Soft power with books does not come easy for China (Feature)

By Andreas Landwehr Oct 9, 2009, 5:04 GMT

   Beijing - In China, interest in serious literature is waning. The typical Chinese readers today read mainly to foster their career and pass their time with popular novels and escape into the world of fantasy stories.

   In China's still booming economy, business focus and consumerism are the prevailing trends. Many million Chinese, acting as trendsetters for other countries, read mainly on their computers or mobile phones.

   Chinese writers may have more creative freedom today than in the past and describe the country's rapid change in many, often very personal, facets.

However, they hardly address the problems caused by the underlying Communist system: Censorship, as well as self-censorship, are clear limits for authors wanting to publish in their home country.

   China's stint as special guest at the Frankfurt Book Fair, the world's largest book-trade fair, is one of Beijing's most important attempts to present itself abroad not only as an economic power, but also its cultural 'soft power.'

   However, this modern approach is visibly at odds with outdated attempts at propaganda. In China, no other industry faces more government scrutiny than publishing, which is overwrought with ideology.

   The partner of the Frankfurt organizers is none other than the state-run General Administration of Press and Publication (GAPP), China's top censorship body, which decides what can be published in the country of 1.3 billion.

   Beijing's top censors are also in charge of the official Chinese contribution to the fair.

   While the guest nations usually leave translation into German and the marketing of the books presented to German publishing houses, the GAPP had 80 books translated into German by themselves, at great financial cost.

   'That isn't smart, as this becomes a showpiece and not really a cultural product,' said Jing Bartz of the Beijing-based German Book Information Centre, a coordination point which helped prepare the 2009 fair.

   They could only convince the GAPP to have 25 other Chinese titles promoted by German publishers.

   Despite all these censorship efforts, books by critical or exile authors, much loathed by the China's censors, will still be found at the book fair - away from the official displays.

   GAPP could not exercise censorship in Germany, Bartz said. That had been made clear at the beginning of the talks over Chinese participation.

   China's censors in general blacklist topics like the Falun Gong movement, aspirations for Tibetan or Uighur independence as well as the bloody crackdown on the 1989 democracy movement.

   Writers who criticize the Communist Party and demand democracy are often persecuted as enemies of the state.

   Liu Xiaobo, the chairman of the independent PEN Club in China has been under arrest since December, waiting for his trial on charges of 'undermining state power.'

   The spread of the internet and the rising popularity of blogs have created new freedoms, which are however not reflected in literature.

   There is a spread of different opinions, but those translate more into aspects of daily life, and not politics, said Bartz, a Chinese-born German passport-holder.

   Individualization is a strongly noticeable trend, best exemplified by Guo Jingming, China's richest author. In his bestsellers, which are devoured by millions of young Chinese, the 26-year-old writes about the troubles of growing up, uncaring parents and the exam pressure at schools and universities.

   Economic changes also affect China's literary world.

State-subsidized publishers are under pressure to make money, and for the first time, private publishers, who often have to operate under the label of cultural enterprises, are allowed to step out of obscurity this year, even though they already produce 60 per cent of China's bestsellers today.

   Cooperation between state-run and private publishers is increasing, as is private investment. As market forces increase, as does commercialization, and bestsellers overwhelm serious literature.

   'The increase of commercialized literature is not a phenomenon exclusive to China,' said influential critic Li Jingze, editor-in-chief of the Renmin Wenxue (People's Literature) magazine.

   'There is little we can change, because we live in a consumer culture now,' hea added. Readers today prefer easy to consume books, and sophisticated literature was facing 'a difficult test' to convince readers of its creative power, Li said.

   The radical changes in China's society over the last 30 years may offer great opportunities, but could also overtax writers. 'What I want to say with this is that they cannot cope with understanding life and the world around them,' Li said.