National Zoo Press
Recently all eyes have been watching the fate of Google in China, but, out of sight, the cultural competition between China and America has picked up the pace. So what is the score now?
In summer 2009, China’s central government announced an estimated U.S. $6.5 billion investment to update and globalize China Radio International, China Central Television, the Xinhua News Agency, and People’s Daily.
Dubbed the Chinese “media aircraft carrier” by some Asian observers, and as a plan to “build an international news network with Chinese characteristics” by government sources in Beijing, the new program will increase foreign language broadcasts, publications and Web sites to communicate with people in all corners of the globe. China Radio International’s new English language news and entertainment programs have received a warm welcome in developing nations unable to afford CNN and the BBC, and have even begun broadcasting on faltering radio stations in depressed radio markets in Hawaii, Northern California and Galveston (AM 1540). Point China.
At the end of 2009 James Cameron’s “Avatar” opens on hundreds of 3d and 2d movie screens in China, rapidly becoming the most popular box office draw ever, earning more than U.S. $120 million in ticket sales. Point America.
By the beginning of 2010 the Chinese Ministry of Education has set up more than 282 Confucius Institutes in 88 countries and regions — including one at Texas A&M –teaching Mandarin to more than 100 million students. Point China.
Chinese film distributors cut short “Avatar’s” run at Chinese theaters in order to make way for a new state-supported epic, Confucius, which authorities hoped would help popularize traditional Chinese values among younger Chinese (including respect for authority). But poor ticket sales and public criticism force Chinese film distributors to bring “Avatar” back to screens. Point America.
American Sinologists point out that many of the key cosmological concepts in “Avatar” — that life is connected through a network of energy, that life is pro-environment and anti-militarist — are probably borrowed from Taoism. Point China.
Web analysts reveal out that “Avatar“ is popular with Chinese viewers because, like the blue residents of Pandora, they are also being evicted from their homes by corrupt officials who do not care about the environment. Chinese netizens joke that James Cameron stole his movie’s storyline from Chinese urban planners. Point America.
Following a longstanding agreement, in early February, zookeepers in Washington, D.C., and Atlanta turn over two young pandas, the immensely popular Tian Shan and Mei Lan, for “repatriation to the Motherland.” Point China.
Chinese officials are compelled to hire an English speaking zookeeper who can communicate with the American Born Chinese (ABC) pandas, who do not understand Chinese. Point America.
In 1971, America and China ended decades of hostility and isolation with an exchange of ping pong teams. And although nearly four decades have passed, with hundreds of millions of people traveling between the two countries, and trillions of dollars of capital and goods flowing back and forth, we still seem to view our relations as nothing more complex than a game of ping pong. Perhaps in the long run the most important thing about U.S.-China relations is not the score — who even remembers the score of those early matches– but that two very competitive and creative nations are still playing the game at all.
Steven W. Lewis is the Baker Institute’s fellow in Asian studies and faculty adviser for the Jesse Jones Leadership Center Summer in D.C. Policy Research Internship Program. He is also a professor in the practice and an associate director of the Chao Center for Asian Studies, as well as an affiliated faculty member of the Department of Sociology at Rice University.