Chinese Cultural and Creative Industries and the struggle for Rights in Chinese Opera

Abstract

In the last decade, China's government has been supportive of various cultural trends in creative cities, intangible cultural heritage, and the arts. This paper examines the discourse of Chinese cultural and creative industries (CCI), specifically from the position of traditional Chinese opera. By focusing on the Xi’an Qinqiang (Qin opera) cultural industries reform, this article articulates the intimate relationship between Communist Party’s (CCP) ideological evolution and the struggle of Chinese opera’s development. As Chinese opera has been, and still is, a popular cultural form amongst peasants and workers (the founding base of the CCP), the struggle of the opera market reforms reflects the CCP internal turmoil in gaining its own political (representative) legitimacy. The paper suggests that despite fundamental ideological shifts, the CCP maintains sole legal ruling power over culture because of China’s unique regional-central government structure and the ‘social mediator’ roles occupied by the artists. The continued negotiation between central (ideology), regional (urbanization) and community (artist) levels forms the structure of China’s latest art market reform and allows us to understand the struggle of culture within the nation.