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CONTEMPORARY EAST ASIAN
VISUAL CULTURES, SOCIETIES AND POLITICS
Screen Media
and the Construction
of Nostalgia in
Post-Socialist China
Zhun Gu
Contemporary East Asian Visual Cultures, Societies
and Politics
Series Editors
Paul Gladston, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, Australia
Frank Vigneron, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, New
Territories, Hong Kong
Yeewan Koon, University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam, Hong Kong Island,
Hong Kong
Lynne Howarth-Gladston, Sydney, NSW, Australia
Chunchen Wang, Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing, China
Editorial Board
Jason Kuo, University of Maryland, Baltimore, College Park, MD, USA
Christopher Lupke, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada
Paul Manfredi, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA
Ted Snell, University of Western Australia, Perth, WA, Australia
Hongwei Bao, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK
Ting Chang, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK
Gerald Cipriani, National University of Ireland, Galway, Galway, Ireland
Katie Hill, Sotheby’s Institute of Art, London, UK
Birgit Hopfener, Carleton University, Ottawa, ON, Canada
Takako Itoh, University of Toyama, Toyama, Japan
Darren Jorgensen, University of Western Australia, Perth, WA, Australia
Beccy Kennedy, Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester, UK
Franziska Koch, Heidelberg University, Heidelberg, Germany
Taliesin Thomas, AW Asia, New York, NY, USA
Wei-Hsiu Tung, National University of Tainan, Tainan, Taiwan
Ming Turner, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan
Meiqin Wang, California State University, Northridge, Los Angeles, CA,
USA
Yungwen Yao, Tatung University, Taipei City, Taiwan
Bo Zheng, City University of Hong Kong, Kowloon Tong, Hong Kong
This series brings together diverse perspectives on present-day rela-
tionships between East Asian visual cultures, societies and politics.
Its scope extends to visual cultures produced, disseminated and
received/consumed in East Asia – comprising North and South Korea,
Mongolia, Japan, mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan – as
well as related diasporas world-wide, and to all aspects of culture expressed
through visual images, including across perceived boundaries between
high and popular culture and the use of traditional and contemporary
media. Taken into critical account are cultural, social and political ecolo-
gies currently shaped by geopolitical borders across the East Asia region
in addition to their varied intersections with an increasingly trans-cultural
world. The series emphasizes the importance of visual cultures in the crit-
ical investigation of contemporary socio-political issues relating to, for
example, identity, social inequality, decoloniality and the environment.
The editors welcome contributions from early career and established
researchers.
Zhun Gu
Screen Media
and the Construction
of Nostalgia
in Post-Socialist China
Zhun Gu
Fudan University
Shanghai, China
ISSN 2662-7701 ISSN 2662-771X (electronic)

Contemporary East Asian Visual Cultures, Societies and Politics
ISBN 978-981-19-7493-9 ISBN 978-981-19-7494-6 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-7494-6
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer
Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the
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microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and
retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology
now known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc.
in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such
names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for
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The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and informa-
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This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature
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189721, Singapore
Acknowledgements
This book is based on my Ph.D. thesis, submitted to the University

of Nottingham in 2019. It has taken many years to take shape and
many people have offered me generous help and have contributed to
the project in its various stages. I would like to take this opportunity
to thank all of them, knowing that an exhaustive list is impossible and a
brief mention of their names is insufficient. My heartfelt thanks go to my
two Ph.D. supervisors, Professor Paul Grainge and Associate Professor
Hongwei Bao, for their academic generosity and consistent support that
has extended beyond my Ph.D. candidature. I thank the thesis exam-
iners, Professor Stephanie Hemelryk Donald and Professor Colin Wright
for their generous comments and suggestions for the thesis.
I am also grateful to Professor Chen Xuguang, Professor Gao Guiwu,
Professor Wang Xiaoping, and Professor Wang Yichuan for their help
and encouragement for the chapters of the book manuscript. During
the development of this book project, I am doing my postdoctoral
research at Fudan University, Shanghai. Many scholars have mentored me
and contributed to the project in various ways. These scholars include:
Professor Meng Jian, Professor Yao Jianhua, Professor Zhang Dawei,
Professor Zhu Chunyang, Dr. Li Jing, Dr. Xu Yu, Dr. Li Mengying,
Dr. Xu Shengquan, Dr. Feng Xian, and Dr. Ling Binqing. I owe a lot
of thanks to all the students (in particular, Chen Jing and Yan Kexin) I
have taught at Fudan University, whose lively seminar discussions have
enriched the ideas and increased the relevance of this book. At the same
v
vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
time, this book would have been impossible without the generous support
of China Postdoctoral Science Foundation and Fudan University.
I thank my mother Feng Chunhua, my father Gu Zhengzhou, and my
brother Gu Wen. They may not understand what the book is about, but
their unrelenting support for me and unyielding confidence in me have
given me strength. My wife Zhang Hanwen read my Chinese articles and
offered much academic, spiritual, and financial support I needed at the
final stage of this book project. She always reminded me that the theory
is important and this book should provide its readers (even non-academic
one) a sense of feeling that it is very understandable and academic.
I have presented some words related to book chapters at various
academic conferences, workshops, and research seminars hosted by
different individuals, groups, and institutions. I thank all the funding
bodies for their generous support for my conference travels and research
trips. I also wish to thank all the conference and workshop organisers
and participants for their useful feedback. Earlier versions of some words
related to chapters have been published in the following books and
journals:
“Nostalgia in Urban Cinema: A Comparative Analysis of Zhang

Yang’s Shower (1999) and Jia Zhangke’s 24 City (2008),” Journal
of Languages, Texts and Society, 2018(5): 25–47.
“Nostalgia in the Context of ‘the Belt and Road Initiative’: An
Analysis of a Chinese Documentary: Maritime Silk Road (2016),”
Journal of Contemporary Eastern Asia, Summer 2018(1)1: 113–130.
“The Rhetoric of Nostalgia from Harmonious Society to Commu-
nity of Shared Future,” in China and the World in the 21st Century:
Communication and Relationship Building, ed. Xiaoling Zhang and
Corey Schultz, 116–130 (Routledge, 2022).
I thank all the editors and reviewers of these books and journals for
including my articles in their volumes and for their insightful sugges-
tions and comments. All the chapters in this book have been revised and
updated, and some differ significantly from their earlier versions.
Contents
1 Post-Socialism and Nostalgia 1

1 Post-Socialist China in the Context of Neoliberal Reform 9
2 Chinese Screen Media Since the 1990s 16
3 The Construction of Nostalgia 39
4 Methodology and Chapter Structure 47
References 53
2 Nostalgia and Guilt in the “Educated Youth” Films:
A Mongolian Tale (1995) and Nuan (2003) 57
1 The Social Context of the “Educated Youth” Films 58
2 Guilt as Expressed in A Mongolian Tale and Nuan 67
3 Conclusion 86
References 87
3 Nostalgia for a Communal Lifestyle in Urban Films:
Shower (1999) and 24 City (2008) 91
1 Historical Background of Urban Film 92
2 Demolition in Shower (1999) and 24 City (2008) 99
3 Documentary Aesthetics: History and Authenticity 109
4 Reflective/Restorative Nostalgia 117
5 Conclusion 124
References 126
vii
viii CONTENTS
4 Nostalgia in Youth Media So Young (2013) and With

You (2016) 129
1 Nostalgia in Chinese Youth Media Since 2010 130
2 Nostalgia in the Youth Film So Young (2013) 135
3 Nostalgia in the Internet Drama With You (2016) 146
4 Uncritical Stance in Youth Media 155
5 Conclusion 162
References 164
5 The Rhetoric of Nostalgia from Harmonious Society
to Community of Shared Future 167
1 The International Communication of the Chinese
Mainstream Media 168
2 Nostalgia in A Bite of China (2012) and Maritime Silk
Road (2016) 173
3 Nostalgia as CCP Rhetoric 182
4 Transformation of China’s Political Rhetoric 191
5 Conclusion 195
References 196
6 Discourse Articulation—A Media Mechanism
for International Communication 201
1 Introduction 202
2 Articulation: A Theory and Practice for the Chinese
Screen Media 204
3 Nostalgia in Li Ziqi Food Video Series (2016–2022) 208
4 Discourse Articulation in the Context of Constructing
Chinese Film School 213
5 Conclusion 223
References 224
7 Conclusion: The Transformation from Xiangchou
to Huaijiu 227
Index 237
About the Author
Zhun Gu was awarded Doctor degree in media studies by the University

of Nottingham in 2019. Now he is doing his postdoctoral research at
Fudan University, China. His interests include cultural memory studies,
intercultural communication, and media studies.
ix
CHAPTER 1
Post-Socialism and Nostalgia
I was born in the late 1980s in the People’s Republic of China (PRC).
My early childhood was spent in the countryside until my parents sent my
brother and me to the city to receive a better education. Subsequently, my
family moved several more times to support our education. After gradu-
ating from senior high school, I moved to large cities for my bachelor’s
and master’s degrees. My fond memories of the 1990s with my family
in the countryside are a source of much nostalgia for the place where I
spent my childhood. For instance, I have many happy memories of fishing
with my brother after school. At the same time, however, the peripatetic
nature of my early life experience meant that I spent less time with my
grandparents, which evokes a sense of regret. This personal yearning for
my childhood home, coupled with regret over spending so little time with
my grandparents, is something I have in common with many friends in
my age group who moved from rural areas in their early years.
To some extent, the nostalgia prompted by the transition from coun-
tryside to city for a better education during the 1990s and early 2000s
may be viewed as a generational phenomenon, situated in the context of
China’s intense market economic reform from the early 1990s onwards.
Specifically, the Chinese market economy developed quickly after the
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 1

Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023
Z. Gu, Screen Media and the Construction of Nostalgia in Post-Socialist
China, Contemporary East Asian Visual Cultures, Societies and Politics,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-7494-6_1
2 Z. GU
implementation of a policy of “reform and opening up” in 1978.1 After

intense debates about how to develop the country throughout the 1980s,
China quickened the pace of its advance into modernity through urbani-
sation and the reform of state-owned enterprises and by joining the World
Trade Organization (WTO). These societal accelerations motivated many
rural residents to find jobs and relocate their homes in cities. In this
sense, Chinese society gradually transformed itself from a Maoist total-
itarian society to a capitalist and ideologically controlled, and specifically
post-socialist one, as will be discussed in the next section.
The economic and cultural changes after the Mao era have been
represented in various Chinese screen media. Essentially, three kinds of
nostalgic culture have been portrayed on the Chinese screen since the
1990s, in an attempt to transport viewers back to the different types of
“home” that can be found within various social contexts. The first kind
of screen nostalgic culture was produced by “educated youth” filmmakers
in the 1990s, a generation who were forced to move to the countryside
during the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976) and who later returned to
the city.2 This cohort included many Fourth and Fifth Generation film-
makers; in their works, they created a sense of nostalgia for the idyllic
1 Reform and opening up refers to the programme of economic reform in the People’s
Republic of China (PRC) which started in December 1978 by reformists within the
Communist Party of China, led by Deng Xiaoping. Economic reforms introducing market
principles began in 1978 and were carried out in two stages. The first stage, in the late
1970s and early 1980s, involved the decollectivisation of agriculture, the opening up of
the country to foreign investment, and permission for entrepreneurs to start businesses.
However, most industry remained state-owned. The second stage of reform, in the late
1980s and 1990s, involved the privatisation and contracting-out of much state-owned
industry and the lifting of price controls, protectionist policies, and regulations, although
state monopolies in sectors such as banking and petroleum remained. The private sector
grew remarkably, accounting for as much as 70% of China’s gross domestic product
by 2005. From 1978 until 2013, unprecedented growth occurred, with the economy
increasing by 9.5% a year. Fang Cai, “Perceiving Truth and Ceasing Doubts: What Can
We Learn from 40 Years of China’s Reform and Opening Up?” China & World Economy,
2018 (2): 1–22.
2 The Cultural Revolution, formally the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, was
a sociopolitical movement in China from 1966 until 1976, launched by Mao Zedong.
Its stated goal was to preserve “true” Communist ideology in the country by purging
remnants of capitalist and traditional elements from Chinese society, and to re-impose
Mao Zedong Thought as the dominant ideology within the Party. The Revolution marked
Mao’s return to a position of power after the failures of his Great Leap Forward. The
movement paralysed China politically and negatively affected both the economy and
society of the country to a highly significant degree. Xing Lu, Rhetoric of the Chinese
1 POST-SOCIALISM AND NOSTALGIA 3
countryside, the memories of which were entwined with their personal

memories in the context of the aforementioned early market economic
reform. The second kind of nostalgic screen culture emerged in the late
1990s and 2000s and was produced by Sixth-Generation filmmakers.
These filmmakers typically grew up in cities and studied in professional
film academies and were less influenced by the Cultural Revolution. Their
films focused on the demolition of old buildings and communities in
China’s cities, and the nostalgia embodied in their works relates to the
feeling of a loss of communal lifestyle. The third type of screen nostalgia,
which focuses on university and school days in the late 1990s and early
2000s, has been drawn upon by new generations of filmmakers and direc-
tors since 2010 and remains popular on the Chinese screen. To a large
extent, this particular nostalgic culture is related to the experiences of my
generation; hence my personal motivation for investigating the different
versions of nostalgia expressed by my own and other generations on the
Chinese screen.
Each of these screen media evokes a longing for different versions of
the past: some for the enthusiasm and passion felt at an earlier time,
some for innocence, and some for simple everyday life. Such diverse forms
of nostalgia also carry different functions: some are politically motivated
and tend to engage with social issues, whereas others lean more towards
commodification to attract China’s screen market. At the same time,
from a linguistic perspective, Western nostalgia has a different conno-
tation from nostalgia in a Chinese context, which to a larger extent
carries the dual meanings of an emotional homesickness (乡愁, xiang-
chou) and aesthetic reminiscence (怀旧, huaijiu). Furthermore, in the
Chinese government’s propaganda, nostalgia related to various forms of
cultural heritage and tradition came to be used as a means of intercul-
tural communication, a way to show a sense of China’s georgic civilisation
and promote China’s national image. In that context, regardless of how
the three forms of nostalgia are presented, the past appears to have been
portrayed as a warm and safe place, with the present often depicted as
depressing and anxiety-inducing. Therefore, the question this book seeks
to explore is how the different forms of nostalgia have been constructed
by different generations of filmmakers and directors within Chinese screen
media since the 1990s.
Cultural Revolution: The Impact on Chinese Thought, Culture, and Communication (South
Carolina: University of South Carolina Press, 2004), 51–72.
4 Z. GU
Two sub-questions will underpin this core research question: (1) what
institutional and cultural factors have given rise to the production of
screen nostalgia; and (2) How do specific nostalgic constructions nego-
tiate identity at the levels of gender, region, and nation? In this regard,
various cultural memories, revitalised by screen producers, are shown to
make and perform social meanings in the context of post-Mao market
reforms. This research highlights the capacity of nostalgic screen media to
document social transformations while also constituting a cultural sphere
in which multiple discourses confront and contest with each other. Within
these nostalgic cultures, different screen producers present screen nostal-
gias that have been influenced by, and engaged with, the transformation
of Chinese cultural and economic life since the 1990s.
In its examination of nostalgic cultures in Chinese screen media, this
book seeks to discuss the complex relationships between cultural memo-
ries and social contexts. Based on the core research question, it will
approach the topic from three angles. First, it will frame the 1990s as
making the beginning of Chinese nostalgic film, although the genre may
be said to have existed since the 1930s, with films such as Nostalgia
(1934), Spring in a Small Town (1948), and The Song of Youth (1959).
Many nostalgic films were also produced in the 1980s, such as Yellow
Earth (Chen Kaige, 1985) and Red Sorghum (Zhang Yimou, 1987). The
1980s were a period during which China attempted to create order out
of chaos following the Cultural Revolution, and this engendered debates
about how to develop the country. Given this situation, the 1980s is a
period in which many social elements, such as “Reform and Opening-up,”
political reform, the student democratic movement,3 and literature trends
were both conjoining and contending for the authority to write contem-
porary Chinese history. In 1992, Deng Xiaoping’s “Southern Talk”
officially expressed the Chinese government’s determination to focus on
3 The Tiananmen Square protest or the June Four Movement was student-led popular
demonstrations in Beijing, which took place in the spring of 1989 and received broad
support from city residents. University students marched and gathered in Tiananmen
Square to demand that democracy, freedom, and liberal justice replace authoritarian rule
in the reform process while other citizens sought an end to official corruption, inflation,
and limited career prospects. The protesters called for government reform, freedom of
the press and speech. The government initially took a conciliatory stance towards the
protesters. Ultimately, the Chinese Supreme leader Deng Xiaoping and other party elders
resolved to use force to solve this event.
the development of the market economy.4 From the early 1990s, China
has increased the pace of its rush to modernity through urbanisation and
the reform of state-owned enterprises, and by joining the WTO (2001).
During this period, Chinese society has gradually transformed itself from a
Maoist totalitarian society to a capitalist and ideologically controlled one.
In this regard, developing China’s economy and maintaining the Chinese
Communist Party (CCP)’s legitimacy were two dominating discourses
affecting Chinese society and filmmaking. Therefore, the 1980s and the
later periods, to a larger extent, can be seen as two discrete periods. It
is not necessary to integrate them as a whole in order to make sense of
the dynamic relationship between the Chinese filmmaking and production
environments in the context of state-led commercialisation. Furthermore,
nostalgic films shot in the 1980s have been investigated by many scholars,
including Dai Jinhua (2002), Wang Ban (2004), Chris Berry (2006),
Rey Chow (2007), Sheldon H. Lu (2007), Zhang Xudong (2008), and
Yang Guobin (2016). It is difficult, therefore, to make any additional
contribution to the existing scholarship on this period in cultural studies
and Chinese film studies. In order to demonstrate how the commercial
imperative works in tandem with ideological prescriptiveness and state
censorship to shape the Chinese filmmaking, this book focuses only on
screen media produced after 1990. However, it must be recognised that
there remains a close relationship between the nostalgic films produced in
both periods. Therefore, Chapter 2 highlights the importance of “root-
searching” films in the 1980s and underlines their influence on the films
produced in the 1990s.
Second, the book addresses multiple articulations of nostalgia,
including traumatic and repressed memories, in the work of different
generational filmmakers and directors from different generations. Here,
I use the term articulation in Stuart Hall’s sense: as a connection or
link requiring particular conditions of existence, which is not eternal but
requires constant renewal and which may, under some circumstances,
rearticulate with others.5 The articulations of nostalgia express a dynamic
process in which the yearning for the past (seen as an internal attribute)
4 Robert Weatherley, Politics in China since 1949: Legitimising Authoritarian Rule

(London: Routledge, 2012), 137.
5 Stuart Hall, “Signification, Representation, Ideology: Althusser and the Post-
structuralist Debate,” Critical Studies in Mass Communication, 1985 (2): 91–114.
6 Z. GU
is linked to different external conditions, such as social contexts, the film-

maker’s personal artistic pursuit and political attitude, and the screen
media industry itself. Thus, nostalgia in different periods may have some
similar elements, but each specific nostalgia retains its distinct determi-
nation and condition of existence. This determines how that individual
nostalgia may be disarticulated and rearticulated in other contexts. There-
fore, articulation highlights one of the purposes of this book: to identify
articulated nostalgias in various contexts in China. Chapter 6 focuses
on the intercultural communication of the Chinese screen media. Hall’s
version of articulation will be further used to analyse how Chinese
Internet video articulates the presentation of rural China within new
contexts to communicate an image of China that is easily understood by
foreign audiences.
The investigation of articulated nostalgia in different generational
screen media is to some extent a chronological study. These manifes-
tations of screen nostalgias were produced by different generations of
filmmakers in different periods, rather than by filmmakers from one
specific generation in a single period. In China, one generation of film-
makers normally maintains a stable film aesthetics. For instance, the
Sixth-Generational filmmakers’ works, epitomised by Wang Xiaoshuai’s
Beijing Bicycle (2001) and Shanghai Dreams (2005) and Jia Zhangke’s
24 City (2008) and A Touch of Sin (2013), keep on investigating the
individual’s helplessness in the face of destiny, as well as the post-socialist
upheaval. A filmmaker may change her/his film language over time;
however, from a broad perspective, it makes sense to see this change as a
maturing of the creator’s film aesthetics, rather than as a change in their
social and cultural altitude. Thus, the book highlights that generation is
not only a definition of a period of time, but, more importantly, it is a
social, cultural, and aesthetic generality. Not all Chinese filmmakers can
be included in the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, or the “New Force” Generations.
Therefore, it is natural for there to be a degree of variety in aesthetics and
nostalgic culture in different screen media from the same period. Similarly,
it is reasonable that some screen media challenge a political discourse that
is eulogised by different filmmakers in the same period. To some extent,
“generation” refers to a similar and a dominating film aesthetic style in a
specific social-cultural period; therefore, it is difficult to argue that a film-
maker’s attitude has undergone an intense transformation because a single
film is inconsistent with this generational aesthetics. In this respect, what
this book analyses is not an aesthetic transformation of any specific gener-

ational filmmaker in the past thirty years, but rather the way in which
different generational filmmakers in their respective eras adopt a relatively
consistent aesthetic rendering of the constructed past as a means by which
to engage with the present. This study of various kinds of nostalgia in
Chinese screen media produced by generations of filmmakers can be seen
here as chronological.
Third, the book will engage with multiple expressions and forma-
tions of political and cultural discourses in the context of China’s market
economic reform insofar as they relate to articulated nostalgia in the
works of different generations of filmmakers. The primary aim of this
book is to identify various generational nostalgias in order to present
the dynamic relationship between a media text, the media industry, and
political discourse. These nostalgias can be related to Michael Foucault’s
understanding of discourse as something that affects the construction
and representation of nostalgia.6 For instance, Chapter 5 discusses the
documentary Maritime Silk Road (2016). Many documentaries entitled
Maritime Silk Road (or something similar) have been produced before,
which were produced in different historical periods, for different political
purposes, and using different film languages. This Maritime Silk Road
(2016) has unique characteristics: in invisible and apparently depoliti-
cised ways, it works to propagandise Xi Jinping’s “Community of Shared
Future.” This book examines different cultural and political discourses,
such as the concepts of youth without regret (Chapter 2), harmonious
society, and peaceful development (Chapter 5), while attempting to
unpick the intricacies of political and aesthetic entanglements between
Chinese filmmaking and official discourse.
Investigating screen nostalgia within specific discourses reveals the
tremendous influence of politics on Chinese filmmaking. The political
orientation in Chinese films may be overt or subtle; for instance, the
films discussed in Chapters 2 and 3 criticise the influence of the Cultural
Revolution and political-economic reform, whereas those examined in
Chapter 4 manifest a sense of apolitical and ahistorical nostalgia. This
all comes in the context of a mainstream Chinese film aesthetics that
maintains a balance between communicating the Chinese mainstream
6 Michael Foucault, Power/Knowledge Selected Interviews and Other Writings, 1972–

1977 (New York: Pantheon Books, 1980), 109–133.
8 Z. GU
ideologies and developing an industrial film system similar to Holly-

wood. The ahistorical, apolitical, and depoliticised nostalgia identified
in the youth media may be seen as a result of these film aesthetics.
Taken together, the aesthetics of film, the Cultural Revolution, urbani-
sation, media intercultural communication, and other political discourse
can be seen as comprising the CCP’s efforts to maintain regime legiti-
macy. Because of the close relationship between these elements, the effect
of political and ideological discourses on film aesthetics receives signif-
icant attention in this book. The book also acknowledges the effects of
media internationalisation and marketisation, and how commercial imper-
atives work in tandem with ideological prescription and state censorship.
Together, they shape commercial filmmaking, including the ways in which
film professionals appropriate the nostalgic elements of popular culture.
This overlap results in fluctuating tensions between political promotion,
critical engagement, and entertainment.
In order to investigate screen nostalgia comprehensively, this book
examines a diverse range of screen formats: film, television documen-
tary, Internet drama, and Internet short media. It includes the following
popular media products, all of which had box-office success in China:
five mainstream feature films—A Mongolian Tale (Xie Fei, 1995), Nuan
(Huo Jianqi, 2003), Shower (Zhang Yang, 1999), 24 City (Jia Zhangke,
2008), and So Young (Zhao Wei, 2013); one popular Internet drama—
With You (Liu Chang, 2016); two state-led television documentaries—A
Bite of China (Chen Xiaoqing, 2012) and Maritime Silk Road (Zhang
Wei, 2016); and one Internet short series—Li Ziqi (Li Ziqi, 2018–
2022). Through analysing the above, the relationship between media
professionals, industry, and the state is examined, thereby providing an
opportunity to re-examine and re-evaluate the boundaries between the
individual and the collective, between politics and commercialisation, as
well as between Chinese post-socialism and modernity. This book iden-
tifies the emergence of a culture of nostalgia has emerged in China
over the past three decades, in different media forms and genres and
across different generations. Nostalgic culture speaks to, or engages with,
China’s post-socialist condition and social changes, including the urban–
rural divide, urbanisation, commercialisation, and youth experience, as
well as its domestic and international policies. After tracing the uses of
nostalgia, from the critical engagement of “educated youth” filmmakers
in early post-socialist China, to the depiction of social upheavals in Sixth-
Generation works, to co-option by the Chinese government and screen
media industry for political and commercial gains in the work of the “New
Force.” I argue that China’s mainstream screen industry is progressively
losing its desire to critically and aesthetically engage with its political
environment. I attribute this to the complex interplay of strict political
pressure and an emerging, commercialised film market since the 1990s.
1 Post-Socialist China
in the Context of Neoliberal Reform
Any full exploration of the multifaceted relationships between various
nostalgias and their social contexts requires an understanding of the
broader Chinese context through post-socialism and the neoliberal market
economy reforms. Since the 1980s, market economy reform has increas-
ingly influenced the hegemony of the CCP. In this sense, the Chinese
government has “selectively adopted democratic elements and neolib-
eral logic as a strategic calculation to strengthen its dominance without
changing the character of the state apparatus.”7 This negotiated rela-
tionship between the state and a democratically appealing and market-
orientated economy are the main characteristics of the post-Mao period.
1.1 Post-Socialist China

It has been more than forty years since China transformed from Maoist
socialism to a capitalist market economy (post-socialist China). The
entirety of the 1980s is generally seen, therefore, as a period of imple-
mentation of “reform and opening up” and the creation of order out of
chaos following the Cultural Revolution. Then, the student movement
in 1989 can be seen as marking the end of the debate about how China
chose its political-economic system. Since the 1990s, the discourse on
economic reform has regularly referred to Deng Xiaoping’s “Southern
Talk” (1992), which officially conveyed the Chinese government’s deter-
mination to promote the development of the market economy.8 In this
context, China’s economic system has shifted to a capitalist mode of
production. However, its political-legal system remains largely dominated
7 Xiaoling Zhang, The Transformation of Political Communication in China: From

Propaganda to Hegemony (Singapore: World Scientific Publishing, 2011), 23.
8 Robert Weatherley, Politics in China since 1949: Legitimising Authoritarian Rule
(London: Routledge, 2012), 137.
10 Z. GU
by the CCP. Wang Hui argues that this “free” and “unregulated” market
expansion is in fact a highly manipulative and coercive intervention by
the state.9 Under the influence of a series of economic policies, China’s
planned economy was gradually replaced by a market economy. More-
over, China joined the WTO, when large amounts of international capital
were invested in the Chinese market, significantly accelerating China’s
integration into global capitalism through its bureaucratically controlled
and market-driven industries. As a consequence of this economic stimula-
tion, China’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) reached the second highest
in the world in 2010.10 To some extent, the past three decades have been
a period during which China has developed its market economy through
capitalism. Furthermore, the political system associated with this economy
has transformed from a totalitarian-planned economy to state-controlled
capitalism.
This specific economic-political transformation is referred to by Arif
Dirlik as a period of post-socialism, which depicts new economic and
political conditions after the Cultural Revolution. Dirlik suggests:
Post-socialism is of necessity also post-capitalist[…]but in the sense of

socialism that represents a response to the experience of capitalism and an
attempt to overcome the deficiencies of capitalist development[…] For this
reason, and also to legitimise the structure of “actually existing socialism,”
it strives to keep alive a vague vision of future socialism as the common goal
of humankind while denying to it any immanent role in the determination
of present social policy.11
In Dirlik’s opinion, post-socialism seeks to improve existing socialism

by drawing on capitalist ideas. Thus, post-socialism refers to the point
at which the Chinese government reconceptualised Chinese socialism in
the context of global capitalist modernity. Sheldon Lu points out that
post-socialism is not only “a cultural logic” with which “the residual
socialist past and the emergent capitalist present” are negotiated, but also
9 Hui Wang, China’s New Order: Society, Politics and Economy in Transition
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003), 116.
10 David Barboza, “China Overtakes Japan to Become No. 2 Global Economic Power,”
New York Times, August 16, 2010, B1.
11 Arif Dirlik, “Postsocialism? Reflections on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics,” in
Marxism and the Chinese Experience, ed. Arif Dirlik and Maurice Meisner (Armonk, NY:
Sharpe, 1989), 364.
“a place for the emergence of a new life-world” and the creation of “new
socioeconomic practices.”12 Lisa Rofel has also argued that post-socialism
can be viewed as a period when socialism integrates with capitalism.13
Simply put, post-socialism is a fusion of socialism and capitalism that
contains some characteristics of both systems. Zhang Xudong further
claims that post-socialism is a historical and contemporary condition in
which the socialist state form and the economic system of capitalism
overlap.14 Therefore, post-socialism not only refers to an articulated post-
Mao period, but, more importantly, marks the advent of a policy of
“reform and opening up,” when the Chinese government decided to
carry out market economic reforms and integrate the country into the
global capitalist economy after the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976).
The term post-socialism is not Chinese in origin; rather, it reflects
how the world understands contemporary China’s articulation of global
capitalism. Based on its specific economic-political system, China has
begun to reshape its own modernity by communicating with the West.
As Ralph Litzinger suggests, post-socialism reflects the Chinese govern-
ment’s attempts to “seek to construct new notions of Chinese cultural
identity and national subjectivity in ways that move beyond the tele-
ology of modernisation that has dominated Chinese thinking for much
of the twentieth century.”15 Indeed, the Chinese government is defining
a new understanding of modernity that is different from that of the
West. Jason McGrath points out that, since the early 1990s, China’s
modernity has integrated with marketisation, differentiation, individuali-
sation, and pluralisation.16 This modernity contains elements of socialism,
capitalism, and even postmodernity. Moreover, along with increasing
economic development, the Chinese government has been trying to exert
12 Sheldon Hsiao-peng Lu, Chinese Modernity and Global Biopolitics: Studies in

Literature and Visual Culture (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2007), 204–210.
13 Lisa Rofel, Desiring China: Experiments in Neoliberalism, Sexuality, and Public
Culture (Durham, NC; London: Duke University Press, 2007), 7–8.
14 Xudong Zhang, Postsocialism and Cultural Politics (Durham: Duke University Press,
2008), 16.
15 Ralph Litzinger, “Theorizing Postsocialism: Reflections on the Politics of Marginality
in Contemporary China,” South Atlantic Quarterly, 2002 (1): 39.
16 Jason McGrath, Postsocialist Modernity: Chinese Cinema, Literature, and Criticism in
the Market Age (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2008), 9.
12 Z. GU
its influence on international affairs and to project a positive image of itself

to the world.
Since 2000, the Chinese government has actively communicated its
national image and soft power to the world. For instance, hundreds
of Confucius Institutes were established globally to teach Chinese to
foreigners; many films and documentaries about China’s grand history
and achievements have been produced to construct and reinforce China’s
national image. President Xi Jinping (who has held this office since 2012)
coined the slogan “Chinese dream” to refer to a positive future. More-
over, on March 28, 2015, the Chinese government officially published
the strategy of “The Vision and Actions on Jointly Building Silk Road
Economic Belt and twenty-first century Maritime Silk Road” (often
known as “the Belt and Road Initiative”).17 Through this initiative,
the Chinese government attempts to link China’s seaports with those
in the South China Sea, the South Pacific Ocean, the Indian Ocean,
and Europe, thereby building the world’s longest economic corridor in
order to expand its economic and political influence. Indeed, the Chinese
government has exerted both its economic influence and state-controlled
media propaganda to construct and communicate its national image and
version of modernity. From this perspective, China’s post-socialist moder-
nity is close to and stimulated by global capitalism while, at the same
time, it may engender a new impetus to redefine the meaning of moder-
nity around the world. Therefore, as China reforms itself and emerges as
a new superpower, it is defining a new approach to domestic politics and
international relations.
Compared with its rapid economic development, China’s democrati-
sation and political reform, as components of post-socialism, have faced
certain challenges. It has not been easy for Chinese society to integrate
with global capitalism following Mao’s thirty years of autocracy. As Dirlik
argues, the Chinese government needs to overcome both the deficien-
cies of capitalist development and the intrinsic drawbacks of the socialist
17 Issued by the National Development and Reform Commission, Ministry of Foreign

Affairs, and Ministry of Commerce of the People’s Republic of China, with State Council
authorization, “Vision and Actions on Jointly Building Silk Road Economic Belt and
21st-Century Maritime Silk Road,” 28 March 2015, http://en.ndrc.gov.cn/newsrelease/
201503/t20150330_669367.html (Accessed 1 May 2019).
structure.18 In this sense, post-socialism is seen as a controversial ideology

positioned somewhat precariously between capitalist development and
the maintenance of Mao’s socialist regime. At the same time, nominal
socialism is crucial to the CCP’s legitimacy. For this reason, the CCP
chooses to maintain the facade of a socialist political state while imple-
menting capitalist economic policies. While both strategies are aimed
at maintaining the party’s legitimacy, their coexistence may eventually
prove irreconcilable. As Wang Hui argues, one of the crucial reasons
for political and social movements, such as the “June Fourth Move-
ment”, is the discord between old political ideologies and the promotion
of market reform, which has created a legitimacy crisis for the CCP.
Furthermore, Wendy Su suggests that this crisis is linked to the tangible–
material dimension (economic, institutional, and industrial structure and
facilities) and intangible–nonmaterial dimension (ideas, principles, and
ideals of humanity).19 Su’s description indicates that the current state of
post-socialism is a kind of unbalanced modernity. The state struggles to
navigate a capitalist system by absorbing its economic elements and inte-
grating within the global economic system while at the same time trying
to uphold national interests and reassert its national identity. The tension
between these imperatives results in the CCP reinforcing its suppressive
nature. Wang suggests that this structural imbalance has quickly resulted
in income disparities among different social strata and regions, rapidly
leading to social polarisation.20 Indeed, this unbalanced system has caused
social problems, such as increased inequality and official corruption. Thus,
the mechanism of China’s one-party system, with the CCP as the only
ruling party, is not subject to democratic and legal reforms in the face of
rapid market economic growth.
The Chinese government is using the massive growth of economic
development to conceal the contradiction between a market economy
and a one-party political regime. However, the public is increasingly
prompted to question political legitimacy that is based on economic
18 Arif Dirlik, “Postsocialism? Reflections on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics,” in

Marxism and the Chinese Experience, ed. Arif Dirlik and Maurice Meisner, 364 (Armonk,
NY: Sharpe, 1989).
19 Wendy Su, China’s Encounter with Global Hollywood: Cultural Policy and the Film
Industry, 1994–2013 (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2016), 9.
20 Hui Wang, China’s New Order: Society, Politics, and Economy in Transition
(Cambridge, MA; London: Harvard University Press, 2003), 57–58.
14 Z. GU
performance.21 In other words, the CCP’s authoritarian regime may

be undermined by China’s economic achievements. From this perspec-
tive, the tension between economic growth and political oppression is
dynamic. Chinese society is moving beyond totalitarianism towards a
market-orientated economy, which drives China’s high-speed economic
development; in turn, the CCP’s control of this market economy system
may be challenged, as it hinders both political reform and further
economic development.
1.2 “Socialism with Chinese Characteristics” and Neoliberalism

China’s government often describes its specific post-socialist system as
“socialism with Chinese characteristics.”22 Rofel suggests this description
is actually how the Chinese government deals with tethering economic
reform to neoliberal capitalism, which normalises new forms of inequality,
new ways to value human activity, and new ways of “worlding” China,
of placing China in a reimagined world of “cosmopolitanism.”23 Rofel’s
investigation shows that the discourse of “socialism with Chinese char-
acteristics” is a reflection of China’s heterogeneous globalisation, which
results in social inequalities while presenting a cosmopolitan facade from
the perspective of capitalist development.
Rofel further uses the concept of “neoliberal capitalism” to depict
socialism with Chinese characteristics. Neoliberal capitalism, or neoliber-
alism, is another specific term to depict China’s economic-political struc-
ture. As defined by David Harvey, neoliberalism “proposes that human
well-being can best be advanced by liberating individual entrepreneurial
freedoms and skills within an institutional framework characterised by
strong private property rights, free markets, and free trade in political,
economic practices. Meanwhile, the role of the state is to create and

22 Gang Qian, “Socialism with Chinese Characteristics,” New York Times, 28 September
2012, https://cn.nytimes.com/china/20120928/cc28qiangang10/ (Accessed 26 May
2018).
23 Lisa Rofel, Desiring China: Experiments in Neoliberalism, Sexuality, and Public
Culture (Durham, NC; London: Duke University Press, 2007), 112–113.
preserve an institutional framework appropriate for such practices.”24

Indeed, China’s market economic reform has been significantly influenced
by Western economic theories since the onset of “reform and opening
up,” especially after joining the WTO in 2001.
Moreover, as Harvey pinpoints, however, China’s neoliberalism has its
own unique characteristics. For instance, the common neoliberal principle
that the state ventures into markets should be avoided or kept to a bare
minimum is not applicable to China’s economic-political system. China’s
reform is characterised by its cultural-political specificity, such that “the
party has also acceded to the massive proletarianisation of China’s work-
force, the breaking of the ‘iron rice bowl’, the evisceration of China’s
social protections, the imposition of user fees, the creation of a flex-
ible labour market regime, and the privatisation of assets formerly held
in common.”25 Macro-adjustment by the Chinese government has had
a crucial impact on the Chinese economy. In particular, China’s state-
owned enterprises hold a dominant position in the capitalist market. By
following its particular path towards neoliberalism, China has constructed
a system whereby the state-manipulated market economy promotes its
own spectacular economic growth. Within this context, China’s neolib-
eralism may be understood as an aspect of government activity reliant
on the post-socialist market economy and the CCP’s hegemonic political
agenda.
Post-socialism and neoliberalism have become standard terms used to
depict China’s political-economic society. Both terms are also used to
address various crises of state socialism as it searches for new ways to
develop the country while maintaining the CCP’s own grip on power.
Chinese screen media, which have developed quickly in this negotiated
context, have been further affected by this mixed political-economic
system.
24 David Harvey, A Brief History of Neoliberalism (Oxford; New York: Oxford

University Press, 2005), 2.
25 David Harvey, A Brief History of Neoliberalism (Oxford; New York: Oxford
16 Z. GU
2 Chinese Screen Media Since the 1990s

Following the Cultural Revolution, Chinese media did not serve exclu-
sively as a political mouthpiece for the CCP; they strengthened them-
selves through privatisation, commercialisation, and internationalisation.
As Stephanie Hemelryk Donald and Michael Keane suggest, while contin-
uing to work as fundamental props for government policy and state
ideology, Chinese media has shifted into new financial and policy struc-
tures and engaged with international partners and trading alliances.26
Furthermore, in the context of post-socialism and neoliberalism, one of
the media’s core political agenda has been to broadcast market-orientated
reform to the Chinese population. This agenda is monitored by the State
Administration of Radio Film and Television (SARFT),27 which regu-
lates China’s media. Jason McGrath argues that the autonomy of culture
and the arts in post-socialist China is faced with a paradox, as it “must
both respond to the dominant trend of marketisation and cope with the
remnants of state heteronomy.”28 In this sense, China’s screen industries
are expected to continue to play their part in supporting the state’s broad
purposes of maintaining the CCP’s political hegemony, while at the same
time making a profit through media marketisation. In this section, the
above context frames an analysis of the development of screen media.
2.1 Film Industry

Since the 990s, the Chinese film industry has developed rapidly, with
the help of many official policies. For instance, the SARFT issued a
directive entitled “Some Suggestions on Reform of the Film Industry”
in 1993, which abolished the centralised distribution system that had
existed for decades and provided film studios with a market mechanism
for film production and distribution. In August 1994, the SARFT issued
26 Stephanie Hemelryk Donald and Michael Keane, “Media in China: New Conver-
gences, New Approaches,” in Media in China: Consumption, Content and Crisis, ed.
Stephanie Hemelryk Donald, Michael Keane and Yin Hong (London: RoutledgeCurzon,
2002), 3.
27 SARFT, Some Suggestions on the Reform of Film Industry, January 1993. SARFT
merged with the State Administration of Press and Publication in 2013 and is now called
the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television (SAPPRFT).
28 Jason McGrath, Postsocialist Modernity: Chinese Cinema, Literature, and Criticism in
the Market Age (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2008), 12.
another decree to start importing ten films (since 2012, the quota of
imported films has been thirty-four per year), specifically blockbusters (
大片, dapian), annually, to be distributed by the China Film Company.29
These policies changed the government-dominated film market. Further-
more, in the early 1990s, cooperation with foreign companies, either in
production or through investment, became a common scenario for many
Chinese filmmakers.30 As a result, the Chinese film market was gradu-
ally getting closer to the global film market. In particular, China’s entry
into the WTO in 2001 stimulated closer global cooperation and integra-
tion between the Chinese and Hollywood film industries. Subsequently,
in December 2001, the SARFT issued a series of updated film policies
that reduced barriers for individuals and non-state-owned organisations
to produce films. For instance, private companies with a minimum of one
million RMB in assets were now eligible for filmmaking and distribu-
tion.31 This round of film industry reform was aimed at attracting more
private investment to boost the Chinese film market. Private investment
became an important impetus to promote the decentralisation, privatisa-
tion, and globalisation of the Chinese film market. “Document no. 21,”
promulgated in 2003, sought to innovate the cultural sector so that it
benefits the public at an international level and supports commercialised
cultural enterprise at the same time.32 Based on the “Regulations of
Film Script Approval and Film Censorship” issued in 2003,33 licensed
film enterprises were required to submit a 1000-word synopsis of their
proposed films before shooting, thus reducing the chance of the final
29 Rong Tang. “A Review of the Course of 30-Years’ Chinese Film System Reform:
The Industry of Chinese Film in the Period of Adjustment and Reform,” Modern
Communication-Journal of Communication University of China, 2009 (2): 5–9.
30 Zhen Zhang, The Urban Generation: Chinese Cinema and Society at the Turn of the
Twenty-First Century (Durham: Duke University Press, 2007), 70.
31 Film Regulation Act was issued on 25 December 2001. The Act went into force in
1 February 2002. In 2003, more regulations were issued by SARFT regarding foreign
investment in Chinese industry, signifying the opening up of the Chinese film market.
Foreign investment could have joint ventures with state-owned film institutions, as long
as the foreign share remained under 49%.
32 “Document No. 21,” the Chinese government, 25 November 2003, http://www.
gov.cn/gongbao/content/2004/content_62745.htm (Accessed 22 April 2018).
33 “Regulations of Film Script Approval and Film Censorship,” SARFT, on 6
July 2004, http://www.gov.cn/gongbao/content/2005/content_63251.htm (Accessed
22 April 2018).
18 Z. GU
product being banned. These film policies showed that the CCP sought
to control core media, such as film and television, rather than the whole
of the cultural sector, thus illustrating greater flexibility afforded by the
commercial sector to pursue economic interests. In this way, the Chinese
film industry has gradually transformed from a state-controlled political
broadcasting system to a market-orientated media industry. This transfor-
mation is still in flux, with both functions evident in China’s film industry
today.
Since the new millennium, the Chinese film industry has been further
promoted by the policies of the Chinese government and the WTO. In
particular, the media “going out” policy, issued in 2001, aims to increase
and extend China’s global influence beyond the economic sphere to
cultural and creative industries. (This “going out” policy will be discussed
in Chapter 5.) Film cooperation and competition with international film
enterprises may function as a form of public diplomacy to shape and
enhance China’s image across the world. Chinese media now seek to
cultivate relationships with international audiences as they gradually move
away from explicit propaganda, while still presenting China’s national
image abroad (as discussed in Chapters 5 and 6). Thus, they continue to
perform under the constraints of the party-state system while following
market rules.
As indicated, post-WTO film industry reform brought about market
mechanisms for the development of the Chinese film industry. Private and
foreign investment has become the most important factor in boosting
such development. An increase in Hollywood imports has not only
offered a model from which Chinese filmmakers could learn; it has also
become an external impetus to promote the decentralisation and privati-
sation of the Chinese film industry itself. By means of this process, the
film market has become a lucrative vehicle for public and private firms to
turn quick profits. Media producers, as Chen points out, are generally
willing to be responsive to investors, respect the needs of their audi-
ences, and focus on a balance between input and output.34 To a larger
extent, the Chinese filmmakers who produced state-led media to propa-
gandise political discourse, while attracting domestic and international
audiences through film production and distribution methods adopted
from a Hollywood model, can be named as the authors within the system.
34 Xuguang Chen, “Authors within the System: The New-force Directors in Contem-
porary Chinese Cinema,” Journal of Film Studies, 2020 (1): 62–73.
They strive to deal with the tension and contradiction between individual
artistic style and the political system, investors, producers, and audiences.
This kind of filmmaking may be described as socialism, but with partic-
ular Chinese characteristics. As an example of its gradual adaptation to
a changing context, in the last twenty years, the term for a state-led film
has changed from “main-melody film” to “new main-melody film.” Tradi-
tional main-melody films use a variety of means and scenarios to project
a positive image of the CCP: for instance, the Chinese revolution under
the Party’s leadership from 1920 to 1949; the anti-Japanese war and the
anti-imperialist battles against Western invaders since the Opium War; the
positive portrayals of Communist Party cadres and their dedication to
serving the people after 1949; and the constructed neo-Confucian ideas,
morals, and virtues. As an example of this kind of filmmaking, the “ded-
ication film” (献礼片, xianli pian) commemorates the anniversary of the
founding of the People’s Republic of China and the CCP as a genre that
fulfils the latter’s propaganda mandate and enables the party to convey its
core values and consolidate its legitimacy. The effect of the CCP’s tight
control of media can be clearly seen in film, TV drama, and the Internet.
Meanwhile, new main-melody films, such as Hero (Zhang Yimou,
2002), The Founding of a Republic (Han Sanping, Huang Jianxin, 2009),
The Seal of Love (Huo Jianqi, 2011), The Taking of Tiger Mountain
(Xu Ke, 2014), and Wolf Warriors 2 (Wu Jing, 2016) have changed the
public’s impression of propaganda films. These new mainstream block-
busters have become the new ideological films. They draw their inspira-
tion from traditional revolutionary themes and figures to represent the
mainstream ideology of socialism with Chinese characteristics, but they
also try to consider the film market, attempting to bridge the gap between
communicating national discourse and pursuing commercial interests.35
To some extent, the system in “authors within the system” does not only
refer to the socialist political regime but also the requirements and real-
istic rules of box office, commercial market, production, marketing, etc. It
is a sum of requirements such as the Chinese social system, moral princi-
ples, and realistic rules. As Suzanne Xiao Yang suggests, China’s media
globalisation does not only strive for competitiveness for ideas in the
35 Xihe Chen and Liying Zhai, “A Study on the National Image in the Main Melody
Film in the 40 Years of Reform and Opening up Policy,” Hundred Schools in Arts, 2019
(35): 125–129.
20 Z. GU
global marketplace, but also for revenues.36 Accordingly, the Chinese film
industry and its new mainstream films are “closer to a Western-style indus-
trial structure, management model, and market mechanism”37 ; while also
strongly protecting their interests through continuous media reforms. For
the CCP, the slogan “arts are serving [for]the people,”38 established in
the 1940s, was gradually adjusted in the context of film marketisation to
strengthen the Chinese film industry.
2.2 Television Industry

In the context of Chinese screen media reform, the television industry, as
one component of the screen industry, has transformed its function from
a political broadcasting machine to multifunctional mass media. Taking
television drama as an example, China’s television industry has experi-
enced dramatic growth since the early 1990s. Annual drama production
has grown significantly both in terms of output and proliferation. China
Central Television (CCTV) launched its first drama serial, the nine-
episode Eighteen Years in the Enemy Camp (diying shibanian) in 1980.
At the same time, it also imported many serial dramas from the USA,
Japan, Hong Kong, and South America, such as the Japanese TV drama
Doubtful Blood Type, the American TV series Dynasty and Dallas, and
Huo Yuanjia from Hong Kong.39 From the 1980s on, many literary
classics were adapted and released through CCTV, including The Dream
of Red Chamber (红楼梦, honglou meng, 1986), Journey to the West (
西游记, xiyouji, 1987), The Romance of the Three Kingdoms (三国演义,
sanguo yanyi, 1994), and The Water Margin (水浒传, shuihu, 1998).
These dramas were also successful exports, becoming enormously popular
throughout East and Southeast Asia. For instance, in the mid-1990s,
36 Suzanne Xiao Yang, “Soft Power and the Strategic Context for China’s ‘Media Going
Global’ Policy,” in China’s Media Go Global, ed. Daya Kishan Thussu, Hugo De Burgh
and Anbin Shi (London: Routledge, 2018), 89.
37 Ying Zhu and Stanley Rosen, “Introduction,” in Art, Politics and Commerce in
Chinese Cinema, ed. Ying Zhu and Stanley Rosen (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University
Press, 2010), 8.
38 Zedong Mao, “Speech at the Yanan Forum on Literature and Art,” 2 May
1942, https://www.marxists.org/chinese/maozedong/marxist.org-chinese-mao-194205.
htm (Accessed 23 May 2018).
39 Ying Zhu, Television in Post-reform China: Serial Dramas, Confucian Leadership, and
the Global Television Market (London: Routledge, 2008), 8.
The Romance of the Three Kingdoms was widely screened in Japan,

Korea, Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Taiwan.40 CCTV
and some provincial-level stations began to produce their own televi-
sion dramas at the beginning of the 1990s. China’s first long serial
drama Yearnings (渴望, kewang ), produced by the Beijing Television Art
Centre, was released in 1990. It became the first Chinese TV drama
to highlight the domestic lives of ordinary Chinese people. Zhu Ying
points out that Yearnings ’ success firmly established the multi-episode
serial as a commercially viable format on Chinese primetime television.41
The 1990s, as a whole, became the pivotal era for the development of the
Chinese television drama.
Since the mid-1990s, costume dramas, in particular those about the
Qing dynasty (1644–1911), became popular. The first Qing drama was
the Hong Kong comedy Tales about Qianlong (戏说乾隆, xishuo Qian-
long, 1993), largely based on the Qianlong Emperor’s flirtations with
women, and it revealed amass appetite for costume drama. From the
late 1990s, CCTV and some other provincial stations produced many
historical dramas, including, Yongzheng Dynasty (雍正王朝, Yongzheng
wangchao, 1999), Kangxi Dynasty (康熙王朝, Kangxi wangchao, 2001),
Qianlong Dynasty (乾隆王朝, Qianlong wangchao, 2003), and The Great
Emperor Hanwu (汉武大帝, Hanwu dadi, 2004). These dramas usually
feature the lives of emperors, patrons, and courtiers in imperial China,
in a historical context that invariably includes government corruption
and the social sufferings of the people, as well as external threats from
foreign powers. For example, Yongzheng Dynasty portrays an upright
emperor, Yongzheng, in the Qing dynasty, who fights against corruption
and political nepotism. Zhu suggests that:
Nostalgic for this mythic era of upright rule, the Chinese viewing public
delighted in the contemporary relevance and palace politics of the new
dramas. Subjects and themes that would invite censorship if depicted in
contemporary settings—government’s corruption, political infighting and
22 Z. GU
power struggles, moral cynicism, public unrest, etc.—had a primetime

airing in revisionist Qing dramas.”42
Indeed, the historical period of Kangxi and Yongzheng emperors in

the Qing dynasty is depicted in television dramas as featuring an egal-
itarian economic society with exceptional prosperity and national unity.
This depiction, to some extent, reflected the Chinese government’s anti-
corruption campaign during the period of the late 1990s and early 2000s.
In this way, Qing dramas are used as a metaphor for the political situation
at the turn of the century and leading up to today.
Many television dramas were made by producers originating from
Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Korea. Michael Keane points out that there
are “many international businesses that are beating a trail to the Main-
land with co-productions and formats.”43 The 2000s saw a much greater
integration of pan-Asian markets. Chris Berry notes that media prod-
ucts can no longer be counted as the output of one nation: they may
be conceived in Taiwan or Hong Kong but made in Mainland China.44
In this sense, co-produced TV dramas between Hong Kong and the
Mainland, or Taiwan and the Mainland became eligible to be counted
as Chinese domestic productions. Seeing the commercial potential of the
Mainland China, many companies from Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Korea
set up their branches in Beijing, Shanghai, Hengdian, and Guangzhou,
or entered into various models of collaborative agreement with Mainland
companies.45 In the context of integrated pan-Asian TV drama markets,
the Chinese television drama (including TV documentary) has entered
the global media market as a serious competitor.
In 2004, the SARFT stopped authorising the founding of new media
groups and instead asked existing media collectives to separate their busi-
ness assets from television and radio stations in order to maintain the
43 Michael Keane, The Chinese Television Industry (London: BFI, 2015), 166.
44 Chris Berry, “Transnational Culture in East Asia and the Logic of Assemblage,”
Asian Journal of Social Science, 2014 (5): 453–470.
role of television and radio as public services.46 Furthermore, in 2009,

the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Televi-
sion (SAPPRFT), restructured based on the SARFT, issued “Suggestions
on Separation of Production and Broadcasting,” which ushered in a new
round of structural reform to television and radio broadcasting.47 Based
on this document, many Chinese provincial television stations were split
into two sectors: radio and television for public service (and propaganda),
and business. For instance, Hunan television station, founded in 1997 and
seen as one of the most successful provincial satellite stations, became
China’s first provincial-level consolidated media group in 2000.48 In
2010, it was divided into two sectors: Hunan Broadcasting System (radio
and television stations) and Hunan Mango International Media Group
(the business sector). Through this reform, the SARFT marketised the
Chinese television industry by expanding market access to allow private
and foreign investment entering the Chinese television industry (the busi-
ness sector). In the context of decentralisation, marketisation, and the
consequent expansion of China’s TV industry, the CCP offered more
freedom for the TV industry to develop itself.
The transcultural and global development of the Chinese television
industry can also be investigated in the context of the cultural “going
out” strategy. The Chinese government launched an economic strategy
“going out” in 1999,49 which was not only aimed at buying the neces-
sary resources from other countries, but also exporting China’s goods and
services. Through this policy, the Chinese government planned to support
its multinational companies to build their international brands. Following
the economic strategy “going out,” details of the cultural strategy of
“going out” were also launched on December 24, 2001. As Yu Hong
has noted, the first wave of strategies to expand soft power in the 2000s,
46 “National Conference on Radio, Film and Television,” The Chinese government, 22

December 2004, http://info.broadcast.hc360.com/list/zxzt-041223.shtml (Accessed 25
June 2018).
47 “Notice about Some Suggestions on Separation of Production and Broadcasting in
the Radio and Television Industries,” The Chinese Government, 7 April 2009, http://
www.gapp.gov.cn/govpublic/86/566.shtml (Accessed 25 June 2018).
48 Jianmin Zhang and Dingbin Zhou, “Current Situation, Problems and Future Trend
of Local Satellite TV Development,” China Television, 2011 (7): 54–57.
49 “Implementing the Strategy of ‘Going Out’,” The Chinese Government, 15 March
2006, http://www.gov.cn/node_11140/2006-03/15/content_227686.htm (Accessed 25
June 2018).
24 Z. GU
saw the SAPPRFT invest in CCTV, China Radio International, Xinhua

News Agency, and China Daily, as well as the establishment of Confu-
cius Institutes in universities around the world.50 The cultural “going
out” strategy was implemented for two reasons. First, at the turn of
the twenty-first century, a series of international events, including the
sovereignty handover of Hong Kong from the British to China (1997),
the sovereignty handover of Macau from Portugal to China (1999), the
hosting of the Beijing Olympics (2008), and China’s GDP achieving
second place worldwide (since 2010), all stimulated the rapid rise of
China’s international status. This further prompted Chinese political
leaders to pursue an improved international image which was consis-
tent with its economic power around the world. The CCP’s political
leaders repeatedly emphasised the importance of Chinese culture when
projecting images of China. For instance, on July 23, 2010, former Pres-
ident Hu Jintao (2002–2012) highlighted the importance of promoting
Chinese cultural brands and improving China’s international competi-
tiveness in the international cultural industry as a whole.51 President Xi
Jinping further proclaimed the advantages of innovatively using inter-
national media to communicate China’s voice to the world.52 In other
words, the discrepancy between China’s actual status and the status that
its leaders think it ought to have based on its economic status, stimulated
China’s policymakers to project a more diverse image to the world. In
this context, many advertisements conveying a positive image of China
were broadcast around the globe. For instance, a microfilm designed to
promote China’s national image was shown in Times Square, New York
City on January 17, 2011, which presented the country as prosperous,
democratic, civilised, and harmonious. Thus, conveying the Chinese soft
power has become a key national strategy in new domestic and inter-
national contexts where the Chinese government may set the agenda
through its culture and ideas rather than depending on economic carrots,
political sticks, or military threats.
50 Hong Yu, Networking China: The Digital Transformation of the Chinese Economy
(Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2017), 138–139.
51 Wen Liu and Guotao Zhang, “Saving the Time for China, Resonating with the
World—The Responsibility and Mission of CCTV Documentary,” Modern Media, 2011
(1): 79–81.
52 Jinping Xi, “The Speech at the Conference of Urbanization,” 14 December 2013,
http://www.gov.cn/ldhd/2013-12/14/content_2547880.htm (Accessed 25 June 2018).
This cultural “going out” was also expected to offset, to some extent,
international perceptions of China’s negative impact on international
affairs and global stability. Controversial topics, such as the CCP’s author-
itarian regime, China’s human rights record, and military expansion in
East Asia and Africa, brought about a negative impact on the Chinese
government. Furthermore, foreign media coverage of the riots in Tibet in
March 2008 was a turning point for the Chinese government, spurring its
determination to launch a full-blown image-building campaign.53 Former
President Hu Jintao pointed out that the main reason for the “anti-
China” tide was that the West had an advanced international broadcasting
system. In recognition of the huge international communication capacity,
the gap between China and the West was huge.54 The desire to combat
“negative comments” was the impetus for the Chinese government to
provide extra funding for its broadcasting system. Some state-run media,
such as CCTV and Xinhua News Agency, soon became primary platforms
for expanding China’s soft power in the world.55 William A. Callahan
points out that in the Opening Ceremony of the 2008 Olympic Games,
CCTV presented a peaceful, civilised China, one that is friendly with
the rest of the world.56 As the mouthpiece of the CCP and state tele-
vision broadcaster, CCTV undertakes the job of promoting China’s views
and vision to the wider world and countering negative portrayals of the
country in the US-dominated international media. An estimated seven
billion dollars was earmarked for external communication after the Tibet
coverage, including the expansion of Chinese broadcasting networks such
as CCTV-News and Xinhua’s English-language TV, CNC World.57 Given
that it was unrealistic to expect the West to promote China’s image on
its behalf, the expansion of CCTV to advocate on behalf of China and
53 Ying Zhu, Two Billion Eyes: The Story of China Central Television (New York: The
New Press, 2012), 174.
54 “The Report of The Third Plenary Session of the Seventeenth Congress,” The
Chinese Government, 13 October 2008, http://cpc.people.com.cn/GB/67481/94156/
135472/ (Accessed 25 June 2018).
New Press, 2012), 174.
56 William A Callahan, China: The Pessoptimist Nation (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2010), 4.
57 Daya Kishan Thussu, Hugo De Burgh and Anbin Shi, “Introduction,” in China’s
Media Go Global, ed. Daya Kishan Thussu, Hugo De Burgh and Anbin Shi, 1–2 (London:
Routledge, 2018).
26 Z. GU
Chinese culture overseas has become a vital part of the CCP’s “going
out” strategy.
China’s political and economic growth has driven the country to
pursue greater cultural influence over the world. Accordingly, CCTV
has built different types of broadcasting platforms to expand Chinese
voices overseas in the context of the cultural “going out” strategy. The
process of projecting a positive image of the Chinese government runs
in tandem with CCTV’s gradual marketisation and internationalisation.
Chwen Chwen Chen argues that “if we put it in the broader context of
China’s emergence as a global actor, CCTV’s expansion is a natural devel-
opment of China’s firms’ internationalisation strategies.”58 Chen believes
that the key to the success of CCTV going global is incorporating a well-
developed business model into its organisation and operation. CCTV has
implemented many strategies to propel its globalisation. For example,
CCTV-4’s overseas Chinese service was divided into three regional chan-
nels in 2007, namely, CCTV International Asia, International Europe,
and International America, while the original CCTV-9 became CCTV-
News (or CCTV-N) in 2010 to service English-speaking audiences.
Moreover, CCTV-French, Spanish, Arabic, and Russian channels were
established between 2004 and 2009 to target more international audi-
ences.59 In particular, CCTV-4 and CCTV-9 (Chinese and English) have
become the principal apparatus by which to broadcast China’s voices
around the world, starting with Western Europe and North America.60 In
this period, lots of television dramas and documentaries were produced by
CCTV to convey China’s soft power. For example, the twelve-part histor-
ical documentary series The Rise of the Great Powers (大国崛起, da guo
jueqi) was released on CCTV from November 13 to 24, 2006. It depicts
the evolution of European statecraft from monarchy to democracy and
examines nation-building and the territorial expansion of nine countries:
Portugal, Spain, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, France, Germany,
58 Chwen Chwen Chen, “CCTV Going Global in a Digital Scenario,” 17 November

2014, http://theasiadialogue.com/2014/11/17/cctv-going-global-in-a-digital-scenario-
some-reflections/ (Accessed 25 June 2018).
59 Junhao Hong and Youling Liu, “Internationalisation of China’s Television: History,
Development and New Trends,” in Routledge Handbook of Chinese Media, ed. Gary D.
Rawnsley and Ming-Yeh T. Rawnsley (Abingdon: Routledge, 2015), 430.
New Press, 2012), 172.
Japan, Russia, and the USA. The documentary highlights that histor-
ical events aligned with social stability, industrial investment, peaceful
foreign relations, and national unity are integral to the rise of great power.
Michael Keane suggests that the emphasis on these elements, rather than
“military strength, political liberalisation, or even the rule of law,” is
meant to publicise to the world that the rise of China is also a peaceful
one.61 Thus, CCTV’s The Rise of the Great Powers unveils China’s cultural
soft-power strategy to broadcast a peace-loving national image globally.
CCTV gradually expanded its international market share not only
by diversifying its channels, but also by cooperating with international
media. For example, CCTV has secured its position as a strategic collab-
orator with the BBC and has cooperated with the BBC to shoot three
documentaries—Wild China (2008), Africa (2013), and Hidden King-
doms (2014)—since 2008.62 CCTV has also signed deals with many
other international media organisations. For instance, in October 2001,
it expanded CCTV-9 into cable delivery and began to partner with global
media firms such as AOL, Time Warner, and News Corporation. By
giving Time Warner cable delivery and News Corporation’s BSkyB satel-
lite service limited access to the television market in Guangdong Province,
CCTV is able to access New York, Los Angeles, and Houston in the USA,
as well as some areas in Europe.63 Ming-Yeh T. Rawnsley suggests:
In addition to in-house production, CCTV has adopted three methods

to internationalise and upgrade its documentary profile in recent years,
namely procurement from foreign sources, coproduction and joint venture.
The advantageous resources, finance and an enormous market potential
have empowered the CCTV to be able to target at elite broadcasters as its
international partners, such as the BBC, Discovery Channel and National
Geographic.64
62 Tongdao Zhang and Lan Liu, “The Research Report of Chinese Documentary
Production in 2014,” Contemporary Cinema, 2015 (5): 103.
63 Yuezhi Zhao, “Transnational Capital, the Chinese State, and China’s Communication
Industries in a Fractured Society,” Javnost—The Public, 2003 (4): 56.
64 Ming-Yeh T. Rawnsley, “Reflections on the Transformation of CCTV Documentary,”
14 November 2014, http://theasiadialogue.com/2014/11/14/reflections-on-the-transf
ormation-of-cctv-documentary-2/ (Accessed 25 June 2018).
28 Z. GU
Through cooperation with the BBC and other reputable interna-

tional broadcasters, CCTV has gained credibility and experience in
documentary-making and has established itself as a major player in the
international TV documentary industry. It has adopted new practices
steeped in the tradition of Western journalism, introduced live studio
interviews, and made room for a greater diversity of opinion. Based on its
international broadcasting system, CCTV not only “presents a Chinese
perspective on issues that interest the world and reports world news
in a timely fashion,”65 but, more importantly, it learns advanced tools
for about media creation by cooperating with News Corporation, CNN,
BBC, and NHK. Berry has identified this situation as “the hegemony
of the party-state apparatus and the marketplace.”66 This suggests that
while an internationalised CCTV must put the CCP’s political impera-
tives as a priority, it also needs to survive according to market rules while
projecting its positive image overseas. In short, CCTV, as the mouth-
piece of China’s government, has carried out many strategies to identify
itself as a comprehensive broadcasting system through which to commu-
nicate Chinese stories, voices, and national images. In this context, CCTV
has further strengthened itself by cooperating and competing with other
international media companies. For the Chinese government, building
a modern broadcasting system through wide coverage has become an
urgent task to break the Western media monopoly, to defend against the
“theory of China’s threat,” and to achieve a higher status based on its
economic development.
In addition to CCTV, China’s provincial, municipal, and rural televi-
sion stations are also important components of its television broadcasting
system. One main difference between CCTV and provincial TV stations
is that as the main broadcasting system in China CCTV has a more
comprehensive and competitive method of communicating the Chinese
official voice. The provincial television stations perform a cooperative
and supplementary function in the aspect of projecting national images.
Since the late 1990s, and even more so after China joined the WTO,
65 John Jirik, “Marking News in the People’s Republic of China: The Case of CCTV-9”
(PhD Dissertation, The University of Texas at Austin, 2008), 103.
66 Chris Berry, “Shanghai Television’s Documentary Channel: Chinese Television as
Public Space,” in TV China, ed. Ying Zhu and Chris Berry (Bloomington: Indiana
the Chinese government has encouraged private and foreign compa-

nies to invest in its television industry. Chapter 5 will discuss CCTV’s
internationalisation through cooperation with foreign television stations,
coupled with its own innovation. China’s provincial television stations
have also undergone development. For instance, some large metropolitan
city television stations, including those in Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, and
Chongqing television stations have more creative autonomy now in terms
of finance, employment, and equipment management. Based on Chris
Berry’s investigation, advertising accounts for as much as 99% of the
revenue from Chinese television: “the Chinese provincial television has
been transformed from a medium owned and funded entirely by the
state to one owned by the state but funded by advertising.”67 These
metropolitan television stations promote their city’s culture through
commercial, participatory, and entertainment programmes. For example,
as Berry points out, Shanghai Television has multiple channels broad-
casting by cable and satellite to not only attract audiences from all over
China but also from Hong Kong.68
Compared to metropolitan television stations, some television stations
at municipal and county levels have adopted a different strategy to
attract audiences with lower socio-economic status. For example, some
of their programmes are aimed at providing practical assistance to ordi-
nary viewers who live in small cities or the Chinese countryside. After
analysing Let Me Help You (Bengbu Television Station, 2011), Wanning
Sun claims that the programme appeals to ordinary people (接地气, jie
diqi) and functions as a facilitator, enabler, and platform for the resolu-
tion of their everyday concerns.69 Meanwhile, the provincial TV industry
is somewhat competitive with CCTV. For example, SHTV, GZTV, and
QZTV, as an integrated whole, participated in the bidding for the docu-
mentary of Maritime Silk Road, supported by SAPPRFT, with CCTV

69 Wanning Sun, “Scaling Lifestyle in China: The Emergence of Local Television
Cultures and the Cultural Economy of Place-Making,” Media International Australia,
2013 (1): 65.
30 Z. GU
and other local television stations. Ultimately, SHTV, GZTV, and QZTV
won the bid.70 To some extent, these three provincial television stations
exploited their advantages to project the image of their cities and the
Chinese government’s BRI policy to the world.
2.3 Digital Industry

As a new component of the screen industry in China, The Internet
has achieved exponential growth since the new millennium, gradually
becoming a pillar of the industry. The development of China’s Internet
began in the mid-1990s, when China first became connected to the
Internet in April 1994.71 Sina (新浪, xinlang ), Sohu (搜狐, souhu), and
Netease (网易, wangyi) were the first of several Internet enterprises.
On March 10, 1999, Alibaba.com, the first Business to Business (B2B)
website in China, went online amid much media attention. In less than
a year, it made a significant impact on China’s emerging e-commerce
market. At the same time, the Chinese government carried out a series
of important initiatives to embrace the Internet revolution; as a result,
the online industry has grown quickly in the past few years.
Since the new millennium, China has witnessed the rise of Weibo,
Wechat, and other new media platforms. The public space created by
these social media champions a burgeoning field for discussion and the
sharing of information, with the solid support of a mobile network infras-
tructure. This wealth of new media facilitated by Internet technologies
has rapidly entered people’s daily lives, a phenomenon that has entirely
remoulded social relations. According to statistics from Zhang Xiaoming,
from 2004 to 2010, the value of China’s Internet-related cultural indus-
tries grew from US$ 55 billion to US$ 173 billion, representing an
increase of US$ 118 billion, an average annual increase rate of 23.6%.72
In particular, Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent, and other Internet giants have
70 Wei Zhang, “Seven Episodes Documentary Maritime Silk Road Is Coming,” Docu-
mentary New, 1 February 2016, http://www.docuchina.tv/show_news.aspx?News_Id=
188&CateId=7&order=215&ParentId=5 (Accessed 21 June 2018).
71 Fengshu Liu, Urban Youth in China: Modernity, the Internet and the Self (Abingdon:
Routledge, 2011), 35.
72 Xiaoming Zhang, “The Cultural Industries in China: A Historical Overview,” in
Handbook of Cultural and Creative Industries in China, ed. Michael Keane, 108–109
(Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2016).
entered the core fields of the cultural industries: many new Internet
“innovations,” such as Internet novels, Internet music, “Internet big
film” (网络大电影, wangluo dadianying ),73 and other “we media” (自
媒体, zi meiti), have been generated by these Internet enterprises. By the
end of December 2018, the number of online video users in China was
612 million.74 Online videos, including Internet big film, Internet drama,
and microfilm, show a booming development trend and have become a
core pillar of the entertainment industry network.75
When Chinese economic development faced this “new normal” after
the financial crisis of 2008,76 many policies for promoting the devel-
opment of the cultural industry and Internet enterprises were issued,
and these, in turn, facilitated the rise of China’s cultural industries as
a new economic pillar and support for economic transformation and
restructuring. In March 2015, the Chinese government issued a policy
of “Internet Plus” which integrated the Internet technology with tradi-
tional industries, as part of the national strategic plan to transform China’s
industrial and economic structure from labour-intensive to a service
economy.77 The Internet in China has become a more tangible and politi-
cised technology and platform than other media formats such as television
and film. It can connect with the film and TV industries to create a space
73 The time of the internet big film is more than 60 minutes but is shorter than
normal films. It is produced by a professional crew and has an integrated narrative. It is
broadcasted through the Internet and the content should comply with relevant policies
and regulations.
74 “Statistical Report on the Development of China’s Internet,” China Internet
Network Information Centre, December 2018, http://www.cac.gov.cn/wxb_pdf/022
8043.pdf (Accessed 26 March 2019).
75 “2018 Research Report on the Development of Audio-Visual Network in China,”
China Netcasting Services Association, November 2018, http://www.cnsa.cn/index.php/
industry/industry_week.html (Accessed 26 March 2019).
76 New Normal is a term in business and economics that refers to financial conditions
following the financial crisis of 2007–2008 and the aftermath of the 2008–2012 global
recession. The term has since been used in a variety of other contexts to imply that
something which was previously abnormal has become commonplace. Jing Zhang and
Jian Chen, “Introduction to China’s New Normal Economy,” Journal of Chinese Economic
and Business Studies, 2017 (1): 1–4.
77 “Guiding Opinions of the State Council on Promoting Internet Plus Action,” The
Chinese Government, 1 July 2015, http://www.gov.cn/zhengce/content/2015-07/04/
content_10002.htm (Accessed 26 March 2019).
32 Z. GU
in which multiple agents with different interests may exert their influ-
ences. As Keane suggests, “the transformation that we are now witnessing,
from ‘Made in China’ to ‘Created in China,’ illustrates the state’s focus
on ‘independent innovation’ diffused within regional policy, allowing and
encouraging new networks and alliances between government, individ-
uals, small and medium enterprises and international finance.”78 Indeed,
the Internet plus policy has become a next-generation social infrastructure
that may change traditional industries profoundly, while at the same time
promoting the competitiveness, productivity, and creativity of traditional
enterprises.
With the rapid development of the Chinese Internet industry, in recent
years, the mobile short video industry is also in a period of explosive
development, and has played a unique role in the international commu-
nication of Chinese culture. Short video is a kind of Internet content,
normally less than five minutes long, and transformed by mobile phones.
With the advent of 5G, these short videos are produced mainly relying on
rapid shooting, beautification, and editing, through which they are shared
quickly on social media platforms. Short video integrates text, language,
and video, which is able to meet user needs for expression, communica-
tion, display, and sharing. The audiovisual content represented by Li Ziqi,
Ding Zhen, and other network personalities strives to create a credible,
amiable, and respectable image of Chinese people, and thus encourage
overseas audiences to focus on Chinese culture. As a new communica-
tional carrier after text, picture, and traditional television and film, short
video has become a new tool for netizens to show their daily lives,
record social upheavals, and shape social culture. By December 2021, the
number of short video users in China was 934 million, accounting for
90.5% of the total number of Internet users.79 In 2020, applications of
short video are booming in the overseas market. For example, the popu-
larity of Chinese-owned video-sharing service TikTok has spread across
the Internet to form a network social circle that has penetrated deeply
and spread widely overseas.
78 Michael Keane, Created in China: The Great New Leap Forward (Abingdon:
Routledge, 2007), 21.
79 The 49th Statistical Report on the Development of China’s Internet Network, China
Internet Network Information Center, 25 February 2022, http://www.cnnic.cn/hlwfzyj/
hlwxzbg/hlwtjbg/202202/P020220407403488048001.pdf (Accessed 26 March 2022).
TikTok is especially popular with teens and young adults. Young people
in China are using the service during the COVID-19 quarantine to stave
off boredom and communicate with friends. The app lets users create
and share short videos, many of which are under fifteen seconds. It offers
sounds, parts of songs, and special effects to help make these videos,
which often include popular songs from well-known artists (TikTok has
even helped launch the careers of new music stars). Many TikTok-based
memes go viral. In this regard, TikTok can be read as a mimetic text;
imitation and replication—the driving forces of mimesis—are latent in its
platform design.80 ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company, used its large
and increasingly demanding home market to experiment with creative
combinations of business model elements. Through this experimenta-
tion, it has developed a unique business proposition that positions the
TikTok app as a hybrid of social networking and video-sharing.81 The
successful development of Douyin, TikTok’s Chinese edition, has been
supported by China’s IT strength, national high-tech policy, and AI-
based recommendation algorithm. ByteDance used its domestic market
as an experimentation lab, testing various elements of its business model
before implementing them abroad. Based on these domestic experiences,
the international edition of TikTok launched a localisation strategy for
global products through business model innovation. To a large extent,
the short video and its platform extend the folk narrative mode, excavate
the rich connotations and empathy value of Chinese culture from multiple
angles, and enable foreign users to intuitively feel the charm of Chinese
culture.
While China’s short videos and platforms are popular around the
world, and have played an important role in telling Chinese stories
and communicating Chinese culture, they have also faced bans overseas
for communicating the CCP’s ideologies or for their ostensibly absurd
and vulgar images. For example, US former President Donald Trump
accused TikTok of being a national security risk, claiming that it and its
Chinese parent ByteDance could access user data and deliver it to Chinese
80 Diana Zulli and David James Zulli, “Extending the Internet Meme: Conceptualizing
Technological Mimesis and Imitation Publics on the TikTok Platform,” New Media &
Society, 2021 (1): 1–19.
81 Yulun Ma and Yue Hu, “Business Model Innovation and Experimentation in Trans-
forming Economies: ByteDance and TikTok,” Management and Organization Review,
2021 (2): 382–388.
34 Z. GU
intelligence services, although TikTok has denied ties to the Chinese

government and claims its servers are inaccessible to Beijing. While
China’s ongoing Internet revolution faces some scepticism and suspicion
abroad, it has won enthusiastic support from its own government, which
sees the Internet as a golden opportunity for another Chinese economic
success.
In short, a major media policy changed at the state level in the late
1980s, which allowed private and non-media entities to produce and
distribute films, television dramas, and other digital media. The primary
functions of screen media also shifted radically, away from propaganda and
mass mobilisation and towards information dissemination, cultural enrich-
ment, and entertainment.82 The ascension of screen industries reflects
technological, economic, and political changes in China, and they have
become a lucrative vehicle for public and private firms to turn quick profits
in the context of China’s post-socialism.
2.4 Ideological Control

The prosperity of the screen industry does not mean that the CCP’s
control has weakened or withdrawn from Chinese media, but rather
shows a managed process of institutional adjustment through which the
CCP not only maintains the legitimacy of the regime but further stimu-
lates the growth of the Chinese screen industry. Zhao Yuezhi argues that
“based on lessons learned from the outbreak of the pro-democracy move-
ment in 1989 in China and the collapse of Eastern European communism
and the Soviet Union, wherein the political liberalization of the media
was believed to be a major contributing factor, the party set out to
reassert media control and upgrade its ruling technologies in the post-
1989 era.”83 Thus, the reform period has been identified not only as an
era of rapid development for the screen industry, but also as a time when
the state’s entire propaganda apparatus has been strengthened.
This tightened media control is evident in film, TV drama, and the
Internet. More specifically, the genre of “main-melody film and TV
drama” is a genre that performs the CCP’s propaganda function, through
82 Ying Zhu, Television in post-reform China: Serial Dramas, Confucian Leadership, and
83 Yuezhi Zhao, Communication in China: Political Economy, Power, and Conflict
(Lanham, MD; Plymouth: Rowman & Littlefield, 2008), 3.
which the party continues to convey its core values and consolidate its
legitimacy.84 Former Chinese President Jiang Zemin summarised that
Chinese films should present the “spirits of the time” (Zeitgeist, 时代
精神, shidai jingshen) of “patriotism, socialism and collectivism.”85 From
1995 to 2000, 80–100 movies were produced each year. Approximately
80% could be categorised as “main-melody films” that communicate
the party’s ideology in post-socialist China.86 Through these films, the
CCP continued to maintain its ideological control. Mary Lynne Calkins
claims that the promotional nature of the main-melody film is to “show
post-liberation China in a positive light.” When representing “the true
contradiction in life,” these films suggest that the contradiction should
and can be solved.87 In other words, while these films are allowed to
present social darkness, they need to present solutions that display the
superiority of the socialist system. In the context of the media “going out”
strategy, films, TV dramas, and documentaries did obtain more freedom
in terms of development, but as Sun suggests, China’s provincial tele-
vision networks are owned and funded by the government at various
strata. They use one political voice and promote an identical image of the
Chinese nation.88 Therefore, a documentary that has been produced by
a provincial television station may still propagandise the Chinese govern-
ment’s voice abroad. Similarly, other Chinese screen media also undertake
a political function as the Chinese government’s mouthpiece in order to
84 These films normally restore through a number of methods to project CCP’s images
through adapting Chinese revolution under the Party’s leadership from 1920 to 1949,
the anti-Japanese war and the anti-imperialist battles against Western invaders since the
Opium War, the positive portrayal of Communist Party cadres and their dedication to
serving the people after 1949, the “dedication films” that commemorates the anniversary
of the founding of the People’s Republic of China and the Chinese Communist Party,
and the constructed neo-Confucian ideas, morals, and virtues.
85 Hua Xiao, “The Discussion of the Unification of Patriotism, Collectivism and
Socialism,” Journal of Nanchang University, 1995 (1): 30–34.
87 Mary Lynne Calkins, “Censorship in Chinese Cinema,” Hastings Communications
and Entertainment Law Journal, 1998 (2): 307.
88 Wanning Sun, “Scaling Lifestyle in China: The Emergence of Local Television
Cultures and the Cultural Economy of Place-Making,” Media International Australia,
2013 (1): 63.
Another random document with
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Näen taivaanrannalla lyijynkarvaisen pilven ja sen ympärillä
punaisen hohteen, kuin tulipalon kajasteen.
Ihmisen poika, mitä näet vielä?
Näen meren nostavan aaltojaan ja vuorten liikuttavan huippujaan.
Näen virtojen muuttavan kulkunsa suuntaa, kukkulain huojuvan ja

sortuvan ja täyttävän laaksot.
Kaikki järkkyy, kaikki liikkuu, kaikki muuttuu uuteen muotoon.
Näen tomupilviä kaukana, ja ne liikkuvat joka taholle ja törmäävät

vastakkain ja yhtyvät ja sekoittuvat. Ne kulkevat kaupunkien yli, ja
kun ne ovat kulkeneet ohi, niin ei näy enää muuta kuin tasanko.
Näen kansojen nousevan kapinaan ja kuningasten kalpenevan

kruunujensa alla. Sota on heidän keskuudessaan, sota viimeiseen
vereen saakka.
Näen valtaistuimen, kaksi valtaistuinta murskana, ja kansat

sirottelevat niiden sirpaleita pitkin maata.
Näen erään kansan taistelevan niinkuin ylienkeli Mikael taisteli

Saatanaa vastaan. Sen iskut ovat hirvittäviä, mutta se on alastonna,
ja sen vihollista suojaavat paksut varukset.
Oi Jumala! Se kaatuu; se on saanut kuoliniskun. Ei, se on vain

haavoitettu; Maria, Neitsyt-Äiti, kietoo sen vaippaansa, hymyilee sille
ja vie sen vähäksi aikaa pois taistelun alueelta.
Näen toisen kansan kamppailevan hellittämättä ja ammentavan
yhä uusia voimia tästä taistelusta. Tällä kansalla on Kristuksen
merkki sydämensä päällä.
Näen kolmannen kansan, jonka kuusi kuningasta on polkenut

jalkansa alle, ja joka kerta kun se liikahtaa, kuusi väkipuukkoa uppoo
sen kurkkuun.
Näen suuren rakennuksen päällä, hyvin korkealla ilmassa ristin,

jota tuskin voin eroittaa, koska se on mustan harson peittämä.
Näen Idän joutuvan sisäiseen sekasortoon. Se näkee muinaisten

palatsiensa luhistuvan, vanhain temppelien sortuvan soraksi, ja se
kohottaa katseensa kuin etsiäkseen toisia mahteja ja toista Jumalaa.
Näen Lännen puolella ylväskatseisen, kirkasotsaisen naisen; hän

kyntää lujin käsin kepeästi vakoa, ja kaikkialta, missä aurankärki
kulkee, näen nousevan ihmis-sukupolvia, jotka huutavat häntä
avuksensa rukouksissaan ja siunaavat häntä lauluissansa. Näen
Pohjoisessa ihmisiä, joilla on enää jäljellä vain vähäisen lämpöä,
joka on keskittyneenä heidän päähänsä ja joka sitä huumaa; mutta
Kristus koskettaa heitä ristillänsä, ja sydän alkaa sykkiä.
Näen Etelässä ihmisheimoja vaipuneina en tiedä minkä kirouksen

alaisiksi: jokin raskas ies heitä painaa; he käyvät kumarassa; mutta
Kristus koskettaa heitä ristillänsä, ja he ojentavat jälleen vartalonsa.
Hän ei vastaa; huutakaamme uudelleen:

Ihmisen poika, mitä näet?
Näen Saatanan pakenevan ja Kristuksen enkeliensä ympäröimänä

tulevan hallitsemaan.
III
Ja minut siirrettiin hengessä muinaisaikoihin, ja maa oli kaunis ja

rikas ja hedelmällinen; ja sen asukkaat elivät onnellisina, sillä he
elivät veljinä.
Ja näin Käärmeen hiipivän heidän keskellensä: se loi moniin

heistä mahtavan katseensa, ja heidän sielunsa kävi levottomaksi, ja
he lähestyivät, ja Käärme kuiskasi jotakin heidän korviinsa.
Ja kuunneltuaan Käärmeen puhetta he nousivat ja sanoivat: "Me

olemme kuninkaita."
Ja aurinko kalpeni, ja maa muuttui murheen väriseksi, käärinliinan

väriseksi, joka verhoo kuolleita.
Ja kuului tukahdutettu nurina, pitkä valituksen ääni, ja jokainen

vapisi sielussaan.
Totisesti, sanon minä teille, oli kuin sinä päivänä, jolloin hornan
kuilu mursi sulkunsa, ja jolloin suurten vesien paisumus tulvi yli
äyräittensä.
Pelko kulki majasta majaan, sillä ei ollut vielä palatseja, ja se

kertoi jokaiselle salaisuuksia, jotka häntä pöyristyttivät.
Ja ne, jotka olivat sanoneet: "Me olemme kuninkaita", ottivat
miekan ja seurasivat Pelkoa mökistä mökkiin.
Ja siellä tapahtui kummia mysteerioita, ja siellä oli kahleita, itkuja

ja verta.
Kauhun valtaamina ihmiset huudahtivat: "Murha on jälleen

ilmestynyt maailmaan." Ja siinä kaikki, sillä Pelko oli tyrmistyttänyt
heidän sielunsa ja lamauttanut liikkumattomiksi heidän käsivartensa.
Ja he antoivat panna itsensä rautoihin, itsensä, vaimonsa ja

lapsensa. Ja ne, jotka olivat sanoneet: "Me olemme kuninkaita",
kaivoivat ikäänkuin suuren onkalon, ja he sulkivat siihen koko
ihmissuvun, niinkuin suljetaan elukoita läävään.
Ja myrsky ajeli pilviä, ja ukkonen jylisi, ja minä kuulin äänen

sanovan: "Käärme on voittanut toistamiseen, mutta ei ainiaaksi."
Sen jälkeen en kuullut enää muuta kuin epäselviä ääniä, nauruja,

nyyhkytyksiä, herjauksia.
Ja minä ymmärsin, että täytyi olla Saatanan valtakunta ennen

Jumalan valtakuntaa. Ja minä itkin ja toivoin.
Ja näky, jonka räin, oli tosi, sillä Saatanan valtakunta on

toteutunut, ja Jumalan valtakunta on myös toteutuva; ja ne, jotka
sanoivat: "Me olemme kuninkaita", suljetaan vuorostaan onkaloon
yhdessä Käärmeen kanssa, ja ihmissuku pääsee siitä pois; ja silloin
on siinä tapahtuva ikäänkuin uusi syntyminen, ikäänkuin siirtyminen
kuolemasta elämään. Tapahtukoon niin!
IV
Te olette saman isän poikia, ja sama äiti on teitä imettänyt; miksi ette
siis rakasta toisianne niinkuin veljet, ja miksi päinvastoin kohtelette
toisianne pikemmin niinkuin vihollisia?
Ken ei rakasta veljeänsä, se on kirottu seitsemän kertaa, ja ken

rupeaa veljensä viholliseksi, se on kirottu seitsemänkymmentä
kertaa seitsemän kertaa.
Siitä syystä kuninkaat ja ruhtinaat ja kaikki ne, joita maailma

kutsuu mahtaviksi, on kirottu: he eivät ole rakastaneet veljiänsä, ja
he ovat kohdelleet heitä niinkuin vihollisia.
Rakastakaa toisianne, ja teidän ei tarvitse pelätä ei mahtavia eikä

ruhtinaita eikä kuninkaita.
He ovat voimakkaita teitä vastaan vain siksi, että te ette ole

liittyneet yhteen, vain siksi, ettette rakasta toisianne niinkuin veljiä.
Älkää sanoko: "Tuo mies on toista kansaa, ja minä olen toista."

Sillä kaikilla kansoilla on ollut maan päällä sama isä, joka on Aatami,
ja heillä on taivaassa sama isä, joka on Jumala.
Jos yhtä jäsentä lyödään, niin koko ruumis kärsii. Te olette kaikki
yhtä samaa ruumista: ei voida sortaa yhtä teistä, niin ettei sorrettaisi
kaikkia.
Jos susi hyökkää karjalaumaan, niin se ei syö sitä suuhunsa

kokonaan heti paikalla: se tempaa yhden lampaan ja syö sen. Sitten,
kun sen taas on tullut nälkä, se tempaa toisen ja syö sen, ja niin
viimeiseen asti, sillä sen nälkä uusiutuu yhä.
Älkää olko niinkuin lampaat, jotka, kun susi on temmannut pois
yhden niistä, pelästyvät hetkiseksi, mutta sitten rupeavat jälleen
syömään. Sillä, ajattelevat ne, ehkäpä se tyytyy ensimmäiseen tahi
toiseen saaliiseensa. Ja mitäpä minun tarvitsee välittää niistä, jotka
se syö suuhunsa? Mitäpä haittaa siitä minulle on? Minulle jää siten
vain enemmän ruohoa.
Totisesti, minä sanon teille: Ne, jotka mielessään niin miettivät,

ovat merkityt joutumaan sen pedon ruuaksi, joka elää lihasta ja
verestä.
Kun näette miestä vietävän vankilaan tahi mestattavaksi, niin älkää

kiirehtikö sanomaan: "Tuo on häijy mies, joka on tehnyt rikoksen
ihmisiä vastaan."
Sillä kenties se on kelpo mies, joka on tahtonut palvella ihmisiä ja

jota heidän sortajansa senvuoksi rankaisevat.
Kun näette kansan lyötynä rautoihin ja jätettynä tyrannin valtoihin,

niin älkää kiiruhtako sanomaan: "Tuo kansa on väkivaltainen kansa,
joka tahtoi häiritä rauhaa maan päällä."
Sillä kenties se on marttyyrikansa, joka kuolee ihmiskunnan

pelastukseksi.
Kahdeksantoista vuosisataa sitten sen ajan ylimmäiset papit ja

kuninkaat naulitsivat eräässä Idän kaupungissa ristille kapinoitsijan,
Jumalan herjaajan, joksi he häntä sanoivat, ruoskittuaan häntä
raipoilla.
Hänen kuolemansa päivänä oli suuri pelko helvetissä ja suuri ilo

taivaassa.
Sillä vanhurskaan veri oli pelastanut maailman.
VI
Minkätähden eläimet löytävät ravintonsa kukin lajinsa mukaan?

Sentähden, ettei mikään niistä ryöstä toisen ravintoa, ja että jokainen
tyytyy siihen, mikä riittää sen tarpeisiin.
Jos mehiläispesässä yksi mehiläinen sanoisi: Kaikki täällä oleva

hunaja on minun, ja sitten ryhtyisi menettelemään oman päänsä
mukaan yhteisen työn hedelmillä, niin miten kävisi muiden
mehiläisten?
Maa on kuin suuri mehiläispesä, ja ihmiset ovat kuin mehiläiset.
Jokaisella mehiläisellä on oikeus siihen hunajamäärään, mikä on

välttämätön sen toimeentulolle, ja jos ihmisten joukossa on niitä,
joilta puuttuu tuo välttämätön määrä, niin se tulee siitä, että oikeus ja
lähimmäisen rakkaus ovat hävinneet heidän keskuudestaan. Oikeus,
se on elämä; ja lähimmäisen rakkaus, se on myöskin elämä, vieläpä
suloisempi ja runsaampi elämä.
On ollut vääriä profeettoja, jotka ovat saaneet uskotelluksi

muutamille ihmisille, että kaikki muut olivat syntyneet heitä varten; ja
mitä nämä uskoivat sen uskoivat muutkin noiden väärien profeettain
sanan nojalla.
Kun tämä valheen sana pääsi voitolle, niin enkelit taivaassa itkivät,
sillä he aavistivat, että paljon väkivaltaisuuksia, paljon rikoksia ja
paljon kärsimyksiä tulisi tulvimaan maan päälle.
Ihmiset ovat, tasa-arvoisina keskenään, syntyneet yksin Jumalaa

varten, ja jos kuka väittää jotakin päinvastaista, niin hän herjaa
Jumalaa.
Ken tahtoo olla suurin joukossanne, se olkoon teidän palvelijanne;

ja ken tahtoo olla ensimmäinen joukossanne, se olkoon kaikkien
palvelija.
Jumalan laki on rakkauden laki, ja rakkaus ei ylennä itseänsä

toisten yläpuolelle, vaan se uhrautuu toisten hyväksi.
Ken sanoo sydämessään: Minä en ole niinkuin muut ihmiset, vaan

muut ihmiset ovat annetut minulle, minun käskettävikseni ja jotta
minä mieleni mukaan käyttäisin heitä ja sitä mikä on heidän
omaansa, se on Saatanan poika.
Ja Saatana on tämän maailman kuningas, sillä hän on kaikkien

niiden kuningas, jotka niin ajattelevat ja toimivat; ja ne, jotka niin
ajattelevat ja toimivat, ovat hänen neuvostaan ruvenneet maailman
herroiksi.
Mutta heidän valtakuntansa on pysyvä vain jonkun aikaa, ja sen

ajan loppu on lähellä.
Tullaan taistelemaan suuri taistelu, ja oikeuden enkeli ja

rakkauden enkeli tulevat taistelemaan niiden puolella, jotka ovat
asestautuneet perustaakseen; jälleen ihmisten keskuuteen oikeuden
valtakunnan ja rakkauden valtakunnan.
Ja monet kaatuvat tässä taistelussa, ja heidän nimensä on pysyvä

maan päällä niinkuin Jumalan kunnian säde.
Sentähden, te, jotka kärsitte, rohkaiskaa mielenne, karkaiskaa

sydämenne, sillä huomenna on oleva koettelemuksen päivä, päivä,
jolloin jokaisen tulee antaa ilomielin henkensä veljiensä puolesta, ja
seuraava päivä on oleva vapautuksen päivä.
VII
Kun puu seisoo yksinään, niin tuulet sitä pieksävät ja riistävät siltä
sen lehdet; ja sen oksat, sen sijaan että kohoaisivat ylöspäin,
painuvat alas, ikäänkuin etsisivät maata.
Kun kasvi seisoo yksin, löytämättä mitään suojaa auringon

paahdetta vastaan, niin se riutuu ja kuihtuu ja kuolee.
Kun ihminen on yksin, niin mahdin tuuli painaa hänet kumaraan

maata kohti, ja tämän maailman mahtavain polttavat pyyteet imevät
hänestä mehun, joka hänet ravitsee.
Älkää siis olko niinkuin kasvi ja niinkuin puu, jotka seisovat yksin,
vaan liittykää toisiinne ja tukekaa toisianne ja suojatkaa toisianne
keskenänne.
Niin kauan kuin ette ole liittyneet yhteen ja niin kauan kuin kukin
ajattelee vain itseänsä, ei teillä ole mitään muuta toivottavana kuin
kärsimystä ja onnettomuutta ja sortoa.
Onko mitään heikompaa kuin varpunen, mitään aseettomampaa

kuin pääskynen? Ja kuitenkin, kun petolintu näyttäytyy, pääskyset ja
varpuset saavat sen karkoitetuksi, kokoontumalla sen ympärille ja
ajamalla sitä takaa kaikki yhdessä.
Ottakaa esikuvaksenne varpunen ja pääskynen.
Ken eristäytyy veljistään, sitä seuraa pelko hänen käydessään,

istuutuu hänen viereensä hänen levätessään eikä heitä häntä edes
hänen nukkuessaan.
Siis, jos teiltä kysytään: "Montako teitä on?" niin vastatkaa: "Meitä
on yksi, sillä meidän veljemme ovat me, ja me olemme meidän
veljemme."
Jumala ei ole luonut pieniä eikä suuria, ei herroja eikä orjia, ei

kuninkaita eikä alamaisia: hän on luonut kaikki ihmiset
yhdenarvoisiksi.
Mutta ihmisistä on muutamilla enemmän joko ruumiin tahi hengen

tahi tahdon voimaa; juuri ne koettavat laskea valtansa alle muut, kun
ylpeys tahi ahneus tukahduttavat heissä rakkauden heidän veljiinsä.
Ja Jumala tiesi, että niin kävisi, ja siitä syystä hän käski ihmisiä
rakastamaan toisiansa, jotta he olisivat yksimielisiä ja heikommat
eivät joutuisi vahvojen sorron alaisiksi.
Sillä ken on vahvempi kuin yksi yksinäinen, se on kai heikompi

kuin kaksi, ja ken on vahvempi kuin kaksi, on heikompi kuin neljä; ja
niin heikkojen ei tarvitse pelätä mitään, kun he, rakastaen toisiansa,
ovat todella yksimieliset.
Eräs mies matkusti vuoristossa, ja hän saapui erääseen paikkaan,
jossa suuri kallionlohkare oli vierinyt tielle ja täytti sen kokonaan, ja
ulkopuolella tien ei ollut mitään ohipääsyn mahdollisuutta, ei
vasemmalla eikä oikealla.
Kun nyt tuo mies näki, ettei hän voinut jatkaa matkaansa
kallionlohkareen tähden, niin hän koetti saada sen pois siirretyksi,
raivatakseen itselleen tien, ja hän väsytti itsensä kovin tässä työssä,
ja kaikki hänen ponnistuksensa olivat turhat.
Tämän nähdessään hän istuutui murhemielin ja sanoi: "Miten

minun on käyvä, kun yö tulee ja yllättää minut tässä yksinäni, vailla
ruokaa, vailla suojaa, ilman mitään puolustusta hetkellä, jolloin
raatelevat pedot lähtevät liikkeelle etsimään saalistaan?"
Ja hänen ollessaan vaipuneena tähän ajatukseen, tuli paikalle

toinen matkamies, ja tehtyään samoin kuin ensimmäinen ja
huomattuaan itsensä yhtä voimattomaksi saamaan liikkeelle
kallionlohkaretta, hän vaipui äänetönnä istumaan ja painoi päänsä
alas.
Ja tämän jälkeen tuli useampia muita, eikä kukaan voinut saada

liikkumaan kallionlohkaretta, ja kaikkien heidän pelkonsa oli suuri.
Vihdoin heistä muuan sanoi toisille: "Veljeni, rukoilkaamme

Isäämme, joka on taivaissa: ehkä hän armahtaa meitä tässä
hädässä."
Ja tätä puhetta kuunneltiin, ja he rukoilivat hartaasti Isää, joka on

taivaissa.
Ja heidän rukoiltuaan se, joka oli sanonut: "Rukoilkaamme", sanoi
vielä: "Veljeni, mitä kukaan meistä ei voinut tehdä yksin, sen kenties
saamme tehdyksi kaikki yhdessä."
Ja he nousivat ja työnsivät kaikki yhdessä kallionlohkaretta, ja

kallionlohkare väistyi ja he jatkoivat matkaansa rauhassa.
Tuo matkamies, se on ihminen, matka on elämä, kallionlohkare on

ne kurjuudet, joita hän tapaa joka askeleella matkansa varrella.
Ei yksikään ihminen voi yksin nostaa pois sitä kallionlohkaretta,

mutta Jumala on mitannut sen painon niin, ettei se koskaan saa
pysähdytetyksi niitä, jotka matkustavat yhdessä.
VIII
Alussa työ ei ollut välttämätöntä ihmiselle hänen elääksensä: maa

tuotti hänelle itsestään kaikki, mitä hän tarvitsi.
Mutta ihminen teki pahaa; ja samoin kuin hän oli noussut kapinaan
Jumalaa vastaan, samoin maa nousi kapinaan häntä vastaan.
Hänen kävi niinkuin käy lapsen, joka niskoittelee isäänsä vastaan;

isä riistää häneltä rakkautensa ja jättää hänet oman onnensa nojaan;
ja talon palvelijat kieltäytyvät palvelemasta häntä, ja hän kulkee
etsien sieltä täältä niukan elantonsa ja syöden leipää, jonka hän on
ansainnut otsansa hiessä.
Siitä pitäen siis Jumala on tuominnut kaikki ihmiset työhön, ja

kaikilla on työnsä, joko ruumiillinen tai henkinen; ja ne, jotka sanovat:
"Minä en tee työtä", ovat kaikkein onnettomimmat.
Sillä niinkuin madot kalvavat kuollutta ruumista, niin paheet

kalvavat heitä, ja jolleivät sitä tee paheet, niin sen tekee ikävä.
Ja kun Jumala tahtoi, että ihminen tekisi työtä, niin hän kätki
työhön aarteen, sillä hän on isä, ja isän rakkaus ei kuole.
Ja ken käyttää hyvin tätä aarretta eikä tuhlaa sitä mielettömästi,

sille tulee levon aika, ja silloin hän on niinkuin ihmiset olivat alussa.
Ja Jumala antoi heille vielä tämän käskyn: "Auttakaa toisianne,

sillä joukossanne on vahvempia ja heikompia, raihnaisia ja terveitä;
ja kuitenkin kaikkien pitää elää."
Ja jos te niin teette, niin kaikki voivat elää, sillä minä olen
palkitseva säälin, jota te olette osoittaneet veljillenne, ja olen tekevä
teidän hikenne hedelmälliseksi.
Ja minkä Jumala on luvannut, se on aina toteutunut, eikä koskaan

ole nähty sen, joka auttaa veljiänsä, olevan leivän puutteessa.
Mutta olipa muinoin eräs häijy ja Taivaan kiroama mies. Ja se

mies oli voimakas, ja hän vihasi työtä, niin että hän sanoi itsekseen:
"Mitä minun pitää tehdä? Jos en tee työtä, niin kuolen, ja työ on
minulle sietämätöntä."
Silloin hiipi helvetillinen ajatus hänen sydämeensä. Hän lähti yön

aikana ja otti kiinni muutamia veljistänsä heidän nukkuessaan ja pani
heidät raskaisiin kahleisiin.
"Sillä", sanoi hän, "minä pakoitan heidät raipoilla ja ruoskalla

tekemään työtä minua varten, ja minä syön heidän työnsä
hedelmän".
Ja hän teki niinkuin oli ajatellut, ja toiset, sen nähdessään, tekivät

samoin, eikä ollut enää veljiä, oli herroja ja orjia.
Se oli murheen päivä yli koko maan.
Kauan aikaa sen jälkeen oli toinen mies, vielä häijympi kuin
ensimmäinen ja vielä enemmän Taivaan kiroama. Nähdessään, että
ihmisten lukumäärä kaikkialla oli kasvanut monin kerroin, ja että
heidän paljoutensa oli lukematon, hän sanoi itsekseen:
"Voisin ehkä kyllä panna kahleisiin muutamia heistä ja pakoittaa

heidät tekemään työtä minua varten; mutta täytyisi ruokkia heidät, ja
se vähentäisi voittoani. Keksikäämme parempi keino! Tehkööt he
työtä ilmaiseksi! He kuolevat, se on kyllä totta, mutta kun heidän
lukumääränsä on suuri, saan kootuksi rikkauksia, ennenkuin heidän
joukkonsa on paljoakaan pienentynyt, ja heitä jää aina kylliksi
jäljelle."
Mutta koko tämä ihmispaljous eli siitä, mitä se sai palkkioksi

työstään.
Puhuttuaan siis niin, hän kääntyi erikoisesti muutamain puoleen ja

sanoi heille: "Te teette työtä kuusi tuntia, ja teille annetaan raha
työstänne. Tehkää työtä kaksitoista tuntia, ja te ansaitsette kaksi
rahaa, ja te elätte paljoa paremmin, te itse, vaimonne ja lapsenne."
Ja he uskoivat häntä.
Hän sanoi heille sitten: "Te teette työtä vain puolet vuoden
päivistä: tehkää työtä kaikki vuoden päivät, ja teidän voittonne on
tuleva kaksinkertaiseksi."
Ja he uskoivat häntä vielä.
Mutta seurauksena siitä oli, että kun työn paljous oli kasvanut
puolta suuremmaksi, vaikka työn tarve ei ollut suurempi, puolet
niistä, jotka ennen elivät työstänsä, eivät enää löytäneet ketään, joka
olisi käyttänyt heitä.
Silloin tuo häijy mies, jota he olivat uskoneet, sanoi heille: "Minä
annan teille työtä kaikille sillä ehdolla, että teette työtä saman ajan,
ja että minä maksan teille vain puolet siitä, mitä teille maksoin; sillä
tahdon kyllä tehdä teille palveluksen, mutta en tahdo joutua
taloudelliseen häviöön."
Ja kun heillä oli nälkä, heillä itsellään, heidän vaimoillaan ja

lapsillaan, suostuivat he tuon häijyn miehen ehdotukseen ja
siunasivat häntä: "sillä", sanoivat he, "hän antaa meille meidän
henkemme".
Ja pettäen heitä yhä edelleen samalla tavoin, tuo häijy mies lisäsi
yhä enemmän heidän työtänsä ja vähensi yhä enemmän heidän
palkkaansa.
Ja he kuolivat välttämättömän tarpeellisen puutteesta, ja toisia

kiiruhti astumaan heidän sijaansa, sillä köyhyys oli tullut niin kovaksi
tuossa maassa, että kokonaiset perheet möivät itsensä
leipäpalasesta.
Ja se häijy mies, joka oli valehdellut veljillensä, kokosi enemmän

rikkauksia kuin se häijy mies, joka oli pannut heidät kahleisiin.
Tämän jälkimäisen nimi on Tyranni; toisella ei ole nimeä muuta

kuin helvetissä.
IX
Te olette tässä maailmassa kuin muukalaisia.
Menkää Pohjoiseen ja Etelään, Itään ja Länteen, mihin paikkaan

pysähtynettekin, niin tapaatte jonkun ihmisen, joka ajaa teidät siitä
pois sanoen: "Tämä maa on minun."
Ja samoiltuanne läpi kaikki maat, te palaatte, tietäen, ettei

missään ole vaivaista pientä maan kolkkaa, missä synnytysvaivoissa
oleva vaimonne voisi synnyttää esikoisensa, missä te voisitte levätä
päivätyön tehtyänne, mihin lapsenne, kun olette päättäneet
päivänne, voisivat haudata luunne, niinkuin paikkaan, joka on teidän
omanne.
Tämä on, totisesti, suurta kurjuutta.
Ja kuitenkaan teidän ei pidä liiaksi murehtia, sillä kirjoitettu on

siitä, joka on vapahtanut ihmiskunnan:
Ketulla on luolansa, taivaan linnuilla on pesänsä, mutta ihmisen

Pojalla ei ole missä lepuuttaa päätänsä.
Mutta hän on ruvennut köyhäksi opettaaksensa teitä kärsimään

köyhyyttä.
Ei niin kuin jos köyhyys tulisi Jumalalta, mutta se on seuraus

ihmisten turmeluksesta ja pahoista himoista, ja siitä syystä on aina
oleva köyhiä.
Köyhyys on syntynyt tyttärenä synnistä, jonka siemen on

jokaisessa ihmisessä, ja orjuudesta, jonka siemen on jokaisessa
yhteiskunnassa.
On aina oleva köyhiä, sillä ihminen ei koskaan saa hävitetyksi

itsestään syntiä.
On aina oleva yhä vähemmän köyhiä, sillä vähitellen orjuus on

häviävä yhteiskunnasta.
Jos tahdotte työskennellä köyhyyden hävittämiseksi, niin tehkää

työtä hävittääksenne synnin, ensiksikin itsestänne ja sitten muista, ja
orjuuden yhteiskunnasta.
Ei köyhyyttä voida poistaa anastamalla sellaista, mikä on toisen

omaa; sillä kuinka saadaan köyhien lukumäärä vähenemään
tekemällä köyhiä?
Jokaisella on oikeus säilyttää mitä hänellä on, muutoin ei kukaan

omistaisi enää mitään.
Mutta jokaisella on oikeus hankkia työllään sellaista, mitä hänellä

ei ole, muutoin köyhyys olisi iäinen.
Vapauttakaa siis työnne, vapauttakaa käsivartenne, ja köyhyys ei

ole enää oleva ihmisten keskuudessa muuta kuin poikkeus, jonka
Jumala sallii, muistuttaakseen heille heidän luontonsa heikkoutta ja
sitä keskinäistä apua ja rakkautta, jota he ovat velkaa toinen
toisillensa.
X
Kun koko maa huokaili odottaessaan vapahdusta, nousi Judeasta
ääni, sen ääni, joka tuli kärsimään ja kuolemaan veljiensä puolesta
ja jota muutamat halveksien kutsuivat kirvesmiehen Pojaksi.
Kirvesmiehen Poika siis, köyhänä ja hyljättynä tässä maailmassa,

sanoi:
"Tulkaa minun tyköni te kaikki, jotka huokailette työn taakan

alaisina, ja minä olen virkistävä teitä."
Ja siitä ajasta alkaen tähän päivään asti ei yksikään niistä, jotka

ovat uskoneet häneen, ole jäänyt vaille lievitystä
viheliäisyydessänsä.
Korjatakseen epäkohdat, jotka ovat ihmisten vitsauksena, hän

saarnasi kaikille oikeutta, joka on lähimmäisen rakkauden alku, ja
lähimmäisen rakkautta, joka on oikeuden korkein täydellisyys.
Mutta oikeudenmukaisuus käskee kunnioittamaan toisen oikeutta,

ja joskus lähimmäisen rakkaus vaatii luopumaan omastansakin,
rauhan tahi jonkin muun hyvän vuoksi.
Mitä olisi maailma, jos oikeus lakkaisi siinä vallitsemasta, jos

jokaisella ei olisi persoonallista turvallisuutta, ja jos hän ei voisi
pelkäämättä nauttia sitä, mikä on hänen omaansa?
Parempi olisi elää metsien povessa kuin yhteiskunnassa, joka niin

olisi jätettynä rosvoamiselle alttiiksi.
Mitä te otatte tänään, sen ottaa joku toinen huomenna teiltä.

Ihmiset tulevat olemaan onnettomampia kuin taivaan linnut, joilta
toiset linnut eivät ryöstä heidän ravintoansa eivätkä heidän
pesäänsä.
Mitä on köyhä? Se on se, jolla ei vielä ole omaisuutta.
Mitä hän haluaa? Lakata olemasta köyhä, se on, hankkia jotakin

omaisuutta.
Se, joka ryöstää, joka rosvoaa, mitä hän nyt tekee muuta kuin
hävittää, mikäli se on hänelle mahdollista, itse omistusoikeuden?
Ken ryöstää, rosvoaa, se siis hyökkää köyhän kimppuun yhtä

paljon kuin rikkaan; se mullistaa kaiken ihmisten välisen
yhteiskunnan perustukset.
Ken ei omista mitään, se voi päästä omistamaan vain sen kautta,

että toiset jo omistavat; sillä nämä yksin voivat antaa hänelle jotakin
korvaukseksi hänen työstään.
Järjestys on kaikille yhteinen hyvä ja etu.
Älkää juoko rikoksen maljasta: sen pohjalla on katkera hätä ja

tuska ja kuolema.
XI
Ja minä olin nähnyt epäkohdat, jotka vallitsevat maan päällä, heikon

sorrettuna, oikeamielisen kerjäämässä leipäänsä, häijyn korotettuna
kunniasijoille ja upporikkaana, viattoman väärien tuomarien
tuomitsemana, ja hänen lapsensa harhailemassa auringon alla.
Ja minun sieluni oli murheellinen, ja toivo vuoti siitä pois joka

taholta, niinkuin särkyneestä astiasta.
Ja Jumala lähetti minulle sikeän unen.
Ja unessani minä näin ikäänkuin hohtoisan haahmon, joka seisoi

vierelläni, Hengen, jonka lempeä ja terävä katse tunki aina
salaisimpien ajatusteni pohjaan asti.
Ja minä vavahdin, en pelosta enkä ilosta, vaan ikäänkuin

tunteesta, joka olisi sanoin selittämätön sekoitus molemmista.
Ja henki sanoi minulle: "Miksi olet murheellinen?"
Ja minä vastasin itkien: "Oi! katsokaa kärsimyksiä, jotka ovat

maan päällä." Ja tuo taivahinen ilmiö alkoi hymyillä sanoin
kuvaamatonta hymyä, ja korviini kuuluivat seuraavat sanat:
"Sinun silmäsi näkee kaikki vain sen pettävän välikkeen lävitse,

jota luodut olennot kutsuvat ajaksi. Aika on vain sinua varten;
Jumalalle ei ole olemassa mitään aikaa."
Ja minä vaikenin, sillä minä en ymmärtänyt.
Yhtäkkiä tuo Henki sanoi: "Katso!"
Eikä ollut enää minulle edellisyyttä eikä jälkeisyyttä, vaan minä

näin samalla hetkellä yhdellä kertaa sen, mitä ihmiset heikolla ja
puutteellisella kielellään sanovat menneisyydeksi, nykyisyydeksi ja
tulevaisuudeksi.
Ja kaikki tuo oli vain yhtä, ja kuitenkin, sanoakseni mitä näin,

minun täytyy laskeutua jälleen alas ajan helmaan, minun täytyy
puhua ihmisten heikkoa ja puutteellista kieltä.
Ja koko ihmiskunta oli minusta kuin yksi ainoa ihminen.

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The Construction of Nostalgia in Screen

Media in the Context of Post-Socialist

The Sleeper Agent in Post-9/11 Media Vanessa Ossa

Hegemonic Transformation: The State, Laws, and Labour

Iran and the American Media: Press Coverage of the

The Socialist Market Economy in Asia: Development in

Unearthing Politics: Environment and Contestation in

Media and Conflict in the Social Media Era in China 1st

Childhood and Schooling in (Post)Socialist Societies:

Russia, China and the West in the Post-Cold War Era:

ISSN 2662-7701 ISSN 2662-771X (electronic)

Cover illustration: Richard Jackson/Alamy Stock Photo

This book is based on my Ph.D. thesis, submitted to the University

“Nostalgia in Urban Cinema: A Comparative Analysis of Zhang

1 Post-Socialism and Nostalgia 1

4 Nostalgia in Youth Media So Young (2013) and With

Zhun Gu was awarded Doctor degree in media studies by the University

Post-Socialism and Nostalgia

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 1

implementation of a policy of “reform and opening up” in 1978.1 After

countryside, the memories of which were entwined with their personal

4 Robert Weatherley, Politics in China since 1949: Legitimising Authoritarian Rule

is linked to different external conditions, such as social contexts, the film-

this book analyses is not an aesthetic transformation of any specific gener-

6 Michael Foucault, Power/Knowledge Selected Interviews and Other Writings, 1972–

ideologies and developing an industrial film system similar to Holly-

1.1 Post-Socialist China

7 Xiaoling Zhang, The Transformation of Political Communication in China: From

Post-socialism is of necessity also post-capitalist[…]but in the sense of

In Dirlik’s opinion, post-socialism seeks to improve existing socialism

12 Sheldon Hsiao-peng Lu, Chinese Modernity and Global Biopolitics: Studies in

its influence on international affairs and to project a positive image of itself

17 Issued by the National Development and Reform Commission, Ministry of Foreign

structure.18 In this sense, post-socialism is seen as a controversial ideology

18 Arif Dirlik, “Postsocialism? Reflections on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics,” in

performance.21 In other words, the CCP’s authoritarian regime may

1.2 “Socialism with Chinese Characteristics” and Neoliberalism

21 Xiaoling Zhang, The Transformation of Political Communication in China: From

preserve an institutional framework appropriate for such practices.”24

24 David Harvey, A Brief History of Neoliberalism (Oxford; New York: Oxford

2 Chinese Screen Media Since the 1990s

2.1 Film Industry

2.2 Television Industry

The Romance of the Three Kingdoms was widely screened in Japan,

power struggles, moral cynicism, public unrest, etc.—had a primetime

Indeed, the historical period of Kangxi and Yongzheng emperors in

role of television and radio as public services.46 Furthermore, in 2009,

46 “National Conference on Radio, Film and Television,” The Chinese government, 22

saw the SAPPRFT invest in CCTV, China Radio International, Xinhua

58 Chwen Chwen Chen, “CCTV Going Global in a Digital Scenario,” 17 November

In addition to in-house production, CCTV has adopted three methods

Through cooperation with the BBC and other reputable interna-

the Chinese government has encouraged private and foreign compa-

67 Chris Berry, “Shanghai Television’s Documentary Channel: Chinese Television as

2.3 Digital Industry

intelligence services, although TikTok has denied ties to the Chinese

2.4 Ideological Control

Ihmisen poika, mitä näet vielä?

Näen meren nostavan aaltojaan ja vuorten liikuttavan huippujaan.

Näen virtojen muuttavan kulkunsa suuntaa, kukkulain huojuvan ja

Kaikki järkkyy, kaikki liikkuu, kaikki muuttuu uuteen muotoon.

Ihmisen poika, mitä näet vielä?

Näen tomupilviä kaukana, ja ne liikkuvat joka taholle ja törmäävät