Issue 4, 2025  

Chinese Literature and Art in Search of Chinese Direction

Contents

▍Editor’s Note     

The Dynamic Public, and the Innovative Literature and Art

▍Overseas

Should AI Be Open Source?                             Jia Kai

Controversy surrounding open-source artificial intelligence (AI for short) is gaining widespread attention. Stakeholders criticize whether it is “open-wash” or adherence to the spirit of open-source, doubt the value of open-source to the development of AI innovation and application, concern the “out-of-control” safety and security risk of open-source AI, debate on the impacts of open-source AI on geopolitics to promote cooperation or intensify great power competition. The above disputes around open-source AI should not be considered as merely different opinions in technical details, but rather the “big questions” of our time which are closely related to the future evolution of AI and its far-reaching social impacts.

▍Cover Feature: Chinese Arts in Search of China's Direction

From Confusion to Envisioning a New Civilization: 50 Years of Chinese Popular Culture                 Liu Fusheng

Movies and TV Series in the Era of New Popular Literature and Arts    Mao Jian

Divergent Imaginations: Comparing Chinese and American Literature and Arts in the 21st CenturyShan Siping

By comparing The Long Season and Shameless, The Three-Body Problem and the Cthulhu Mythos, Black Myth: Wukong and Cyberpunk 2077, this article argues that socialist ideology and the revolutionary historical experience have embedded a future-oriented, linear conception of history into Chinese cultural consciousness. This epistemological framework has not only profoundly reshaped the value orientations and methodologies of China’s cultural production in the 20th century, but also continues to shape the subconscious imaginaries of many key figures in contemporary Chinese cultural industries. As a result, these distinctive ideological and historical resources have contributed to a significant divergence in value orientations and future imaginaries between Chinese works and their American counterparts, even when addressing similar themes.

Cultural Enterprises and “The 2025 Moment” of Cultural Innovation     Zhang Xiang, Ke Guifu, Zhang Shuo

Scholarly discourse on China’s “national rejuvenation” has long emphasized economic ascendancy, with its “cultural renaissance” framed through nationalist ideology or traditional revival. However, from late 2024 through 2025, China produced a wide range of influential mass cultural products, from AAA games to animated films, obtaining unprecedented global recognition. China’s cultural sector is now embracing its “2025 moment” of innovation. This paper argues that this burgeoning cultural creativity stems directly from its industrial strength. A defining feature of the cultural resurgence is the synergy between breakthroughs in mass cultural production capabilities and heightened cultural subjectivity among new-generation creators. While this trend introduces new challenges—such as value orientation in cultural products and labor-capital tensions in production workflows—it transcends mere nostalgia. The traditions embraced by young and middle-aged creators and consumers represent a consciously reinterpreted cultural legacy.

▍Focus

Rural Revitalization from the Perspective of Agricultural Civilization Modernization                  Zheng Yongnian, Zhu Yinlin

▍Historical Perspectives

China’s Strategic Hinterland: Reshaping National Geography Beyond the Legacy of the Third Line ConstructionYan Peng

▍The Wealth of Nations  

Why Are Enterprises the True Drivers of Technological Innovation? 

Sun Xi, Song Dan

How Can China’s Semiconductor Industry Thrive Against the Odds?       He Pengyu

How "State-owned with Private Involvement" Can Overcome Insufficient Demand            Shi Fan

▍Worldview

Algorithmic Iron Curtain: The National Securitization of the TikTok CaseLiu Han

The U.S. federal court rulings upholding the law that mandates TikTok’s divestiture were fundamentally shaped by geopolitical considerations, not merely constitutional, especially First Amendment, interpretations. The judiciary’s deference to the government's national security claims was not a neutral legal act; it was enabled by a pre-existing political consensus that had already framed TikTok as a “foreign adversary”. This judicial posture is symptomatic of a broader U.S. policy trend: the national securitization of data, algorithms, and digital platforms. The decision marks a pivotal reinterpretation of constitutional protections amid strategic competition, signaling a profound transformation in global internet governance.

Challenges in the Cloud: Why Can’t Japan Build Commercial Aircraft?       Li Wei, Yan Yizhou

▍Policy  

China’s Elderly Care Services: A Social Mission, an Industry Ye Yijie, Fang Lijie

This article argues that the term of “market” has two meanings in the marketisation of elderly care services. On one hand, the market economic system is the foundational institution of industrialization society, which aims to achieve economic prosperity but also brings social risks; on the other hand, market also acts as a specific institution to distribute the elderly care resources. On this basis, the sate takes actions between the two markets. As a result, a sandwich structure of “market—elderly care policy—market” has been formed. Taking the elderly care policy of China as a case, the article presents how the state adjusts its behavior amidst the evolving understanding of market and welfare, consciously shaping the specific elderly care market to enable it to play a protective and investment role. This results in differences between the welfare systems of China and welfare states, explaining the parallel development process of the “welfare of elderly” and “elderly care industry.”

▍In the Folk

“Village Super League”: When The Mass Line Meets Traffic Economy    Zhang Junna, Luo Weize, Liu Chuanlei, Wen Tiejun

The Yiwu Model: People’s Globalization                       Zhao Chunlan, Fan Lizhu

Based on long-term observation and research of the Yiwu Small Commodities Market, this study attempts to demonstrate that this international trading hub—which “buys globally and sells globally”—reveals a new logic of globalization. It showcases a global trade network built by grassroots merchants to meet the daily needs of ordinary people, embedding the survival philosophy of the common populace into commercial activities. This has formed a globalization pattern characterized by low entry barriers, high flexibility, and extensive coverage. At a time when economies around the world are under widespread pressure, people’s globalization offers a glimpse of new impetus for economic globalization.