[continued]
A few years later, by the time of the Tiananmen tragedy, many of these young Chinese artists were studying or working in the West, attracting considerable attention. Their work, however impressive, is nonetheless imitative and barely hints at a search for oneself. These artists are praised in the West often on the basis of certain Eurocentric concepts of what modern art is, or according to what some Westerners regard as the way new Chinese art “should” be. Back home, they are evaluated either according to politics or to the degree of attention they attract in the West.
This has hardly been a healthy ambience in which to nurture a renewed culture in China that reaches beyond its old self-long in stagnation-or becomes more than a shadow of the West. Given China’s history, this is more or less to be expected as part of its growing pains. Symbolically, and at a tragic cost that June night in 1989 — ten years after the beginning of the first sustained cultural exchange between China and the United States — an alarm sounded, not only for diplomatic relations, but also for a thoughtful re-examination of the arts relations between these two cultures flanking the Pacific.
The Chinese leadership maintains that the single most urgent task for China is to achieve a superior economy through the processes of modernization. Everything else is subordinate to this focus. The reality will no doubt prove to be a little more complex than that. To achieve the goals of modernization as set by China’s leaders, a “modern mentality,” which still eludes the masses, will have to develop. Achieving this, in turn, depends on a “modern” culture, which, in all honesty, China does not yet possess. Perhaps what is needed is some conclusion to the long cycle of interaction with Western culture that was initiated so painfully in the mid-nineteenth century. China has to comprehend and absorb modern ideas from the West in their cultural context, but also must invigorate its own cultural traditions in order to provide a solid foundation for modern development. Without these two steps, China can only copy or borrow from the West. Having taken these steps, China should then be able to evolve its own modern experience in its own environment and emerge out of the shadow of both the United States and the Soviet Union. All of this is to say that as crucial economics may appear to be to China at this time, culture is at least equally important.
Long-term U.S.-China relations do not rely on political and economic interactions alone. Efforts in these areas have brought about, and will continue to bring about, immediate but often temporary results. For the long-term future, however, efforts in cultural interaction will be indispensable to the success of the relationship. The Tiananmen tragedy should serve as a moment for introspection for Americans as well as Chinese. During the ten years leading to that moment, while we proudly excited the Chinese people with our concepts of democracy and market economy, did we make a conscious effort to sufficiently impart to them the cultural underpinnings on which democratic principles rely? Had there been exchanges in culture and the arts approaching the magnitude of those in the political, financial, and commercial spheres?