Category: Political Economy of Culture
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China and the Interality of the New Silk Roads
Cultural considerations are fluid, transitioning as we measure them away from the ‘interality’ (jianxing 间性) of culture. The ‘interality’ culture is its gestalt and relational nature.
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The crux of the CCD project is to stress what in Chinese is known as he er bu tong 和而不 同, which translates literally as ‘harmonious but different,’ and bears some similarities as well as differences in comparison to ‘E pluribus unum,’ (‘Out of many, one), the traditional motto of the United States.
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Tianxia of the Mind
So what do I mean by my post’s title, ‘Tianxia of the Mind”? I am referring to the need for Tianxia, above all, to gain ritual power, this power being specifically the power to ‘transform any regional space into the center of the world.’ That is, a notion (Tianxia) must have the power to create not only a nation (China) as an ‘imagined community,’2but to give that community, or empire, a geographical grounding. In this sense place becomes space,3 and our bodies are now contained within a network of power, now subjects in a ‘bio-polity.’
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Oh the obstacle course of starting a business in China right now…
Then imagine my sadness again when my business partner (who’s a Chinese national) told me that, while she could open a business account for Yanlu Arts & Culture, WeChat had shut down registration for new users. What a Saturnine feeling that is. To be young and nascent, and yet to have doors close on you.
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“Minxin Xiangtong ⺠心相通 and People-to-People Relations Along the New Silk Roads” with Sophia Kidd
Sophia Kidd of Sichuan University joined the University of Virginia to discuss the New Silk Road’s (NSR) fifth ‘pillar’ in her talk on Minxin Xiangtong ⺠心相通 and People-to-People connections along the New Silk Roads; giving examples of how P2P connections support and sustain other NSR objectives: policy coordination, facilities connectivity, unimpeded trade, and financial integration. This talk, held March 12, 2021, was part of UVA’s “Assessment of China’s BRI” Project.
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Morning readings…in medias res… research on ‘culture’ paving the New Silk Roads (1)
Flipping through Xinhua and South China Morning Post this morning, I clicked thru a few headlines about Chinese State-Owned Enterprises calling in non-essential workers from Myanmar, US-China performativity on both sides, and also about the Oxford-trained presence in US President Joe Biden’s cabinet (this last from Peter Frankopan’s re-Tweet). I’m also going through a book, […]
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Palgrave Macmillan, Ou Ning, and Culture Paves the New Silk Roads
The series’ second book will be mine, Culture Paves the New Silk Roads, and I’m giving a related talk on Friday Mar 12 at 8 pm EST (5 pm PDT) for University of Virginia’s Assessment of Belt and Road Initiative project.
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Identity Labor
China is a destiny, a growing, and a torture all at once. The expectations of ‘identity labor’ required of living in skilled contexts in a foreign country, well…it adds character.
Classic China 