Asia as method: Where does China fit? - Michael Keane, 2023

Asia as method: Where does China fit? - Michael Keane, 2023



Global Media and China
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First published online November 2, 2023

Asia as method: Where does China fit?
Michael KeaneView all authors and affiliations
Volume 8, Issue 4
https://doi.org/10.1177/20594364231213211
Contents
Publish or languish
Where does China fit?
Conclusion
References
Biographies
PDF / ePub
More

On the surface Asia as method delivers an open-ended question, perhaps a provocation, albeit one that is ambiguous. It aims to expand connections across Asia with a view to creating possibilities of intellectual exchange. Connections among like-minded communities are like synapses firing together, consolidating discursive positions and challenging power. But increasingly disconnections and disputing schools of thought exist.
In this short paper I want to focus on how academic knowledge is produced about the People’s Republic of China (hereafter PRC or China). I am interested in both the pipeline of knowledge production and the relations between scholars who live in China and those who are located overseas. Because the PRC operates under a different political system than the rest of Asia, discussions often extend to its exceptionalism. Yet the PRC is integrated into the global economy and has absorbed knowledge and technologies from the west. Some parts of China, especially the large urban centres look and feel quite western, compared to a few decades ago when I first visited.
In the second part I will make some observations on identity, difference, universal values and the concept of dignity. I will try to link these to the idea of discourse power, which has recently become a symbol of assertive public diplomacy. I believe, however, that there is more to gain by open dialogue than the kind of polarising rhetoric that has typified international relations over the past few years.
Research in communication places a great deal of emphasis on method. The word ‘methods’ often evokes a feeling of extreme panic among new PhD candidates and many universities now offer summer schools and boot camps about methods. Of course, mention of the term ‘theory’ used to have a similar traumatising effect on PhD candidates.
The concept of ‘Asia as method’ is a case in point. It is not so much about method as it is about methodology. The core idea is that scholarship has historically used western knowledge to frame discourses about Asia. Asia as method calls for scholars and researchers to recognise commonalities in and across Asia; however, the latter is defined, and to be attentive to regimes of power. Part of the justification for reframing is the need to recognise multiple forms of reference and cultural identifications, a process which Chen Kuan-Hsing called ‘critical syncretism’ (Chen, 2010). When Chen and Chua Beng-Huat set up the journal Inter-Asia Cultural Studies in 2000, most of the published papers came from the Sinophone, regions in Asia where Chinese languages are spoken. Papers about China came mostly from scholars situated outside the PRC. The discipline of cultural studies in mainland China was then a new project, led by Tao Dongfeng and Jin Yuanpu who initiated a Chinese language journal called wenhua yanjiu (Cultural Studies). The cultural studies project in China was an attempt to balance western theory, mostly Marxist, with local voices. The topic of Chinese versus western modernity often featured in the papers published.
However, within the fields of communications and media studies the most authoritative voices on developments in the PRC have always been Chinese scholars. Many left China to undertake a PhD in the west, sometimes taking up employment overseas after graduation and sometimes returning. Most people will be aware of Chinese communication scholars who have graduated from PhD programs outside the PRC who have published their work in English, names such as Yuezhi Zhao, Jing Wang, Chin-Chuan Lee, Joseph Man Chan, Yu Hong, Guobin Yang, Xiaoling Zhang, Wanning Sun, Jack Linquan Qiu, Anthony Fung, Haiqing Yu, Emilie Yueh-Yu Yeh, Ying Zhu and Eric Kit-Wai Ma. This is only a short list: the field has expanded, refreshed, and we can see high demand for native voices as well as more outlets to publish. This was not always the case. International communications conferences like the ICA and IAMCR allow the next wave of scholars to showcase their wares. Studying outside the PRC offers young scholars the opportunity to engage with global debates and be mentored by leading international thinkers. The field of Chinese media and communication studies also includes non-native Chinese experts, who in their own way add to the depth of the knowledge bases. Many ‘non-Chinese’ experts have spent time learning the language, absorbing cultural knowledge and maybe even looking at issues in a different way. As a member of this latter group, I can say that I have learnt a lot from native Chinese researchers, as well as from students from China.
The scholars mentioned above have benefited from western knowledge and methodology. Many have remained faithful to a particular research tradition, for instance political economy or cultural studies. The approach taken often depends on where one undertakes a PhD; the Annenberg School of Communication for instance has a reputation for political economy. But there are many universities across the globe that take Chinese students. When a young PhD candidate from the PRC takes up a doctorate overseas chances are that supervisors might not have any direct expertise in Chinese history, language, culture or even Chinese media. Often the research advice dispensed is to digest work written in English by theorists, often continental and hopefully this can be mapped on to China. Foucault, Bourdieu, Zizek. The reality, however, is that ‘western’ continental theory does not always fit. Post-colonial theory on the other hand offers more nuanced understandings; for instance, Said, Bhabha, Spivak.
One of the challenges for Chinese natives who undertake a PhD in western universities is making the transition to an academic career in the PRC when they return. Critical research has a different meaning within China. Many Chinese PhDs return home as a condition of their scholarships and then have to work within a more structured academic system where the default theoretical framework is Marxist-Leninism and where the career incentive is to publish work that celebrates Chinese media achievements, or to publish work in a more administrative Blue Book style. International scholarship is valued in the Chinese academy, particularly if the work cited has a Marxist pedigree. However, there can be complications. The development of cultural studies in China in the early 2000s undermined the Frankfurt School’s position of authority among Chinese scholars. The emphasis on the agency of active audiences by western scholars such as John Fiske, John Hartley and Ien Ang appeared to contradict the Frankfurt School’s pessimism towards mass culture that had allowed Chinese scholars to critique global capital. Similarly, the focus on creativity that underpinned the cultural industries agenda after 2005 evoked concerns about the appropriateness of western style creativity into China. Elsewhere scholars have endeavoured to retrofit global concepts onto China, a case in point being the use of the neoliberalism to describe market conditions in China. It doesn’t fit very well – there is no invisible hand – but scholars haven’t stopped using it.
Chinese modernity is a kind of hybrid, an amalgam of tradition and technology. The officially favoured term is Chinese modernisation while ‘national conditions’ (guoqing) underpin a development path. The Chinese government places emphasis on discourse power, a concept that lends itself to analysis by communications researchers. Discourse power is a feature of the geo-political game played between nations. Discourse power has always been around in political communication; it is just recently that it entered the official Party lexicon as a strategic endeavour to ‘tell China’s story well’. Academic discourse is subgenre of discourse power although academics often fail to get their ideas into the mainstream. In fact, academics spend a lot of time talking amongst themselves, citing each other’s work, some might say speaking too much in academic jargon. Nevertheless, there is a significant market for scholarly work.
Scholarship in the humanities and social sciences within the PRC has become more critical and nuanced. Aside from the field of communications which leans towards a more empiricist tradition, critical scholars have largely coalesced around three groupings: New Confucians, Liberals and the New Left. Within these categories there are various explanations for China’s rise along with denunciations of the west. Much of the critique is sophisticated and contrary to opinions among western media pundits, many scholars are willing to shine a light on China’s problems. Whereas in the past Chinese scholars would defer to their western counterparts, there is a sense of intellectual equality. In the field of media and communication studies more sophisticated accounts of China are emerging, taking into consideration Chinese norms and traditions, from Fei Xiaotong’s sociology as applied to the management of digital clans in today’s platform society or the role of guanxi in managing labour practices.
Publish or languish
Being published in English is a requirement for success and this is where the experience of studying abroad can help. Theories and methods developed during a PhD program overseas can be adapted to realities in China, which can enrich the quality of outcomes. Currently English language publications exert authority in the global marketplace of ideas. Does the necessity of publishing in English therefore tilt the discursive balance towards the west?
Most prestigious academic publishers are located in the global north and English remains the gold standard. Increasingly large volume publishers like SAGE and Taylor & Francis are attracting papers from Asia and these publishers have regional offices with local editors taking a lead. This has allowed more Chinese authors in particular to navigate western gatekeepers. Journals are increasingly geographically heterogenous. Global Media & China is administered by the Communications University of China (CUC) and its editors seek the best quality papers in order to attract more readers and in this way ascend global journal rankings. Global Media & China publishes a high number of papers about China by Chinese authors. It also attracts some of the best international scholars. These papers are reaching a wide readership thanks to the open access system. The International Journal of Communications has also provided opportunities for many Chinese scholars, as has The Asian Journal of Communication.
Of course, papers will get rejected because of deficiencies in theory and method, sometimes this is the luck of the draw: you can’t always predict reviewers. Reviewers can be pedantic: an academic joke that circulates regularly refers to a mythical Reviewer #2, who misunderstands the argument or finds fault with theory. Drawing on established theory is a requirement, and this constitutes a challenge. As I have mentioned above, not all theory born in the west fits.
In short, the Chinese research community has achieved a level of cultural confidence in its capacity to explain China’s progress and understand its own methodology; some of this assurance is thanks to the insights of scholars returning from the west; some is due to visiting scholar programmes, but much has to do with the fact that China is distinctive in many ways from the west, and from other regions in Asia. It is these differences, or divides, that now provide opportunities for dialogue.
Where does China fit?
In a book entitled Global China as Method, which is written from an international politics perspective, Franseschini and Loubere (2022) list three ways that people in general, and scholars in particular, regard China as separate from the rest of the world, that is, as a fundamentally different ‘Other’. The first is a kind of essentialism, whereby observers see China and its socio-political system as incompatible with the west. A second is the idea that China is changing to become more like the west, following its integration into the world system. A third framing is ‘whataboutism’ whereby critical developments in China are countered by arguments that the west is equally culpable. The title of the book resonates with Global Media & China, and the argument that Franseschini and Loubere make is that China is entangled in the world through its outreach; this entanglement is described as negative rather than positive, reflecting the status quo of writing about China in English. Similarly, the title of Global Media & China assumes a similar juxtaposition of western and Chinese discourse power, albeit the content is communications rather than international politics, and the balance is more even handed.
The question of how to frame China’s rise is becoming more relevant as the west becomes increasingly polarised and China becomes more assertive. The France-based cultural studies scholar Gregory Lee, writes: ‘in the twenty-first century, “China,” whose shape and form and categories we in the West invented and maintained, is starting to escape us. The “China” we have created, that we have imagined, that we have dreamt up and of which we have dreamt – the China that frightened us as well as fascinated us – has slipped our grasp’ (Lee, 2018, p. 3). In this new era of uncertainty identity politics has led to polarisation. This is most evident among nations that have accepted migrants and refugees.
Cultural identity is a defining feature of cosmopolitanism. America is the ultimate melting pot society although former president Donald J. Trump stirred the pot in 2018 by proclaiming that US should not take migrants from ‘shithole countries’, referring in this instance to African nations and Haiti, and that it should receive more migrants from Norway. The pronouncements of Trump and his ilk have done damage to American soft power. The term polarisation best describes the present reality of public debate in many western liberal democracies. People say they don’t trust government, but the real meaning is they don’t trust the government of the day, whatever party they chose when they voted. In the US people are even willing to take up arms and storm the institutions of government. In China, according to polls taken, people say they trust the government.
Francis Fukuyama, who predicted the universal centrality of liberalism as ‘the end of history’, has more recently addressed the question of identity (Fukuyama, 2018). Fukuyama places conceptual weight on the theme of dignity. He believes that social movements and identity politics have arisen because marginalised people are seeking affirmation for themselves and the groups to which they belong: feminism, Black Lives Matter, Me-too and Diasporas. In other words, they are seeking personalised discourse power. Nation states in Asia that suffered indignities during the colonial era are asking for retribution, as well as apologies, from their former colonial masters. In China, the theme ‘century of humiliation’ is used to rouse feelings of nationalism, creating a sense of unity. Whereas the west operates on a governmentality model, allowing citizens considerable autonomy, China emphasises harmony and social order.
Harmony is an ideal celebrated in Confucian cultures, but harmony also entails a degree of social homogeneity. The Harvard economist and political scientist Huang (2023) calls attention to homogeneity as a defining feature of Chinese society since the Sui Dynasty. He believes that the traditional examination system in particular was a mechanism for maintaining social conformity. The examination system extracted the best human capital from across society and this formed the state bureaucracy. He adds to his discussion of the role of the examination system the tropes of ‘autocracy’, ‘stability’ and ‘technology’, which together form the acronym EAST. Huang’s formula constitutes an alternative to the China model that is promoted within China by scholars such as Yan (2011). However, EAST does not transfer directly to other parts of Asia, where one sees unruly democracies and unstable regimes, as well as lower levels of technological development. In short, Huang views homogeneity as a stabilising force in China. Gregory Lee notes that China now exalts the memory of Confucius, a name that evokes ‘a millenary order, stability and obedience’ (Lee, 2017, p. 138).
Arguably, the premise of Asia as method is about recognising the validity of localised explanations. It does not imply exceptionalism. An example is a recent paper on how the Confucian Rule of Virtue justifies the role of technocrats in Chinese society. The authors (Lan et al., 2021) make the point that the term ‘technocracy’ has western origins. In recent years, however, the problems associated with technology are seen to impinge on personal freedoms. In the view of the authors of this paper such problems are less likely in China because the people who manage technology, the technocrats, are carefully selected based on their superior moral qualities and virtue; that is, they can be trusted to do the right thing. The authors therefore suggest that western scholars reexamine their oppositions to technology. This perspective is not so far removed from the China Model proposed by international relations scholars who argue that the west, and the rest of the world, have much to learn about governance from China.
Conclusion
China is different from the west and also similar to the west. China is more homogeneous in thought and political governance, but it is similar because it has adopted western technologies and ideas. It is different because it doesn’t absorb large numbers of migrants. China is a multi-ethnic nation and Han ethnicity is numerically dominant. This leads to more social stability, but this comes at the expense of cultural renewal. Multiculturalism, the social fabric that prevails in Australia, the US and Canada, is underpinned by cosmopolitanism and people maintain strong connections to home nations. The Chinese Diaspora for instance is diverse and many view their homeland though different lenses than their compatriots in the PRC. Many refract their understanding of China through Chinese and western media, which leads to a degree of frustration that China’s discourse power is not resonating abroad.
China is similar to the west because China faces similar challenges: global warming, terrorist threats and economic downturns. Dialogue is therefore important if the world is to avoid catastrophe. The ‘community of shared future’ is a vision that embraces difference, only in this case the difference is between sovereign communities. Each community respects its differences. It sounds like an ideal template for the future. But the clash of cultures predicted by Samuel Huntingdon has not gone away. The Sinologist François Jullien argues that there can be no dominant culture without tension: ‘culture by its nature mutates and transforms. This is a monumental reason, pertaining to culture’s very essence. A culture that no longer transforms is a dead culture’ (Jullien, 2021, p. 34). If cultures are always transforming, then it is impossible to speak of a fixed cultural identity.
The discussion over who controls discourse power is likely to foment. In the past cultural and media industries have contributed to China’s global image, as well as providing stories for domestic audiences. The workforce responsible for China’s image building has largely come from humanities institutions. In Mao Zedong’s time journalists, along with writers and artists were regaled as ‘engineers of the soul’. These days online influencers (wanghong) are doing much of the soul engineering. A case in point is a recent online debate between Zhang Xuefeng and Zhang Xiaoqiang. The first Zhang, a prominent wanghong who dispenses advice on the annual university entrance exams (gaokao) counselled a parent to discourage their son from pursuing a journalism degree. This would lead to future job insecurity, he said. The second Zhang, a journalism academic argued that journalism’s skills sets are transferrable.
The role of humanities academics is at a crossroads. Texts are increasingly generated by smart machines. New challenges face both journalists and academics in the era of ChatGPT and AI, not to mention content creators in general. With Large Language Models (LLM) allowing the proliferation of text and images and scouring the internet for ‘facts’, the future of informed public debate may be in for a rough ride.

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Biographies
Michael Keane is Adjunct Professor in the Digital Media Research Centre, Queensland University of Technology, Australia. Prof Keane’s key research interests are digital transformation in China; East Asian cultural and media policy; television in China, and creative industries and cultural export strategies in China and East Asia.