The Great Zoo of China

INTRODUCTION

FROM: FISCHER, ADAM

CHINA VS THE WORLD

(MACMILLAN, NEW YORK, 2013)

It is difficult to describe just how dynamic modern China is.

It is setting records that no other country can match: it builds a new city every year, its economy is growing at rates the West can only dream about, and its burgeoning middle class grows wealthier by the month, demanding all of the products that China used to manufacture for Western consumers.

And at every opportunity the Communist Party proudly reports these achievements to the Chinese people through state-controlled media.

But there is a problem.

China desperately wants to be Number One, the pre-eminent nation on Earth. In the Communist Party this passionate desire even has a name: the ‘China Dream’.

But to achieve that dream, China must seize the position currently occupied by the United States of America, and to do that it must first match America’s twentieth-century achievements in war, in space and in industry: it must build a powerful military, it must land a man on the moon and it must create companies that are known worldwide.

And then—then—to truly replace America as the world’s most dominant nation, it must do something even more difficult.

China must replace the United States as the cultural ruler of the planet.

How America came to dominate global culture is nothing short of astonishing.

After defeating the Axis powers in the Second World War with its military and industrial might, the United States then set about waging and winning a far more subtle war against the whole world: a war of cultural superiority.

This war was not fought with guns or tanks. It was fought with movies and music, Coke and Pepsi, Fords and Cadillacs, and, of course, arguably America’s greatest weapon in soft diplomacy: Disneyland.

Put simply, American culture became the world’s culture—drive-in burger joints of the 50s, Easy Rider in the 60s, platform shoes in the 70s, Coca-Cola ads in the 80s.

Hollywood played a big part in this, helped along later by MTV. Thanks to hundreds of American movies, TV shows and music videos set in America, the names of American cities, towns, roads and products became known worldwide: New York, Vegas, Fargo, Key Largo; Route 66; Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Bugs Bunny; DeLorean, Nike, American Express.

Apart from Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong, can you name another Chinese city? Can you name a Chinese brand of sport shoe?

What, I ask you, apart from the panda bear and a very long wall, is singularly and uniquely Chinese?

And here lies China’s biggest problem in the twenty-first century.

It has nothing truly its own.

It makes other people’s stuff. Every Apple product is a slap in the face to China when it declares: Designed by Apple in California. Assembled in China. A limitless supply of cheap labour might build you a new city every year, but it ultimately just makes you the factory floor for other countries’ companies.

China wants to rule the world. But without the soft diplomacy of culture, China will always play second fiddle to the United States.

Where is China’s Ford?

Where is its Coca-Cola?

Where, I ask you, is China’s Disneyland?