Soft power and cultural industries: Cultural policy and inter- Asian regional flows in Hong Kong and Singapore

Abstract

Introduction This chapter analyzes the regionalization narratives represented in the cultural policies of Hong Kong and Singapore. It strives to compare and contrast the development of creative industries in these two Asian cities during the era of Asia’s regional integration. In Asian popular culture, two East Asian soft powers developed from transnational popular cultures that had grown within the greater region. One of these powers was Japan. The wide success of Japanese cultural products in both east and South east Asia created new images of Japan. Japanese cultural commodities provided a sense of Asian-ness that made the products marketable among Asian consumers (Otmazgin 2008; Pang 2015). At the policy level, the Japanese government has used their ‘Cool Japan Strategy’ to nationalize its content industry in the global market (Choo 2012). The other soft power is Korea. ‘Korean Wave’ has developed into a cultural flow that brings social change to countries all over Asia (Kim 2011). Korean cultural industries benefit from the Korean government’s systematic support for enhancing local industry synergies (Jin 2011). Important policies include the screen quota policy aiding film industry development and the e-sport cultural policy for the promotion of professional competition in the Korean online game industry (Jin 2010). The intra-Asian cultural flows that circulate beyond the convenient boundaries of Japanese and Korean popular cultures deserve academic attention. Responding to these flows, this chapter looks at the significance of creative industry policies of Hong Kong and Singapore within the asymmetric power relations that shaped Inter-Asian cultural flows. Iwabuchi once coined a term to describe these asymmetrical power relations as a reflection of “polymorphic vernacular modernities” among nations in Asia (Iwabuchi 2004). On the one hand, this penetration of Japanese and Korean popular culture indicates a form of Asian modernity that is based upon the imperialist desires of Japan to assert its cultural imagination over Asia. On the other hand, these emerging intra-regional cultural flows also complicate Japan’s imperialist network given the recent political and economic power shift from Japan to China.