2010—Speech at the Forum on "Building a Culturally Strong City" (Draft for Comment)
1. The city's decision-makers have been thinking big and acting big for years. Since the Fifth Party Congress, from 2007 to now, the municipal Party committee and government have successively issued policies on new urbanization, new industrialization, and agricultural industrialization, as well as the "Three-Year Improvement, Five-Year Transformation" Construction Outline and "Several Issues on Building a World-Class Tourism Masterpiece"...
This article has been compiled from historical materials in the "Zhangjiajie Tour Guide Network" (33519.com · City Overview section). Some administrative divisions, population, socioeconomic data, and policy information may be outdated and are for reference only; for the latest situation, please refer to official releases by the local government and scenic areas.
1. The city's decision-making level has been thinking big and doing big things for several years.
Since the Fifth Party Congress was convened, from 2007 to the present, the Municipal Party Committee and Municipal Government have successively issued a series of important documents and even programmatic documents concerning the overall and general situation, reality and the long term, including those on new urbanization, new industrialization, agricultural industrialization, the "Construction Outline for 'Visible Change in Three Years, Great Transformation in Five Years,'" and the "Decision on Several Issues Concerning Building a World-Class Tourism Masterpiece." Now the "Opinions on Building a Strong City through Culture" is also in intensive preparation and about to be freshly released. This makes us truly feel that the city's decision-making level has been thinking big and doing big things for several years.
2. For Zhangjiajie to build a "strong city through culture" is to hit the nail on the head.
Once the theme of the Shanghai World Expo was determined as "Better City, Better Life," there was no lack of people who expressed doubts: with "urban diseases" such as crowded space, resource shortages, and environmental pollution growing more severe, how can one feel that the city is making life better? (A few days ago, when I accompanied a group of guests from the National Committee of the CPPCC, I said that the proportion of patients with the "three highs" and cancer in Beijing is astonishing.) But precisely because today's cities have many places urgently needing improvement and enhancement, as a concept it expresses people's simple yet strong wishes and demands, and also reveals the direction in which cities should strive. More than two years ago, Secretary Hu gave me a topic called "Docking Local Ethnic Culture with Urban Construction," and this concept has already been written into the 2008 "Decision on Accelerating the Advancement of New Urbanization." Of course, how to practice and implement this concept from the theoretical level to the operational level requires good follow-up work. This research text was completed in first draft two years ago, and after this period of settling and rethinking, I am currently revising and amending it. In the process of revision and amendment, I have been pondering the question of "how can the city make life better." After much pondering, the answer lies in culture: only when culture makes the city better can the city make life better. There is a prejudice and stereotype that culture is something abstract and of no real use. However, whether a city can make life better depends precisely on whether it has raised the banner of "culture" and whether it has injected culture, something of the soul. For example, making city buildings identical across a thousand cities is a manifestation of having no culture; conversely, highlighting regional and ethnic architectural features is a manifestation of a cultural concept. Another example is the idea of first boosting GDP through industry and construction and then turning back to deal with pollution and other aftereffects once the economy has developed—this concept of urban construction is not people-oriented, whereas "people-oriented" is itself a cultural concept. And so on. If what we in Zhangjiajie are currently pursuing is: invigorating the city through tourism, enriching the city through industry, and enlivening the city through the service sector, then adding this overarching "strengthening the city through culture" makes it complete. From a macro perspective, our city's development thinking is tending toward maturity and perfection. Therefore, the major decision by the Municipal Party Committee and Municipal Government to "build a strong city through culture," which concerns the direction of our city's development, is truly a major achievement in studying and practicing the Scientific Outlook on Development—this is absolutely not empty talk!
3. Overall, the "draft for soliciting opinions" is a text with a high level of understanding, highlights in content, and a relatively good and increasingly mature combination of conceptual discussion and practical measures, foresight and operability.
"A high level of understanding" is concentrated in the section on "significance." For example, the statement that "cultural strength is embodied as the core competitiveness of the regional economy" is very accurate. In the extensive stage, the tourism industry mainly competes on resources; generally speaking, whoever has superior resources will have stronger competitive strength. But once development reaches a certain stage, relying on resource advantages alone no longer works. Without cultural intervention and participation in quality improvement and transformation, advantages will continuously be discounted: once a powerful competitor appears, a situation of being unable to hold one's own may arise. The challenge facing our tourism industry in Zhangjiajie is a clear example.
Moreover, as we have developed into today's era, it has become increasingly evident that social wealth is concentrating in regions with cultural advantages. Cultural advantages have gradually replaced resources, policies, and geographical advantages to become the key and an important indicator of regional competitiveness—a highly significant feature emerging in the process of urbanization. Shenzhen was originally an immigrant city lacking historical and cultural accumulation. On the one hand, it became a pioneer of urban development in the new era as the 'first to eat crab'; on the other hand, it also suffered from the cultural lag of a 'nouveau riche.' Yet before long, driven by the powerful momentum of its rapidly developing urban economy, what was once a 'cultural desert' quickly grew into today's vast 'cultural oasis,' offering many insights worth summarizing and learning from. Take the four calling cards it created for 'building the city through culture'—the City of Libraries, the City of Pianos, the Capital of Design, and the Animation Base—none of them has anything to do with innate resource advantages. Everyone knows that 30 years ago this was just a small fishing village, and the dreams of generations past were probably all unrelated to such things. Only after becoming a modern international metropolis, in order to shape Shenzhen's cultural characteristics and brand, did the 'two cities, one capital, and one base' come into being. And they became the four calling cards of Shenzhen's 'building the city through culture.' The 'culture + technology' Shenzhen model, with its high-tech and high-cultural content, has explored a successful path for China's cultural industry development, demonstrating vigorous and powerful vitality. In 2009, against the backdrop of the global financial crisis, Shenzhen's cultural industry bucked the trend and soared, with the added value of Shenzhen's cultural industry exceeding 53.13 billion yuan. The 'Hunan Broadcasting phenomenon' illustrates the same principle. As a central province and less-developed region, Hunan's television cultural industry nevertheless rose abruptly, ranking at the forefront among all provinces and cities. Two examples illustrate: first, having resource advantages does not equal always having competitive advantages; second, cultural advantages have gradually replaced resources, policies, and geographical advantages to become the key and an important indicator of regional competitiveness. Therefore, if one has cultural advantages, even without resource advantages, one can still support the core strength of the regional economy. This is also an important reason why I so sincerely endorse the major decision of the CPC Municipal Committee and the Municipal People's Government to build a culturally strong city.
Second, there are highlights in content. For example, P13 incorporates building a culturally strong city into the target responsibility system management and assessment system; P13 establishes the 'Outstanding Contribution Award for Building a Culturally Strong City' and the 'Cultural Development Innovation Award'; P13's 'strengthening investment guarantees' contains substantive measures; P6 incorporates 'basic cultural research into the government's cultural construction projects'; P6, second-to-last line: expand the forms of cultural inheritance; P7 emphasizes urban cultural construction, etc.
IV. A few suggestions.
(1) Inject the concept that "culture makes cities better, and cities make life better." When talking about the significance now, it feels rather packed with things like promoting the construction of world-class tourism products and transforming the economic development model, whereas the ultimate goal of building a good city is to make the people's lives better. At present, it feels a bit roundabout and not very direct. This concerns the people-oriented concept of urban construction, and it is also a governing concept—it is the driving force.
(2) Regarding talent, I feel it is not discussed thoroughly enough. Cultural talent includes talent in various literary and artistic categories in the usual sense, as well as talent engaged in cultural affairs management, and technical and managerial talent engaged in the cultural industry (including emerging industries such as creativity and consulting), etc. How to cultivate, absorb, and introduce talent requires a series of measures to be implemented. I once gave the example of Enshi, which many years ago adopted a series of measures to protect and treat well folk art talent and inheritors of intangible cultural heritage. In the past, whenever we held large-scale festival activities, we would go to other places to find performance troupes, never thinking of using these platforms to cultivate and strengthen our own literary and artistic teams. These two examples are meant to illustrate that building a culturally strong city requires always paying attention to talent development, from ideology and concepts to safeguard measures. With talent, one has everything. The United States, as a developed country, has always emphasized respecting and striving to attract talent from around the world through policies—this is worth learning from.
(3) For Article 8, the 'Safeguard Measures' section (P13), it is suggested to refer to the practices of the 'Urban Work Committee' and 'Tourism Work Committee' and add wording such as 'the leading group shall establish a Cultural Strong City Office and a Cultural Strong City Research Center (office, institute).' The former is an administrative office; whether placed under the municipal government or the Publicity Department of the CPC Municipal Committee, it must have dedicated personnel managing affairs, otherwise it can easily become nominal (building a culturally strong city differs from tourism work and urban work; from existing models and traditional concepts, the latter are more rigid and relatively simpler). The 'Cultural Strong City Research Institution' is a body integrating a think tank, staff office, consulting center, and research center. It should be composed of experts, scholars, leading cadres, and senior figures from within and outside the city, responsible for drafting short-, medium-, and long-term plans, proposing suggestions for determining annual key projects, providing professional guidance on related work in building a culturally strong city, cooperating with the Municipal Cultural Strong City Office, the Municipal Party Committee Supervision Office, and the Municipal Government Supervision Office in supervising related work, and organizing award evaluations entrusted by the leading group, etc. After the correct line is determined, the key lies in implementation—without distortion or deviation. My greatest hope is that in the future, Zhangjiajie's affairs can be handled according to this approach; my greatest worry is that such a good approach cannot be fully implemented item by item; what I fear most is talking the talk without walking the walk. (Example: rescuing historical districts)
(4) For P7, "focusing on urban cultural construction," it is suggested to set aside a separate small section, with the subtitle suggested as "implementing the connection between regional ethnic culture and the city." Reasons: first, it is consistent with the "principle of distinctive development" determined in the "Decision on Accelerating the Advancement of Urbanization"; second, urban construction is the top priority in building world-class tourism products and the main carrier for strengthening the city through culture. In a sense, if this area succeeds, the construction of world-class tourism products succeeds; if this area is missing, it is equivalent to losing the biggest part.
(5) After point 11 of P6, 'strengthening basic cultural research,' it is suggested to add 'and applied development research.' The purpose of research is to bring forth the new from the old and to do a good job in inheritance and application (for example: the extraction and definition of architectural elements and symbols with ethnic characteristics).
(6) In the last line of P6, 'strive to maintain' is suggested to be changed to 'devote to inheriting and promoting.'
(7) Section 13: After 'encourage,' it is suggested to change to 'literary and artistic creation in various forms such as literature, music, film and television, drama, photography, calligraphy, and fine arts, and support the creation of tourism classic songs and other literary and artistic works capable of producing widespread influence.'
(8) P5, Section 7, 'the main front role of the municipal Party committee's organ publication'—should 'publication' be changed to 'newspapers and periodicals'?