From 'Made in China' to 'Created in China'
When world discovered China, the developing country was deemed as the "Manufacturing Factory of the Globe" — a major provider of low-cost, abundant labor and low added-value products. The popularly widespread phrase — "Made in China", in most cases, was associated with, in the West, an image perceived as cheap and low-end. China's creative side has remained undiscovered.
From "Made in China" to "Created in China": China's quest to reposition itself on the global map
When China embraced the world with its opening-up policy and extraordinary economic growth, the Awakening Dragon had embarked on a golden journey to transform itself, from being labor-intensive to being knowledge-intensive, from rising dependently on the growth of hard power to a full-blown renaissance of soft power, from the crude, cut-price "Made in China" to an imaginably refined, top-notch "Created in China". China is taking active measures to build up a nation of innovation.
The Creative Innovation
Assuming that one has to outline what is happening in China, digging up only one word, it is "innovation".
As the world's second-largest economy is turning around to a cultural-based economic growth, innovation in the cultural sector becomes the current focal point in the context of China's economic reform and development.
China is experiencing a radical reform in its cultural regime from the times of State ownership of cultural institutions to a marketized and globalized cultural modernity.
This process has been forcefully and effectively encouraged by the Chinese central government. The thinking behind the move is to unleash the sleeping Dragon's long-time constrained creative power, build up its cultural and creative industries from a low base and develop a more sound and sustainable development model.
China's current innovation in cultural regime, being built around the concept of creative economy, is, in essence, centered on nurturing the nation's infant creative industries.
By unleashing its creative power within and drawing on its abundant cultural resources, the ancient, culturally rich nation aspires to take creative and commercialized approaches to transform these intangibles into marketable deliverables, and ultimately enhance the quality and quantity of export cultural goods and services.
China's 12th Five-year Plan (2011-15) made it clear that the cultural and creative sector should be developed into a pillar industry in the next five years, a strategy that elevated the cultural and creative sector to an unprecedented, historical superior status in national economy.
At the Forefront
China's cultural industry, like many other countries', encompass a wide rage of domains, film, publishing, design, performing arts, and the list goes on...Yet, the one at the front line of China's on-going nationwide cultural innovation is the online media industry, one of the most dynamic sectors in China's cultural industry.
The current wave of innovation in China's online media industry is "going public".
While those most sought-after commercial news portals such as Sina.com and 163.com already have Nasdaq listings, they are not in real sense online news media.
Since unlike those in the West, commercially run websites in China do not have the qualification to cover and release news. Only online media with a government background, to some extent, such as People's Daily Online, China Daily Website and CRIENGLISH.com have the privilege to do so, and hence are in a position to be labeled as "Chinese news site" or "Chinese online publication".
Further, those commercial news portals merely target at China's domestic netizens, pouring the bulk of their investments into the Chinese-language information products and services. They are the Chinese mainstream news sites, like the aforementioned online publications, that have the privilege to cover the English-language news and deliver quality service to western netizens.
By this token, in the eyes of Western readers, the news sites, at the current stage, to say the least, constitute the bulk of China's online media industry.
China's state-run online media sector has experienced a major transformation.
To date, over 80 percent of major central and local news sites have converted from the non-profit, government-sponsored public institutions to the more market-oriented, commercially run companies, in order to improve their operational efficiency and competitiveness; and the remaining ones will finish up their restructurings by the end of 2012.
To take a step forward, the Chinese central government encourages a quarter of the whole nation's major online news sites, that is 10 among China's 40-plus mainstream online publications, to go public.
At the forefront of the lineup is People's Daily Online. The online extension of China's flagship newspaper People's Daily managed to become an A-share listed company in April 2012, becoming the first ever government-backed mainstream news site to be listed on the capital market in China.
When China embraced the world with its opening-up policy and extraordinary economic growth, the Awakening Dragon had embarked on a golden journey to transform itself, from being labor-intensive to being knowledge-intensive, from rising dependently on the growth of hard power to a full-blown renaissance of soft power, from the crude, cut-price "Made in China" to an imaginably refined, top-notch "Created in China". China is taking active measures to build up a nation of innovation.
The Creative Innovation
Assuming that one has to outline what is happening in China, digging up only one word, it is "innovation".
As the world's second-largest economy is turning around to a cultural-based economic growth, innovation in the cultural sector becomes the current focal point in the context of China's economic reform and development.
China is experiencing a radical reform in its cultural regime from the times of State ownership of cultural institutions to a marketized and globalized cultural modernity.
This process has been forcefully and effectively encouraged by the Chinese central government. The thinking behind the move is to unleash the sleeping Dragon's long-time constrained creative power, build up its cultural and creative industries from a low base and develop a more sound and sustainable development model.
China's current innovation in cultural regime, being built around the concept of creative economy, is, in essence, centered on nurturing the nation's infant creative industries.
By unleashing its creative power within and drawing on its abundant cultural resources, the ancient, culturally rich nation aspires to take creative and commercialized approaches to transform these intangibles into marketable deliverables, and ultimately enhance the quality and quantity of export cultural goods and services.
China's 12th Five-year Plan (2011-15) made it clear that the cultural and creative sector should be developed into a pillar industry in the next five years, a strategy that elevated the cultural and creative sector to an unprecedented, historical superior status in national economy.
At the Forefront
China's cultural industry, like many other countries', encompass a wide rage of domains, film, publishing, design, performing arts, and the list goes on...Yet, the one at the front line of China's on-going nationwide cultural innovation is the online media industry, one of the most dynamic sectors in China's cultural industry.
The current wave of innovation in China's online media industry is "going public".
While those most sought-after commercial news portals such as Sina.com and 163.com already have Nasdaq listings, they are not in real sense online news media.
Since unlike those in the West, commercially run websites in China do not have the qualification to cover and release news. Only online media with a government background, to some extent, such as People's Daily Online, China Daily Website and CRIENGLISH.com have the privilege to do so, and hence are in a position to be labeled as "Chinese news site" or "Chinese online publication".
Further, those commercial news portals merely target at China's domestic netizens, pouring the bulk of their investments into the Chinese-language information products and services. They are the Chinese mainstream news sites, like the aforementioned online publications, that have the privilege to cover the English-language news and deliver quality service to western netizens.
By this token, in the eyes of Western readers, the news sites, at the current stage, to say the least, constitute the bulk of China's online media industry.
China's state-run online media sector has experienced a major transformation.
To date, over 80 percent of major central and local news sites have converted from the non-profit, government-sponsored public institutions to the more market-oriented, commercially run companies, in order to improve their operational efficiency and competitiveness; and the remaining ones will finish up their restructurings by the end of 2012.
To take a step forward, the Chinese central government encourages a quarter of the whole nation's major online news sites, that is 10 among China's 40-plus mainstream online publications, to go public.
At the forefront of the lineup is People's Daily Online. The online extension of China's flagship newspaper People's Daily managed to become an A-share listed company in April 2012, becoming the first ever government-backed mainstream news site to be listed on the capital market in China.
