Along with the accelerating economic globalization, multi-ownership cultures worldwide have gained big growth momentum during the integration and interaction of different cultures.

Ever since the mid 19th century when China's door was cracked open by strong ships and advanced artilleries of western powers, groups of far-sighted Chinese responded positively to the foreign attacks and at the same time reconsidered how to develop the national culture. The founding of New China in 1949 ushered in a new era for the Chinese nation and its culture as well. However, due to various reasons, China's culture developed quite slowly for a long period. It was only after the 1980s that China made historical progress in its cultural development under the reform & opening-up policy and the guidance of the Deng Xiaoping's Theory.

In the past two decades, triggered by wide application of high-tech in the cultural realm, culture industries became internationally recognized as "sunrise industries" and gained a more important position in many developed countries' national economy. The culture industry in England creates nearly 60 billion pounds in production value annually and employs approximately 5% of the total employed in the country. Since 1993, the entertainment industry in Japan has overtaken the automobile industry in terms of annual production value. The US culture industry is more developed, with export of audiovisual products ranking only after several other exports including aviation products and occupying a 40% share in the world market. In many developed countries and regions, residents' cultural expenditures have reached more than 30% of their total consumption.

Though China's culture industry started late, it has gained considerable development in a short time. Statistics show that, by the end of 2000, units engaging in cultural entertainment, audiovisual production, performance and art works business under culture departments had totaled 223,000, employed 919,000 people, contributed taxes of RMB2.02 billion annually and created an added value of RMB11.89 billion. And, China has more than 500 book publishers with total assets of RMB70 billion. The government pointed out in the Tenth Five-Year Plan that it should further reform on the cultural system, improve economic policies governing culture and boost culture-related industries. China has witnessed profound changes in the original pattern in the culture industry.

However, compared with developed countries such as the United States and Japan, China's culture industry is still weak and lacks competitiveness. China's WTO entry will inevitable bring about unprecedented opportunities and challenges as well to its culture industry. On the one hand, the WTO entry will introduce foreign funds, advanced technologies, information and talents and help integrate domestic small, scattered cultural enterprises and upgrade the industrial structure. The WTO entry will expand market access for foreign cultural products and services and enrich domestic cultural market. It will improve industrial layout, regional distributions and ownership structure of the culture market and require the cultural management to shift from administrative intervention to legal regulation. On the other hand, the WTO entry will exert  impacts on the socialist value judgment and China's outstanding national culture, and pose threats to cultural enterprises in the country. Therefore, we must keep a somber mind and get fully prepared.

Culture is the soul of a nation and is the cohesive force and source of self-confidence for a nation. During economic globalization, western powers are trying to penetrate other countries politically and culturally, and worldwide cultural diversification is being challenged. In China, the framework of a market economy system is not established yet, the culture industry is in its rudiment, the culture market mechanism is still not complete and culture-related legislation and management also lag far behind. Under such circumstances, how to face WTO challenges, how to develop the refined national culture and how to beef up our international competitiveness while assimilating essence in foreign cultures are all big issues to be tackled during the process of developing the socialist culture with Chinese characteristics.

In view of this, based on research results of several experts and scholars we compiled and published this book titled WTO and Chinese Culture Industry.

Meng Xiaosi
April 25, 2001