10 Proposals for Further Deepening Reform: Cultural System Reform

Shenzhen Innovation and Development Institute (SZIDI) released the China Reform Report 2017 in May 2018. Entitled Reform on Route, this year’s report evaluates twelve major aspects of the reform process in 2017, concludes reform experiences from the past five years and makes predictions on the future trend of reform in 2018 with ten policy recommendations. The report identifies 2017 as a crucial year during which series of planning and design culminate into implementation, and historical breakthroughs and periodical progresses rise to the surface. 

The top level design of the “Five in One” reform agenda includes coordinated reforms in economic, political, cultural, social and ecological systems. The report goes in-depth to examine the stagnation in cultural system reform in the past few years.

The report demonstrates that cultural system reform measures have not touched on core issues such as whether it is the government or the market that should determine cultural activities, whether the market should continue to be dominated by SOEs, and whether we should cut down on government subsidies for SOEs in cultural sector. The report thus suggest that the cultural system reform should

l  encourage more participation of private firms and end the monopoly of SOEs

l  lower barriers for private firms to enter the market of internet cultural industry

l  further open up the cultural market

n  allowing the entrance of foreign-owned firms in facilities, brokerage, and printing

n  categorizing cultural sector into industries that are ideologically sensitive and those not