The Communist Party's powerful central committee meets once a year, customarily in October, to discuss matters of strategic importance for the party and the nation. The public announcement of the agenda usually attracts intense comments and speculation from overseas media. It did so in the run-up to the fifth plenum of the 17th congress last year, when the agenda mentioned discussions of China's 12th five-year plan for the nation's economic development, but left out a secret appointment of Vice-President Xi Jinping as a deputy head of the Central Military Commission, ensuring his status as the mainland's next leader.
However, on July 22, when the party announced the agenda for the sixth plenum, the last plenary session before the change of leadership scheduled for the 18th congress next year, it barely caused a whimper. Indeed, China watchers and overseas journalists could be forgiven for not getting excited about the sole item on the agenda - how to deepen reforms of cultural systems and to promote 'grand development and flourishing' of the socialist culture.
The agenda itself is an odd one. The declaration to promote grand cultural flourishing comes at a time when the mainland leadership is accused by many international human rights groups of undertaking the strictest ideological controls and the strongest crackdown on political dissent seen in recent years. Artists and activists have faced constant harassment and detention, or even jail, if they are seen to be deviating from or challenging party lines. Overseas, artist Ai Weiwei has become the most visible symbol of the mainland's repression.
Despite the obvious contradiction, it is hasty to dismiss the leadership's grand cultural ambitions out of hand. In fact, the leaders are prepared to pay high-level attention to and spend billions of yuan to develop the cultural industries, from book publications to print media, to television and radio, to films, arts and animation.
In fact, the government has identified culture as 'a pillar industry' to drive the mainland's economic development in the current five-year plan and is expected to fetch 2 trillion yuan (HK$2.43 trillion) in revenue by 2015, although the definition of the pillar industry is very loose and subject to different interpretations.
It is not hard to see why the development of culture has been given such a prominent position. Amid China's economic rise, particularly with its economy becoming the second largest in the world, leaders have concluded that it is essential to develop the nation's soft power to match its economic influence.
Even more importantly, they hope to use the promotion of the rich Chinese culture and traditions to rally support and promote unity among the vast diaspora of Chinese, be they in Hong Kong, Taiwan, or elsewhere.
