A Socio-Political Approach to Cultural Resurgence in Contemporary China: Case Study of the Approval of Traditional Festivals as Public Holidays

AbstractThis study explores revival of traditional in contemporary China using a socio-political approach. It challenges Instrumentalist view that Chinese government has been main pusher for revival of traditional culture. By examining a typical case, Chinese Government's approval of traditional festivals as public holidays, it has found that ordinary citizens' increasing identity with traditional culture, which arose out of their disillusion with official Marxist ideology, has served as fundamental force for approval, and that intellectuals, by instrumentally framing and promoting public support, have played a leading role in influencing government policies. However, government was far less enthusiastic and active in whole process as Instrumentalist theories presuppose. The reason for discrepancy, as has been analyzed by article, is that Chinese government is not a unified whole with a common interest. Rather, it is a diversified body with contrasting interests. Though cultural sector of government endorsed policy shiftto boost cultural revival, economic sector strongly opposed it. Besides, local government, out of their selfinterest, also stood against policy change. With this conclusion, this study also contradicts Instrumentalists' assumption of overall dominance of Chinese State over society.Keywords: Instrumentalism, Primordialism, traditional festivals, ordinary citizens, intellectuals, Chinese governmentJEL classification: A13, H10, P37, Z13(ProQuest: ... denotes non-US-ASCII text omitted.)1. Introduction1Since beginning of this century, Chinese traditional has experienced unprecedented resurgence in contemporary China. Various traditional customs and festivals began to resume their old glory and so did traditional thoughts such as Confucianism. This cultural nostalgia, within less than a decade, has quickly swept all over country and become one of most powerful ideological trends among contemporary Chinese society (Xiao, 2008).However, for most part of last century, from May 4th movement in 1919 to June 4th movement in 1989, Chinese traditional has been generally considered as roots of China's backwardness and would therefore need to be eradicated. Only about 20 years ago, traditional Chinese culture was just raised by a small group of Chinese intellectuals. But now within only 10 years of new century, it has ascended as influential ideological trend in contemporary China.What has caused swiftchange? And what was role of Chinese government in change? In this regard, there has been a heated scholarly debate. The two sides of debate are Instrumentalists and Primordialists. The Instrumentalist school argued that Chinese government had played a decisive or at least conducive role in rise of traditional culture. Barme (2009), for example, argued that Chinese government guided and aptly manipulated cultural nationalist artists through a forensic analysis of a typical case, opening ceremony of 29th Olympiad in Beijing. He showed how this ceremony, a full representation of regenerating traditional culture, was created under Party fiat with active collaboration of local and international arts figures (Barme, 2009: 64). Meissner also commented that government's funding for large-scale research activities and programmes for developing neo-Confucianism in China is Chinese government's deployment of Confucianism as an instrument to counter Western influence (Meissner, 1999: 18). Similarly, Min and Galikowski (2001) also claimed that the Confucian tradition has been revived by authorities as important cultural source from which a new national identity can be constructed (p. 160).The Primordialist school, however, believed that Chinese government was largely invisible in cultural revival and even if government had a hand in cultural regeneration, its role was minor at best. …