【中文标题】中国的新狭隘主义
【原文标题】China's New Parochialism
【登载媒体】时代周刊
【原文作者】Fareed Zakaria
【原文链接】http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2082959,00.html
在这个月尤其炎热的日子里,全世界的人都会重复几十年来的习惯:走进空调影院享受暑期大片。最新的大片是《变形金刚:月之阴影》,它已经在美国和其它110个发行国家创下了票房记录。而在世界上经济规模和电影市场增长最快的国家——中国,事情却不是这样。中国人欣赏不到《变形金刚》,也看不到焦急等待的新一集《哈里波特》,至少现在还看不到。中国新影联副总经理高军说,直到中国影片《建党伟业》达到8亿人民币(1.24亿美元)票房收入之后,外国影片才有机会进入中国,这将是一个新的中国影片票房纪录。
《建党伟业》在中国共产党成立90周年的时机上映,这部时长两小时的影片讲述的是中国共产党及其英雄领导人——毛泽东崛起的故事,他的扮演者是中国新一代的奶油小生。影片中有数百位著名的中国影星,包括周润发,还有惊人的布景和设计,成本自然也相当可观。影片在全国6000家影院上映,但似乎并未赢得什么口碑。尽管发出了大量免费电影票,但影院的观众寥寥无几。互联网上一大批负面观点都被监察机构删除。在一个盗版电影网站VeryCD上,90%的网络用户说这部影片是“垃圾”。
在某种层面上,这不过是中国政权试图证明自身合法性的一次粗糙的宣传攻势。但是,这件事还值得我们关注另外一个方面,中国内部正在彷徨,是需要借鉴更多的西方观点,还是继续走自己独特的道路。如何处理西方影片的问题是争论的焦点。
中国正在成为世界上最大的电影市场。它目前有6200家影院,而且还在以每天3座新影院的速度增加。但是,政府似乎打定主意要阻止西方影片进入。中国严格限制每年进口20部影片,并且只能在极为有限的影院上映。好莱坞的影片公司只能分得票房收入的13%,几乎是在其它国家收入的一半。DVD在几天内就被盗版,政府似乎对这种犯罪行为袖手旁观。结果是,美国最大的出口产业好莱坞在中国赚到的钱少得可怜。
好莱坞并不是唯一的受害者。通用电器CEO Jeff Immelt在今年早些时候接受金融时报采访时说,中国似乎不再希望西方公司在这个国家有所斩获了。他说出了很多外国CEO的心声。越来越多的迹象表明,北京在很多领域都更加青睐本土公司,即使甘愿冒着违反贸易市场准入制度的风险。世贸组织最近裁决,中国对外国电影的政策是一种非法的保护主义,必须停止。然而到目前为止,北京对这个裁决无动于衷,仅仅是似乎有意稍稍扩大进口影片的数量限制。
各个国家都在贸易问题上做文章,但是中国的行为与此不同。过去几年里,一种新的中国狭隘主义在共产党内有所抬头。最典型的例子是党内高层领导人薄熙来所发起的活动,包括带有浪漫色彩地重现毛泽东思想;追忆中国人更加团结、更加被世界排斥的时代。这是对近十年来过度猖獗的市场化和西方化趋势的反扑。薄组织人们大规模地演唱毛泽东时代的老歌,还经常引用毛的警句。鉴于他的平民化立场,薄有极大可能进入中央政治局常委的名单。
在经历了数个世纪与世隔绝的生活之后,中国得以彰显实力的原因是,它向世界展开了怀抱,向西方学习,允许自己的产业和社会借鉴西方的经验,并与世界领跑者竞争。它还心甘情愿地持续进行着经济结构现代化改革,甚至或许还会进行政治结构的改革。中国领导人邓小平和江泽民都了解,改革开放是中国成功关键所在。新一代的中国领导人或许认为,他们已经向西方学到了足够的东西,现在该着眼内部,拥抱一条独特的中国道路了。如果真是这样,那么在未来几十年里,世界将面对一个完全不同的中国。
原文:
On any particularly hot day this month, people around the world will do what they have done for decades: go to an air-conditioned movie theater and watch a summertime blockbuster. The latest, biggest movie is Transformers: Dark of the Moon, which has broken box-office records in the U.S. and in many of the 110 other countries in which it has been released. Except in the world's fastest-growing economy and movie market — China. The Chinese people will not get to see Transformers, nor the eagerly awaited new Harry Potter movie, nor any other Hollywood production. At least not yet. Gao Jun, the deputy general manager of Beijing's New Film Association, explained that no foreign movie would be allowed into China until the Chinese film Beginning of the Great Revival made 800 million yuan, or $124 million, which would be an all-time record for a Chinese movie.
Beginning of the Great Revival is a two-hour tale of the rise of China's Communist Party — released on the occasion of its 90th anniversary — and its heroic leader, Mao Zedong, who is played by a young Chinese heartthrob. The movie features a cast of hundreds of major Chinese actors, including Chow Yun Fat, with impressive sets and design, all at record cost. It has been released in 6,000 theaters across the country. But it doesn't seem to be winning hearts and minds. Despite many mass ticket giveaways, cinema houses are reported to be empty. A barrage of negative reviews on the Internet have been censored. On VeryCD, a pirated-film website, more than 90% of users described the film as "trash."
On one level, this is just a crude propaganda effort by a Chinese regime seeking legitimacy. But there is another aspect to this story. China is going through an internal struggle over whether it needs to borrow more ideas from the West or follow its own particular course. The question of how to handle Western films is becoming part of a much larger debate.
China is on course to become the largest movie market in the world. It has more than 6,200 movie theaters and is adding to them at the astonishing pace of three new theaters a day. But the government seems determined to keep Western movies at bay. There is a strict quota of 20 foreign movies imported every year. Those movies are censored and tightly restricted to a limited number of theaters. Hollywood studios receive only 13% of the ticket price, about half what they get everywhere else in the world. The DVDs are pirated within days, and the government makes no effort to stem this criminal activity. The result is that Hollywood, America's largest export industry, makes very little money in China.
And Hollywood isn't alone. The CEO of General Electric, Jeff Immelt, told the Financial Times earlier this year that it appeared that China did not want Western companies to succeed in that country anymore; he was voicing the feelings of many foreign CEOs. There is growing evidence in many areas that Beijing is favoring locals over Western companies, even violating the rules of market access and trade. The World Trade Organization ruled recently that China's regulations on foreign movies were a form of illegal protectionism and had to end. So far, Beijing has done nothing to abide by that ruling, though it is likely to expand its quotas to mollify the WTO.
Countries play trade games all the time, but this is different. Over the past few years, a new Chinese parochialism has been gaining strength in the Communist Party. Best symbolized by the senior party leader, Bo Xilai, it includes a romantic revival of Maoism, harking back to a time when the Chinese were more unified and more isolated from the rest of the world. It is a reaction to the rampant marketization and Westernization of China over the past 10 years. Bo, who has organized mass rallies to sing old Maoist songs and routinely quotes Mao aphorisms, might well ascend to the Standing Committee of China's Politburo next year on the strength of this new populism.
After centuries of isolation, China has grown in power and strength because it opened itself to the world, learned from the West and allowed its industries and society to borrow from and compete against the world's best. It allowed for an ongoing modernization of its economic structures and possibly its political institutions as well. Its leaders Deng Xiaoping and Jiang Zemin understood that this openness was key to China's success. A new generation of Chinese leaders might decide they have learned enough and that it is time to turn inward and celebrate China's unique ways. If that happens, the world will confront a very different China over the next few decades.
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