New frontier for cultural industry

Forum on the key sector highlights innovative use of modern technology, Li Yingxue reports.

The 20th Forum on International Cultural Industries in China recently gathered policymakers, researchers and industry insiders to deliver an overview of the development of the cultural industry in 2022 and examine future trends and vitality of the sector.

The forum, over Jan 7-8 in Beijing, focused on the Chinese path to modernization and new successes in developing a socialist culture.

Ten events in six categories were held, including the main forum, theme discussion, summit on creative management and think tank dialogues. The forum was hosted by Peking University and organized by its School of Arts and Institute for Cultural Industries.

Sun Qingwei, vice-president of Peking University, said he hoped it would continue to track and analyze the development of Chinese cultural industry, and provide new voices, experiences and thinking for socialist cultural construction.

Seven Chinese and foreign participants from the field of culture delivered keynote speeches and discussed patterns in quality development of the cultural industry, urban construction, emerging industries and cultural confidence.

Liu Yuzhu, head of China Foundation for Cultural Heritage Conservation said the present prosperity of China's cultural market is unprecedented, and the main reason is people's demand for culture and support and promotion from the Party and government.

"The cultural industry, with its content-based nature, is an industry that everyone can participate in," Liu said. "There are tourism projects worth billions of yuan and movies and TV series costing tens of millions of yuan in the industry."

Even individuals can run WeChat accounts on cultural items or themes, he said.

Liu said content is at the core and technology will support the development of the industry and content creators should endeavor to make quality content.

Li Xiangmin, vice-president of Nanjing University of the Arts, pointed out that the Industrial Revolution not only started the industrialization of human society, but also brought a dramatic social change, in which modernization emerged.

"There is not one paradigm for the modernization of human society," Li said, emphasizing that the Chinese path to modernization is both a practice and the manifestation of cultural self-confidence.

Shahbaz Khan, director of the UNESCO Beijing Office, said the diverse manifestations of culture are enriching lives in countless ways. "Culture and creativity are increasingly seen as sustainable, renewable and omnipresent resources," he said.

Xiang Yong, head of the Institute for Cultural Industries, Peking University, said the Chinese path to modernization is one in which people's spiritual and cultural lives are enriched.