Chinese Television and National Identity Construction: The Cultural Politics of Music-Entertainment Programmes

This book examines music entertainment programmes on China Central Television, China’s only national level television network, exploring how such programmes project a nuanced image of China’s identity and position in the world, which is in step with China’s party-state nationalism, and at the same time flexible and open to change as China’s circumstances change. It considers the background of the development of television in China, and the political struggles between provincial and national television. It discusses the portrayal of majority Chinese, and of ethnic minorities and their music, which, the author argues, are shown as fitting with the party-state rhetoric of "a unitary multi-ethnic state". It outlines how the Chinese of Greater China – Hong Kong, Taiwan, Macao and the overseas Chinese – are incorporated into mainland centred Chinese identity, and it shows how the performances of foreign personalities emphasise the personalities’ attraction to China, the uniqueness of the Chinese nation and Chinese civilisation, and the revitalised role of China in the world. Overall, the book demonstrates how the variations of Chinese identity fit with the prevailing political ideology in China and with the emerging theme of a China-centred world.