"President Hu Jintao of China has said that the West is trying to dominate China by spreading its culture and ideology and that China must strengthen its cultural production to defend against the assault, according to an essay in a Communist Party policy magazine published this week.
Mr. Hu’s words signaled that a major policy initiative announced last October would continue well into 2012.
The essay, which was signed by Mr. Hu and based on a speech he gave in October, drew a sharp line between the cultures of the West and China and effectively said the two sides were engaged in an escalating culture war. It was published in Seeking Truth, a magazine founded by Mao Zedong as a platform for establishing Communist Party principles.
'We must clearly see that international hostile forces are intensifying the strategic plot of westernizing and dividing China, and ideological and cultural fields are the focal areas of their long-term infiltration,' Mr. Hu said, according to a translation by Reuters.
'We should deeply understand the seriousness and complexity of the ideological struggle, always sound the alarms and remain vigilant and take forceful measures to be on guard and respond,' he added.
Those measures, Mr. Hu said, should be centered on developing cultural products that can draw the interest of the Chinese and meet the “growing spiritual and cultural demands of the people.”
Chinese leaders have long lamented the fact that Western expressions of popular culture and art seem to overshadow those from China. The top grossing films in China have been 'Avatar' and 'Transformers 3,' and the music of Lady Gaga is as popular here as that of any that of any Chinese pop singer. In October, at the annual plenum of the party’s Central Committee, where Mr. Hu gave his speech, officials discussed the need for bolstering the 'cultural security' of China."
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