ABSTRACT
China, in many regards, has become a country of profound contradictions: an ostensibly Marxist-socialist country experiencing massive economic growth caused by stark capitalist policies; a nation where cultural politics underlie the complexities of presenting a unified nation in the face of great and often tense diversity; and a ruling party striving to reorient its relationship with the past that it had once brutally suppressed. Over the past four decades, few countries in Asia have had as complicated a relationship with their cultural heritage as China. Recent events of international stature such as the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing and the 2010 Expo in Shanghai were saturated in references to the rich and long history of Chinese culture and tradition. However, as I discuss in this chapter, the positioning of culture and heritage – phrased here as ‘traditional culture’ based upon how it is identified in official discourse at the upper levels of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) – is a highly politicised and strategic effort.
