Creative industries in China: the digital turn

Abstract

Given its origins as a borrowed concept from Western cultural policy discourse, creative industries has proven to be a surprisingly resilient idea in China. With its focus upon individual creativity, copyrighted products and global cultural markets, it clearly could not have taken root in China during the Maoist period, and it continues to coexist with a strong focus upon cultural control and the leading role of the Communist Party of China (CCP) in the shaping of national culture. The tension between creative industries as a policy discourse for cultural development and the notion that cultural institutions are under the close tutelage of the party-state has been a constant in China since the term was first introduced in the mid-2000s. It manifests itself in variations in terminology – most notably between ‘cultural industries’, ‘cultural creative industries’ and, most recently ‘digital creative industries’ – as well as in differing approaches taken at the levels of city and provincial governments and by the national government at different periods of time...