Creativity and Complexity in Post-WTO China

Abstract

In this paper I discuss the changing relations between culture, services, and knowledge in China. In arguing that these three formerly separate conceptual domains are converging I am mindful of a global shift in thinking about the management of national content industries as they react to the pressures of global trade agreements, new regional market dynamics, and digitisation. These three vectors of change underscore the ensuing discussion. Moreover, while understandings of culture as works of great artistic achievement, or residual cultural traditions, will undoubtedly remain central to processes of identity formation, the cultural model that is likely to gain the attention of governments in the next decade is concerned with culture’s integration into service sector facilitation. Cultural and information services have provided an impetus for business expansion and networking on a scale unparalleled in previous accounts of globalisation (cf Hirst and Thompson, 1995). Based on economic development rationales, a relationship of dependency between culture and services is fairly self-evident and is illustrated by increasing user-customisation of services that are delivered electronically. The connection with the knowledge economy however requires some further conceptual ground clearing. In short, as state policy formerly concerned with cultural preservation and protection is increasingly migrating to view culture in terms of intellectual property, economic investment is shifting from industrial to knowledge-based production. The cultural sectors in China that will be most subject to reform in this convergent environment include media, advertising, tourism, and education.