After a decade of development, how will China's cultural industry reform and innovate at the start of a new decade? How can it better adapt to the market economy? On June 20th and 21st, during the "Thirty Person Forum on China's Cultural Industry - China's Cultural Industry: The Next Decade," more than 30 leading experts and scholars from over 10 universities and research institutions, along with leaders from cultural reform and development departments including the Publicity Department of the CPC Central Committee, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Commerce, the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Culture, and the State Administration of Radio, Film, and Television, proposed strategies for the future development of China's cultural industry. Participants expressed their views on macro trends and policy directions in the cultural industry, development strategies and regional models for the cultural industry, as well as the relationship between cultural industry development and system reform.
Policy Support System is Still Incomplete
Liu Yuzhu, Director of the Department of Cultural Industry under the Ministry of Culture, believed that the policy support system for cultural industry development is still incomplete. What is currently lacking is a specific, operable, and highly targeted set of policies for the cultural industry, which could be a focus for government attention and effort in the future. Policies to strengthen the development of the cultural industry have yet to be established, including those related to investment and financing, taxation, and land use. The government should gain a true and comprehensive understanding of the issues faced by cultural industry entities during their operations, including market environment and policy gaps, demand for cultural products and services, and then introduce more targeted and operable policies. He stated that to promote the development of cultural industry policies through industrial drive, the government's priorities should be market environment and industrial policies. The government needs to accelerate resource integration, promote cluster development, build modern cultural enterprises (including bases and parks), establish and improve the cultural industry investment and financing system, strengthen talent cultivation, and promote reasonable talent flow.
Expand Broadcast Platforms to Perfect the Domestic Animation Industry Chain
If we were to ask what animated character has been the hottest this year, Transformers and Doraemon have made way for Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf, who after a "bombardment" campaign, are now almost household names domestically and have become a model for domestic animation industry development. As an important part of the cultural industry, the animation sector has received much attention in recent years. Jin Delong, Director of the Propaganda Management Department of the State Administration of Radio, Film, and Television, said that since April 2004, when SARFT launched several opinions to promote the development of domestic film and television animation, the domestic animation industry has shown new trends. The production volume of domestic animations has significantly increased, and artistic quality has clearly improved. In recent years, a large number of excellent domestic animated series have gone global. At the October 2009 Cannes Television Festival in France, some domestic animated series were purchased by customers from the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and some Middle Eastern countries. During the exhibition, Zhejiang Zhongnan Cartoon Company signed contracts worth over $3 million, and its works entered 63 countries. The broadcast system for domestic animations has gradually improved, with increasing viewership shares; the base policies for domestic animations continue to be refined; and overseas markets have seen significant breakthroughs. SARFT will expand the broadcast platforms for animations to effectively stimulate domestic market demand, expand the scale of the domestic animation market, thereby stimulating the entire chain of production, exchange, circulation, and consumption of domestic animations, driving the benign development of the entire animation industry.
Cultural Industry Should Be Elevated to National Strategic Height
"Although the cultural industry has entered a stage of rapid growth, the traditional cultural system reform has not been fully completed, and there are still many problems," said Qi Yongfeng, Chairman of the Academic Committee of the Institute of Cultural Industry Research at Communication University of China. He believed that in the next ten years, the development of the cultural industry must first determine its status in development. In his view, the cultural industry should be placed at the national strategic industrial level for development. For a developing country like China, with a large population, insufficient resources, but rich cultural resources, in terms of industrial selection, advantages should be leveraged, elevating the cultural industry to the national strategic height, and developing it as a strategic pillar industry of the state. Such a recognition issue has not yet been fully resolved. If the cultural industry is to be chosen as a strategic industry, it must at least be incorporated into strategic planning and supported by means. Currently, within leadership systems and organizational systems, the cultural industry and economic departments still operate independently, and such problems remain prominent, fundamentally not being given due importance.
Cultural Enterprise Reform Needs to Handle Four Relationships Well
"We are currently working on a topic commissioned by Minister Ouyang of the Ministry of Culture, researching issues in the transformation of 38 deployed cultural enterprises." Fan Zhou, Dean of the Institute of Cultural Industry Research at Communication University of China, asserted that in the enterprise reform of state-owned large and medium-sized cultural enterprises, four relationships need to be handled well: First, the management rights and ownership of state assets, whether asset losses similar to those in economic reforms will appear during the reform of cultural enterprises. Second, establishing the principal subject relationship between the transformed unit and the original supervisory unit. Third, the relationship between social services and the main profit-making activities, which will be deeper-level issues exposed after the reform. Fourth, the relationship between the long-term nature of functional gradual change and the urgency of reform. The success or failure of cultural system reform will decide the direction of development for the cultural industry in the next decade.
He also indicated that although numerous cultural industry-related policies have been introduced domestically, there are very few legislative ones, so the construction of legal culture is inevitable. Moreover, regarding the current practice of investing large amounts of funds in large state-controlled enterprises to create "aircraft carrier groups," Fan Zhou pointed out that in Germany's cultural economy, small and medium-sized enterprises are the main industries achieving the first employment, and China should also consider paying attention to small and medium-sized enterprises, which cannot be overlooked when formulating cultural industry policies for the next decade.
Historical and Cultural Resources Should Be Moderately Utilized
Regarding the use of historical and cultural resources to develop industries, Chen Shaofeng, Deputy Director of the Institute of Cultural Industry at Peking University, presented a different perspective: "Cultural accumulation has dual-edged sword characteristics; the deeper the cultural accumulation, the stronger the conservativeness, which may instead hinder innovation and development. Not finding a balance point between tradition and innovation will constrain the development of the cultural industry." He proposed that China's cultural industry should establish a committee for educational, scientific, and cultural development reform, similar to the Development and Reform Commission, corresponding to the central party’s decision-making, capable of changing the situation of no unified planning development in the cultural system and operating independently. Additionally, current policies are all evaluative rather than qualitative, forming a policy system to truly have rules to follow. Meanwhile, he reiterated that the management of the cultural industry must become an independent discipline, placing cultural industry management on par with business management, conducting master’s degree education and advanced training.
The Cultural Industry Should Consider Categorized Consumption
Xiong Chengyu, Director of Tsinghua University's National Cultural Industry Research Center, outlined the forms, types, and ecology of China's cultural industry at the forum, summarizing the theoretical, practical, and policy directions of the past decade. He proposed, "Current developments, from products to industries to clustering areas and societal forms, represent our renewed understanding of types. Previously, we focused more on cultural products, later on cultural industries and markets, and subsequently on clustering areas. But now we recognize that the role of culture is not just to create GDP but more importantly to synchronously enhance material and spiritual civilization where it is located, pushing changes in production relations and social structures, which is our renewed understanding of types today." Furthermore, he pointed out that greater attention should be paid to consumers' behavioral patterns, considering categorized consumption, culturally transforming for different consumers, and finding their individual needs.
Fiscal Fund Support Needs to Connect Inside and Outside Systems
Wei Pengju, Executive Dean of the Creative Research Institute at Central University of Finance and Economics, spoke about the issues of financing and investment in the cultural industry. He believed that problems appearing in the distribution process of cultural and fiscal funds should be solved using the principle of "reducing surplus and compensating deficiencies." Generally, private cultural enterprises indeed struggle greatly; they are the silent majority. However, private cultural units are actually the most fundamental group in cultivating China's cultural industry and cultural market. Facing monopolistic channels, private enterprises' pricing power is extremely weak. When the government allocates industrial funds, there should be a tilt towards these enterprises.
In the process of cultural industry financing and investment, the phenomenon of bad money driving out good sometimes occurs. Units truly engaged in creative cultural industries often fail to secure financing, while those who do obtain funds mostly work on traditional projects. Some speculative capital uses current policies to more easily secure loans. Additionally, now many guarantee intermediaries preparing for listing on the Growth Enterprise Market are eager to package traditional type enterprises into cultural creative enterprises, while truly well-operated cultural creative enterprises might adopt a wait-and-see attitude during this listing process.
His proposed solutions include: public cultural fiscal fund allocation should connect inside and outside systems, providing fiscal fund support for scattered individual creativity; avoiding bad money driving out good requires establishing and improving risk assessment, intermediary, and guarantee mechanisms for intangible assets in the cultural creative industry, perfecting legal issues.
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