-million dollar deal with World Rugby for development and sponsorship. China is not a rugby hotbed, at least for now. But the deal helps give Alibaba a foothold in more global markets. The sight of a major Chinese organisation associating with an international sporting body ultimately reflects on Chinese sport, raising the profile of an infant domestic industry and sowing the seeds of future growth in the brand power of sport in China.

The Magic Wanda

While Alisport mediates the operational rise of China’s sport industry, Wang and his Wanda Dalian group are taking the media and entertainment route – most recently in the spotlight for a bold swipe at Disney as Wang launched his own theme-park. In January 2015 he purchased a 20% stake in Spanish soccer giant Atletico Madrid, and quickly followed that up with a sponsorship deal with FIFA.

It is yet more evidence of the drive to position China as a global player in sports business. Deals like Wang’s may not deliver cash directly into the country’s sporting infrastructure but they substantiate China’s rise in the industry. Over the longer-term, the diversification into international sport could significantly aid the sponsorship potentiality and investment within Chinese sport.

Beyond performance

Wang and Ma undoubtedly have personal motivation to see Chinese sport develop. Helping their president in his quest to bring the World Cup and co to China would likely have profound long-term benefits for them and their respective firms. More than this however, they see sport as the language in which to communicate with China’s consumers.

The rising wealth of the middle classes (largely through a booming real-estate sector) is fertile ground for companies. In practical terms, people simply have more cash to spend on leisure activities and sporting enthusiasms than they ever had before. Wanda’s desire for Chinese enterprise, and Alibaba’s market innovation enables this – but is it just the moguls behind this market revolution that stand to benefit?

The beautiful thing about intermediaries is that the value they create (initially for themselves) often spills over elsewhere. Investment in sport can be beneficial on numerous levels. Better facilities, safer environments to play and train, more qualified coaches, and improved sporting education can create memorable shared experiences, and foster greater social cohesion. It’s not just about deep pockets, it is about building something that has, for want of a better word, a heart.

Intermediary moguls like Ma and Wang understand the potential riches of the Chinese consumer market, and sport is one way of accessing this. They also highlight the opportunity for others to invest in an industry that has huge potential.

David Cockayne is a Senior Lecturer: University of Huddersfield Business School at the University of Huddersfield. This article was first published on The Conversation and can be found here. Image credit: CC by U.S. Army/Flickr.

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Written by Farok J. Contractor.

After 20 years, the Chinese government must be used to being bashed by U.S. politicians and Congress for unfair trade practices or, as Trump has declared many times, being a “currency manipulator.”

Indeed, the exchange value of the yuan (also know as the renminbi or RMB) is fixed each morning by its central bank, the People’s Bank of China (PBoC), with a narrow band of only 2 percent allowed, up or down, within which market forces can have their say. In effect, it is an exchange rate set and controlled by the PBoC.

But why pick on China? In fact, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), most governments try to influence their exchange rates, and China is not alone in trying to gain an advantage by undervaluing its currency. Moreover, the Chinese government has yielded to Western pressure over the past decade and let the yuan appreciate by a third, leading some economists (including the IMF) to say it’s no longer undervalued.

One indicator of this is that, for a visitor, China is no longer cheap. I have been to China two dozen times since 1995 to teach in our Rutgers Executive MBA Program there. I experienced first how cheap everything was when the yuan was 8.27 per dollar. Then, after 2005, with the yuan being strengthened, and wages in China rising, China today is no longer the great bargain it once was – whether for a visitor like me, or a company looking for cheap goods to import.

So why do politicians like Trump keep bashing China? What does “undervaluation” or “overvaluation” of a currency mean? And what advantage can a nation derive from trying to control or manipulate its exchange rate?

Everyone else is doing it

Well over half of the IMF’s 189 members meddle, in a mild or total fashion, to influence or fix their exchange rates, as illustrated in the chart below.

It is only with a few major currencies, such as the dollar or euro, that the government allows a “free float” based on market forces (global supply and demand) with minimal or no intervention (14 percent of all IMF members). Other governments have a variety of ways to “manage” their currencies. Some declare a “fixed peg” (26 percent of IMF members) or “currency board” (4 percent) where the exchange rate is fixed, by fiat, for a considerable period of months or years.

In “managed float” cases (28 percent), market forces are allowed to play, but with the government buying or selling their own currency in the market, as needed, to bias the exchange rate upward or downward. For example the Reserve Bank of India will interveneby buying dollars when the rupee appreciates too much and by selling them when its currency depreciates significantly.

“Adjustable pegs” (6 percent) are situations in which the government fixes the rate “temporarily” – for months at a time or even daily, as in the case of China.

What exactly is the concern when we accuse a government of “currency manipulation” and why is it considered bad in some instances, but not others?

Even the Japanese yen, a major currency considered to be “free floating,” was consciously devalued by about a third from 2012 – when it was considered significantly overvalued – to 2015. But this was not derided by members of Congress or U.S. politicians as currency manipulation since the U.S. has friendly relations with Japan, and the Japanese yen was not undervalued at the time as is alleged for the Chinese yuan.

Generally, when countries are criticized, the allegation is that the government is keeping its currency undervalued in order to give an artificial boost to exports while keeping out imports. This has the effect of boosting jobs in that country.

Gains from currency manipulation

Take China as an example.

A Chinese exporter earning a dollar in mid-2016 turns it into the bank and gets around 6.5 yuan. By comparing costs in China and elsewhere, some economists calculate that the exchange rate, based on hypothetical purchasing power parity (PPP), should be about 5.7 RMB per dollar, which would supposedly prevail under market equilibrium and without government meddling. Others disagree and say that the yuan actual exchange rate is already close to the theoretical PPP calculation.

A 5.7 RMB per dollar PPP rate would mean that the 6.5 actual rate is 14 percent undervalued. And as a result, our Chinese exporter earns 14 percent more in revenue with the 6.5 yuan exchange rate than if market forces alone were at work and the economists’ hypothetical rate were to prevail. That gives the Chinese exporter an advantage.

It also helps domestic Chinese companies (that would compete against imports) because the actual 6.5 rate makes imports 14 percent more expensive than they might be if the rate was 5.7 RMB per dollar. This, it is alleged, keeps some foreign products out of China and benefits (or protects) Chinese businesses that produce substitute products that compete with imports. On both the import and export side, an undervalued exchange rate boosts or preserves jobs in China (at the expense of jobs in the rest of the world).

Over or under?

For the Chinese, however, it must be particularly galling to hear accusations of currency manipulation since, succumbing to pressure from Western countries, they have already massively appreciated their currency since 2005.

Since June 2005, following more than a decade of a fixed exchange rate of 8.27 yuan per dollar (when it was indeed clearly undervalued) the Chinese have gradually appreciated their currency to as high as 6.1 RMB per dollar in 2015.

Now, in the minds of many Chinese economists, their currency is no longer undervalued in the current range of 6.2–6.5 a dollar for three reasons:

1. The 36 percent appreciation from June 2005 to July 2015 meant that Chinese exporters were earning up to a third less last July than in 2005, making some uncompetitive. Many have had to shut down in China and relocate to Vietnam, Bangladesh or a country in Africa. The stronger yuan also displaced some domestic production that couldn’t compete with imports that became less expensive for Chinese consumers. As a result, jobs were lost, and the Chinese economy suffered.
2. The yuan, which is fixed mainly against the U.S. dollar, has appreciated even moreagainst other currencies. That’s because, as the dollar has climbed against most other currencies since 2013, the yuan has also appreciated against them, adding to its increase in value against the dollar. And that means customers in Europe, Brazil or elsewhere may be paying over 50 percent more to import Chinese goods (in their local currencies) than they were about a decade earlier.
3. Wages and prices are surging in China. On the east coast, where most manufacturing and economic activity takes place, wages have been climbing at least 15 percent a year. The rising demand for and cost of labor, coupled with the one-child policy (which was in effect until last year), has caused the labor force to plateau and left many jobs unfilled. Chinese exporters are beginning to feel the squeeze between these rising costs (especially in real estate) and the falling value (in yuan) of the foreign currency they receive.

Is the RMB still undervalued?

While many Western economists continue to argue that the yuan (RMB) is still undervalued, they tend to agree that at the very least that it’s less undervalued.

The chart below shows that the huge 40.6 percent devaluation of the early 1990s massively undervalued the yuan and accomplished its purpose of making China the world’s leading exporter of manufactured goods. But since 2005, steady appreciation led to its regaining all the ground it had lost in the 1990s.

Add to that wage inflation in the 2005–2016 period (based on the plateauing of the labor force because of the one-child policy), and many would argue that the yuan is no longer undervalued.

Why pick on China?

So why pick on only China when other nations also “influence” their currencies and the case can now be made that the yuan is no longer undervalued (or at least not significantly so)?

Governments are always concerned about the undervaluation or overvaluation of their currencies since they affect exports, imports and competition in general. Free market oriented economists and pundits are critical of countries that intervene or seek to influence their exchange rates.

Others would argue that much of world’s economies are not yet mature, and their institutions not yet evolved enough for their governments to take the risk of such a “hands-off” policy. Besides, they would say that even in a free market oriented country like the U.S., the Federal Reserve has enormous influence on the value of the dollar. When interest rates are lowered (or raised), the dollar weakens (or appreciates), other things being equal.

Japan is one of the U.S’. top trading partners. If we want a more egregious recent example of a currency being deliberately devalued to give its exporters an advantage, we need look no further than the supposedly free market country of Japan. As noted above, the Shinzo Abe government of Japan induced an almost 50 percent devaluation of the yen in just three years.

For Trump, China makes an easy punching bag. Why pick on China alone when the Chinese government has, since 2005, raised the value of the yuan value by a third so that the yuan is at least close to where it might be in a hypothetical market-driven situation?

At the end of the day, exchange rates around the world fluctuate greatly, whether through government intent, interest rate changes or market sentiment. Picking on only one country like China, however, is a poor substitute for good economic policy.

Farok J. Contractor is a Distinguished Professor of Management & Global Business at Rutgers University. This article was first published on The Conversation and can be found here. Image credit: CC by Matthias Mendler/Flickr.

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Written by J. Michael Cole.

We, or at least international media, seem to have traveled back in time. The current president isn’t Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) but Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁). The 16 years that have elapsed since never existed. We are back to an era when everything that Taipei does is bound to “anger” Beijing.

In the past few weeks, the Taiwanese president has “infuriated” Beijing — “from the get go” — by failing to embrace the so-called 1992 consensus and the unsavory “one China” dish that Beijing has been forcing on the Taiwanese people for years. The Taiwanese have “angered” Beijing by electing her and the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). The Chinese public has been “angered” by Taiwan’s insistence on maintaining its way of life and, as a result, refusal to be absorbed by their giant (and undemocratic) neighbor. One point three billion Chinese are “angered” by Taiwan’s lack of gratitude for all the supposed concessions made by Beijing in recent years. Taiwanese athletes and teenage pop stars have “angered” China for displaying the Republic of China flag. Beijing has been “angry” with Taiwan for the latter’s ability to deal with its nationals who engage in telecom fraud.

Even when Taiwan hasn’t done anything, its future actions are also, we are to believe, likely to “upset,” “anger” or “infuriate” Beijing, as international headlines informed us this week after a Taiwanese military officer indicated that Taiwan is to test-fire a Patriot PAC-3 ground-to-air missile in the U.S. next month.

Anger, anger, anger. There’s so much anger in Beijing it’s surprising anyone there succeeds in getting any sleep at night.

But is Beijing really this angry? Probably not. Although a more assertive Beijing has indeed redrawn its lines in the sand with regards to, say, U.S. arms sales to Taiwan, the anger is often a product of editors’ imagination and desire to sell newspapers or, in its Internet iteration — click baiting — to increase traffic on their website. All of this is part of a packaging that strives to find drama; in this case, to create a narrative of escalation and crisis in the Taiwan Strait after eight years of relative calm.

How could editors possibly know that Taiwan’s test firing of a missile in the U.S. next month will “anger” Beijing? Why should it, when for years it has been public knowledge that Taiwanese F-16, AH-64E and P-3C pilots have been training there, or that U.S. and Taiwanese military personnel have been collaborating on a number of projects for decades? Beijing was already “angry” when the U.S. sold PAC-3s to Taiwan, and it has been angry over every U.S. arms sale to Taiwan, however insignificant some of those packages have been to the overall balance of power in the Taiwan Strait.

So keen have international media and alarmist experts been to create an atmosphere of conflict in the Taiwan Strait that Beijing rarely has to say anything anymore — they’re doing the job on its behalf. All Beijing needs to do is to give media an occasional push, to send a well-timed signal, for the scribes to escalate the rhetoric and foster a sense of alarm.

Given the immense challenges China faces domestically and internationally, do we really believe that the Chinese government really would be angered by the test firing of a single air defense system, especially given that the People’s Liberation Army has been acquiring what arguably are even more impressive ground-to-air systems from Russia, such as the S-400? (Chinese spies may be annoyed, however, at losing an opportunity to collect useful intelligence about the PAC-3, though no doubt they’ve had plenty of chances to do so elsewhere.)

Journalists and editors should be careful not to over interpret Beijing’s signaling, even less to try to forecast its intentions. They should stick to reporting the facts. By depicting Chinese authorities as obsessed with Taiwan and infuriated by everything it does, international media are acting irresponsibly. Not only does this often unfairly succeed in portraying Taiwanese democracy (and not authoritarian China) as an irritant or a threat to peace and stability, it also risks creating fatigue with their audiences, who by dint of repetition will become so accustomed to the norm of a perpetually “angry” China that if and when Beijing truly is “angry,” it may no longer be possible for us to react in time.

J. Michael Cole is chief editor of The News Lens International, a senior non-resident fellow with the University of Nottingham’s China Policy Institute.  This article was first published on TLNI website and can be found here. Image credit: CC by USDAGO/Flickr.

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Written by J.Michael Cole.

The Taiwan Affairs Office on Saturday confirmed that Beijing had suspended cross-strait communication mechanisms due to failure by the Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) administration to endorse the so-called 1992 consensus and “one China” principle.

The news, though it quickened the pulse of many a news editor worldwide, was not exactly a surprise. After all, Beijing has been telegraphing its intentions for months, and various officers at the TAO since well before May 20, when the hotline set up in 2014 between the TAO and the Mainland Affairs Council in Taipei is said to have gone silent, had been threatening such an outcome if President Tsai refused to utter the wording dictated by the Chinese side.

But everybody knew that was not going to happen. With her strong mandate, President Tsai knew she could afford to tiptoe around the 1992 consensus, whose very existence is questionable, and altogether skip the even more indigestible “one China” framework. Tsai nevertheless made concessions, such as her acknowledgement that a meeting between negotiators from both sides in 1992 was “a historical fact” and her vow to maintain the “status quo” in the Taiwan Strait. Not only President Tsai but also a number of academics in China have argued that the 1992 construct — former KMT Mainland Affairs chairman Su Chi (蘇起) admitted to inventing the term — shouldn’t be the only mechanism allowing negotiations to continue between Taiwan and China. Unfortunately, Beijing has made adhering to it a sine qua non for continued exchanges — at least according to its rhetoric, to which we will turn in a moment.

President Xi Jinping (習近平) and his associates must have known that their counterpart in Taipei couldn’t possibly deliver on their demands. Given the popular mood in Taiwan, support for “one China” — especially in the form espoused by Beijing, which under President Xi’s tenure has dispensed with the convenient “different interpretations” — is in the single digits and likely will remain there for the foreseeable future, thanks to a consolidating identity in Taiwan, hardening authoritarianism in China, and the fiasco that the “one country, two systems” formula in Hong Kong is rapidly becoming. Moreover, polls conducted by Tsai’s Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) show that a majority of respondents are willing to “take a hit” if China retaliates economically for Taiwan’s refusal to yield to its demands, which suggests that the Taiwanese public is ready to make sacrifices. Beijing’s huffing and puffing, which many analysts since Saturday seem to have swallowed line, hook and sinker, has lost its currency; the Taiwanese don’t buy it anymore.

Thus, unless Beijing has absolutely no clue about the situation in Taiwan and fails to comprehend the strength of President Tsai’s mandate, its stubbornness has to issue from somewhere else. Two options present themselves. The first is ideological rigidity that dispenses with calculations based on a “rational” assessment of the variables. Given the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) Marxist-Leninist roots, that is a possibility, albeit arguably a remote one, as the past three decades have seen the emergence of a party that, on many occasions, has demonstrated its ability to act pragmatically, though often after an initial bout of posturing.

A subset of such a policy would be rigidity as an attempt to increase international pressure on Taiwan, and in such efforts Beijing will never run out of analysts-cum-foot-soldiers who are ready to intensify the message — let’s just use the example of Guo Zhenyuan (郭震遠) of the China Institute of International Studies, who warned darkly, “If Tsai Ing-wen doesn’t change her stance, and continues to indulge in a game of words, the communication mechanism is set to be stopped indefinitely.”

But here, too, the context has changed, as China’s assertiveness in recent years has succeeded in alienating pretty much every country in the region excluding the most authoritarian ones. Consequently, while isolating Taiwan and depicting it as the impediment to piece in the Taiwan Strait may have succeeded in the past, that charade has been punctured by China’s own self-defeating behavior at home and in its near-abroad; as a result, the international community is much less likely to put the kind of pressure on Taipei that Beijing may have hoped for.

The second, and in my opinion likelier, option is that all along the TAO officials were not talking to President Tsai but rather to a domestic audience. Here it is possible that Beijing became a prisoner of its own rhetoric, erecting walls around itself by dint of repeating the same message over and again. Given, as we know, that the CCP has built its legitimacy on the assumption that it alone is capable of rejuvenating the Chinese nation, it becomes extremely difficult for Beijing to step away from its rhetoric — in other words, to de-escalate — once it realizes that its coercive messages and blackmail has failed to deter its opponent, as we have experienced in the South China Sea dispute in recent months. It is therefore entirely possible that Beijing, having painted itself into a corner over Taiwan, knew it wouldn’t get what it wants from President Tsai but nevertheless had to deliver on its threat because do to otherwise would constitute a blow to its legitimacy at home. This would not be the first time that a regime knew it was acting irrationally but was unable to deflect the momentum toward a more constructive alternative.

If this indeed is Beijing’s policy, it likely will be a temporary one, and eventually necessity will compel it to reach out to Taipei once again. We might also add that it is highly unlikely that Beijing has cut allchannels of communication with the Tsai administration, which some news reports have suggested. After all, communication between the two sides occurred regularly before the MAC-TAO hotline, which the Chinese side regularly failed to answer when Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) was in office, was set up. (Former MAC minister Andrew Hsia [夏立言] confirmed in March that prior to 2014 the two agencies communicated via text message.)

But for domestic consumption and for the purposes of its propaganda efforts abroad, Beijing needs to convince its own people, and the rest of the world, that Taipei and Beijing are no longer talking. Radio silence? Not likely.

J. Michael Cole is chief editor of The News Lens International, a senior non-resident fellow with the University of Nottingham’s China Policy Institute.  This article was first published on TLNI website and can be found here. Image credit: CC by davidreid/Flickr.

The post Radio Silence in the Taiwan Strait? Think Again appeared first on China Policy Institute Blog.

Written by Gary Sigley.

The People’s Republic of China is not only the world’s most populous country, but also one of its most ethnically and culturally diverse. The Chinese government officially recognises fifty-six different ‘nationalities’ (minzu 民族). The Han make up ninety-two percent, while the remaining eight percent are composed of fifty-five ‘minority nationalities’ (shaoshu minzu 少数民族). Many of these ethnic group classifications are relatively recent demarcations and quite a few of these ‘nationalities’ in themselves contain an incredible amount of cultural, social and linguistic diversity.

Yunnan Province in the south-western corner of China is home to twenty-five ‘minority nationalities’, more than any other Chinese region. As a landlocked peripheral province, Yunnan also harbours an incredibly rich biodiversity. This cultural heritage and biodiversity is recognised by no fewer than four UNESCO World Heritage sites. Unfortunately Yunnan – a grand experiment in human social relations – remains little known outside of China.

For thousands of years, as the Han dynastic state gradually expanded south- and westward, the peoples of Yunnan developed unique cultural practices suitable to their lifestyles and belief systems. Whereas the Han Chinese culture produced a severe patriarchy in which women were clearly subordinate to men, the peoples of the mountains engaged in social relationships in which women had much more freedom to choose partners and express their identity. Most famous are the Mosuo (mosuoren 摩梭人) of Lugu Lake, bordering Sichuan and only a stone’s throw from Tibet. The Mosuo are described as living in a matrilineal society. Each family has a matriarch who oversees the labour and lives of her children. Women and men do not marry. Instead, adult women take their chosen male partners into their bedrooms at night. The male partner leaves at the crack of dawn to return to his maternal home and get ready for the day’s work with his maternal family. This form of relationship is known as ‘walking marriage’ (zouhun 走婚).

There are many other ‘minority nationalities’ in Yunnan that have such distinct customs: Tibetans in north-western Yunnan and neighbouring Tibet sometimes practice polyandry in which a number of brothers take a common wife. Amongst the Ha’ni, in regions bordering Laos and Vietnam, it is common practice for young adults to take ‘lovers’ up until the time they ‘marry’ a previously arranged partner. In some cases, the lovers can continue to meet up until the birth of the first child from the ‘formal’ marriage. In some places, villagers build special ‘courtship houses’ where couples can meet in privacy. While chastity and virginity are virtues to some communities – and especially in Confucianism – in these instances, young adults who have not engaged in such courtship customs and sexual relations could be looked upon as ‘immature’.

Many of these customs run contrary to the spirit of the Chinese Marriage Law – and some that involve multiple wives and husbands clearly break it. And, perhaps more importantly, such customs offend mainstream Han Chinese morality. Nonetheless, in attempts to keep the peace and avoid ‘Han chauvinism’ (dahanzuzhuyi 大汉族主义), the government did not intervene most of the time. At the height of the Maoist period, however, a kind of puritanical violence was inflicted on some groups such as the Mosuo, who were forced to enter monogamous married relationships. After the Maoist period had ended, many people reverted to their traditional customs.

However, it is the economic development and social-cultural transformation which has occurred in China since the 1980s that is now bringing about new changes. The biggest force working to change social relations is ‘modernisation with Han characteristics’. On the Eastern Seaboard, one of the most powerful forces of cultural change can be broadly described as ‘globalisation’ in which ‘Western values and lifestyles’ are influencing Han Chinese culture (much to the annoyance of the party-state). But in mountainous western China, the forces of change from ‘outside’ are described not as ‘globalisation’ but rather as ‘Hanisation’ (汉化). This implies not only an adoption of modern forms of Han Chinese dress, architecture, and language, but also of cultural practices such as those relating to marriage and family. Of course the spread and influence of Han Chinese culture – the culture of the ‘central plains’ – already has a long history in Yunnan where, after hundreds of years of migration and settlement, the Han now make up the majority of the population.

Furthermore, as villages, town and cities urbanise, and as people move for work, study and lifestyle, they no longer exist in the small tight-knit communities and remote rural environments that can support these traditional practices. As one Mosuo scholar humorously put it to me, it’s not very practical for a Mosuo man to climb up to a seventh story apartment window. In the contemporary period, the emergence of modern forms of mobility, communication, lifestyles and values, has worked to accelerate the process of transformation. The isolated mountain community that provided the conditions of existence for different forms of social relations no longer exists, at least not in the way it did even just two decades ago.

Tourism should be singled out here us a particularly powerful force causing changes in identity and practice. It is now one of the most important industries in Yunnan with tens of millions of visitors each year. This also creates tensions, since Han Chinese tourists come to Yunnan expecting to see their preconceptions of ‘promiscuous’ mountain people played out in the ‘tourismscape’.

The other major force we should consider is religion. It should be noted that Yunnan is home to large Muslim communities in the form of the Hui people. In addition to Islam, some mountain communities of ‘minority nationalities’ converted to Christianity under the influence of Western missionaries. Buddhism in various forms – Tibetan, Mahayana and Theravada – is also well established, especially among the Han, Dai and Bai. Brought together, religious attitudes towards the status of women and sexual behaviour found in these more mainstream religions have undoubtedly had an impact on social relations over time.

This essay does not have the space necessary to address in detail the subject at hand and has necessarily deployed simplifications and generalisations to make a point – namely, that when we think of China, we should begin to consider its cultural diversity. And that when we reflect on the development of our contemporary societies in terms of social relationships, we should also consider the repository of human experience that lies in the mountains and valleys of Yunnan.

Gary Sigley is Associate Professor in Asian Studies at the University of Western Australia. Image Credit: CC by Tom Thai/flickr

The post Trends in Courtship, Marriage and Sex in Southwest China appeared first on China Policy Institute Blog.

Written by Jue Ren.

Kris Wu, a Chinese-Canadian pop star, was recently exposed by female fans who accused him of infidelity. Contrary to the scandal involving Hong Kong-Canadian pop star Edison Chen in 2008, when intimate images of Chen and his numerous partners were leaked, Wu’s female partners were responsible for going public rather than having images posted online without their consent and subsequently suffered a ‘slut shaming’ backlash. The difference illustrates how attitudes toward sex have changed in the last eight years.

The Chen scandal was the first time dating culture among Chinese celebrities was exposed to the public. Intimate photos of Chen with various women, including a number of actresses from Hong Kong, were illegally distributed via the Internet. Although both Chen and his female partners were affected, the women had trouble convincing the public that they were also victims of having their sex lives maliciously exposed online. The scandal broke during Chinese New Year, which made it a main topic of conversation among families and friends who were meeting for the festivities. Many of the Millennial (九零後) students that I taught at Shantou University in 2014 clearly remembered discussions during that holiday gathering. For some of them it was the first “sex education” they received.

The context and content of sex education Chinese born in the 1990s is very different from their parents, and a more positive attitude towards sex is common. Younger Chinese are more sexually active and feel more comfortable talking about sex. Social media like the dating app Momo and the messenger WeChat have also made it easier for them to find dates.

This increasingly positive attitude towards sex can be seen in both young men and women, and it has become much easier to assert one’s own sexual rights in public. In such an environment, the main topic of public discussion around Kris Wu is not the women’s sexual behaviour, but Wu’s practice of having sex with multiple partners. It demonstrates greater acceptance that women have the right to have sex before marriage and this behaviour does not automatically lead to them being shamed anymore. Hook-ups, i.e. casual sexual encounters, are increasingly common and accepted among men and women.

The fact that more and more Chinese women are delaying marriage is another factor that motivates women to seek sex before marriage. Although not all Chinese women feel this way, for many pre-marital sex is an opportunity to assert their rights to sexual freedom. Nevertheless, the discussion around Wu Yifan’s female fans exposing his physical and emotional deception is still closely tied to the fact that they believed they were in a love relationship with Wu. Infidelity is the main crime that Wu is accused of by his sexual partners; and Chinese netizens. Even if hooking up is less stigmatised, the way Wu is being judged shows that love-based relationships with faithful partners still have more validity in the public eye than relationships based on sex. Love-based relationships can thus provide more protection to women who are sexually active before marriage, and help them legitimise their sexual behaviour.

Beyond the discussion of his infidelities, Wu’s casual sexual behaviour was not subject to much criticism, contrary to Edison Chen and his partners, where the public debate became a trial of morality. The fact that hooking up is now accepted as one of a range of normal dating behaviours thus gave both Wu and his female fans a degree of protection from further public scrutiny and disapproval.

Even if virginity until marriage is becoming outdated as a limitation on the sexual freedom of Chinese women, loyalty in relationships is still a powerful “weapon of the weak”, which they can use to protect themselves in intimate relationships. Chinese women are increasingly gaining sexual liberty and more rights over their own bodies. But even for China’s young generation, sexual capital, power relations among sexual partners and the difficulty of choosing spouses continue to influence dating culture and intimate relationships – whether they enjoy being able to date for sex or not.

Jue Ren is a postdoctoral researcher at the SGS of the Harbin Institute of Technology . She graduated from The Chinese University of Hong Kong with a Ph.D. in Gender Studies and now works as a digital anthropologist and expert on gender and rural and urban development in China. Image Credit: CC by Christopher/flickr.

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Written by Jun Zhang.

People’s Park is a central landmark in metropolitan Shanghai. But since June 2005, a corner of the park has also become a market-like place, serving as a venue for parental matchmaking on weekends and national holidays. Middle-aged parents gather in People’s Park to find mates for their college-educated children, particularly daughters. Parents write down their children’s basic information such as age, height, and monthly salary on pieces of paper and then clip them to pieces of string tied between the trees, place them on bushes, or lay them on the ground. They sit patiently, waiting for other parents to make inquiries about their children. They also walk around, jotting down the information of those they consider potential partners for their children. This is not unique to Shanghai, similar “matchmaking corners” (xiangqinjiao) can be seen in other Chinese cities such as Beijing and Shenzhen.

Intimate lives in China have recently recaptured scholarly attention. In Davis and Friedman’s volume, authors show that marriage and family are confronted with challenges in urban China. In “Transforming Patriarchy,” Santos and Harrell propose that analyses of contemporary practices of marriage and family should follow both the gender and the generation axes in order to present an in-depth understanding of the diversity in these transformations. Along these lines, we can unpack parental matchmaking not so much as a revival of “tradition”, but as a way to glimpse how racial and social transformations have affected intimate lives in urban areas.

For starters, there is a disproportionately large share of parental anxiety regarding their daughters’ – not sons’ – marriage status in these matchmaking corners. This is rather intriguing given the male-biased sex ratio in the population. It is widely accepted that by 2009, men outnumbered women in every cohort under the age of thirty. It is men, not women, who are more likely never to marry in every age group.

Then who are these women whose marriage status so concerns their parents? Usually aged between their mid-20s and late 30s, these young women hold at least a bachelor’s degree. Most are company employees, civil servants or professionals such as accountants, lawyers, and research fellows. By virtue of their occupational position and good education, they represent secure members of China’s new middle class. Without one or more brothers as competitors, they have benefited from China’s birth control policy: parents have channeled substantial energy and resources into providing unprecedented opportunities for them to pursue education. The expansion of higher education and the emergence of middle-class jobs resulting from market reforms have enabled these young women to develop careers and lifestyles that are compatible with their talents and economic status.

Compared to women in the same age group but with less education, these middle-class women tend to get married slightly later, but not that they do not get married at all. Nonetheless, they are often labeled as surplus women (shengnü) in mass media and popular discourses.

“Shengnü” (剩女) means literally “surplus women” in Chinese. Although the term surplus men co-exists with surplus women, the latter appears much more frequently in everyday usage. The proliferation of the shengnü discourse attests to the influence of a gender paradigm that privileges career accomplishment for men and marriage and homemaking for women. This gender ideology finds expression in the recurring “women return home” debates since the launch of market reforms. Most recently, this line of argument resurfaced during national debates in 2001 focused on how economically independent urban women with good educations had intensified competition for the best professional and white-collar jobs, creating more pressure on men seeking those positions. Women’s commitment to work is also seen as a major cause of family conflict. Unmarried women often are criticised as “self-indulgent” and “picky,” their selectiveness about a marriage partner portrayed as a threat to the social order.

It is in this ideology of gender roles that we see parents’ explicit expression of concern for their daughter’s marriage status: These parents may be long-term local residents or newcomers who accompany their children or spouses to big cities. They are usually well established, and enjoy a relatively relaxing retirement life. Many of these parents had been sent down to the countryside for re-education in their teens during the Maoist years. They consciously chose not to marry in the countryside because they feared it would prevent them from returning to the city if marriage in a village assigned them a permanent rural household registration. As a result, many remained single in their early thirties and returned to their home cities as “over-aged youth”, whose own marriage problems were seen by some as a socially de-stabilising force.

The party-state has played an important role in providing occasions – such as dance parties or camping events – for the singles to meet before the Cultural Revolution and in the early reform era. To those who were born and raised after 1949, such state interventions seemed unsurprising in the “cradle-to-grave” institutional background of the planned economy that was naturalised by decades of political mobilisation. However, with the retreat of the state from the dating scene, many parents feel that they had no choice but to fill the gap and look for a mate for their daughters.

Parents in matchmaking corners typically have specific requirements for potential mates: height, profession, income, urban household registration, and preferably an apartment ready for the future new couple. These requirements seem instrumental and materialistic. Yet, from the parents’ perspective, it is impossible for them to know which person their daughter may fall in love with. Therefore, matchmaking naturally started with the match of tangible conditions in an environment full of strangers. Their goal is to find a reliable person who can take over their responsibility to provide a comfortable material environment and to look after their beloved daughters. Parents are not imposing their decisions on their children; instead, their role is just to screen the candidates and to seek choices that could be presented to their children, who would then decide to take the chance or not. They are driven by their emotional, affectionate ties to their daughter and a deep sense of responsibility for their daughters’ lives. Although the daughters may not like parental matchmaking or do not think it helps, they acknowledge the sincere care offered by their parents.

In short, parental matchmaking is a good example of the enduring significance of marriage, the powerful effects of a selective rendering of traditional gender ideology, and reconstitution of inter-generational bonds based on love and care shaped by the one-child policy and solidified by the economic insecurities of the reform era.

Jun Zhang is a research assistant professor at Hong Kong Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Hong Kong. Her research focuses on the middle-class culture, charity, automobility, infrastructure and urbanisation. This article is adapted from her chapter (co-authored with Peidong Sun) “When Are You Going to Get Married?” Parental Matchmaking and Middle-class Women in Contemporary Urban China.” in Wives, Husbands, and Lovers: Marriage and Sexuality in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Urban China (edited by Deborah Davis and Sara Friedman; Stanford University Press). Image Credit: CC by thaths/flickr 

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