TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Folk artists become China’s new ‘envoys’ in Southeast Asia
Demo: Sui Yan, head of the Chinese folk culture delegation and director of the Institute of the World Folk Culture Research at Renmin University China, is seen demonstrating Chinese calligraphy at the launch of the Chinese Folk Culture Tour to ASEAN in Jakarta, on Monday
Change Size
D
emo: Sui Yan, head of the Chinese folk culture delegation and director of the Institute of the World Folk Culture Research at Renmin University China, is seen demonstrating Chinese calligraphy at the launch of the Chinese Folk Culture Tour to ASEAN in Jakarta, on Monday.(JP/Ko Lyn Cheang)
Eighteen leading artists involved in Chinese folk culture arrived in Jakarta this week for the three-day Chinese Folk Culture Tour to ASEAN member countries. Tai-chi practitioners, tea ceremony masters, experts in aromatic culture, flower arrangement artists and players of guqin — a Chinese musical instrument — are China’s latest cultural ambassadors to Southeast Asia.
The tour was the brainchild of the Philippines mission to ASEAN, which conceived of a platform to increase Chinese-ASEAN cultural exchanges during a 2018 visit to Beijing by the Committee of Permanent Representatives to ASEAN.
“I hope that this tour of Chinese folk culture will serve as a window for ASEAN to understand Chinese history, culture and art. We are looking forward to more cooperation between ASEAN and China in this field,” said Noel Servigon, the permanent representative of the Philippines to ASEAN, in a speech during the official launch of the tour on Monday at the ASEAN Secretariat in Jakarta.
Since 2012, Chinese President Xi Jinping has advocated for greater cultural exchanges between countries as part of his platform of “a community of common destiny”. Beijing’s acts of cultural diplomacy in Southeast Asia can be understood as one such attempt at people-to-people exchanges.
China’s cultural ambassadors are not new to the ASEAN region. Over the course of the 2014 China-ASEAN Cultural Year, Chinese fan dancers and folk musicians filled the theater at Balai Kartini in Jakarta in an effort by the Chinese government to exhibit China’s cultural achievements in Southeast Asia. Confucius institutes in Indonesia and worldwide act as vessels for the dissemination of Chinese culture and education.
“China finds it easy to place a wedge in Southeast Asia by showing that only China can connect with Southeast Asia culturally, not countries like the United States and Western Europe,” said Xue Gong, a research fellow in China-ASEAN relations at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore.
China’s Ambassador to ASEAN, Huang Xilian, emphasized the cultural similarities between Southeast Asian countries and China, in an interview with The Jakarta Post on Monday. “China and ASEAN countries both belong to Asian civilizations or Eastern civilizations or Oriental civilizations with a very rich culture,” said Huang.
Earlier this year, Huang admitted to a lack of understanding between China and ASEAN countries after a survey of Southeast Asians conducted by the Singapore-based ASEAN Studies Center revealed that 51.5 percent of respondents felt distrust toward China’s influence in the region. The majority said they believed China intends to be a revisionist power and turn Southeast Asia into its sphere of influence.
“Increasing trust between China and ASEAN countries is a process we need to promote from time to time,” Huang said on Monday, “In order to do this, we need to conduct changes from various perspectives and folk culture is one important perspective to contribute to this process since folk culture is something that ordinary people are fond of.”
While China’s economic, political and strategic influence in Southeast Asia is high, the survey concluded that Chinese soft power penetration in mainland Southeast Asia remains low, with a very small minority of respondents desiring to travel to or study in China.
“Due to the trust deficit in the region and prevalent Chinese threat perceptions, China realizes it still needs to invest in other areas than just infrastructure projects and cultural or people-to-people exchanges are a very important pillar of its Belt and Road Initiative,” said Gong.
The logo for the ASEAN-China Young Leaders Scholarship was also unveiled at the launch of the tour on Monday, marking a step toward increased educational partnerships between China and Southeast Asia. The scholarship would provide funding for Southeast Asian nationals to pursue graduate education, research and training in China.
However, Gong expressed doubt about the extent to which China’s soft power overtures would be effective in changing Southeast Asian perceptions of China as a threat in the region.
“In international relations theory, how useful and effective soft power can be is very difficult to determine. Realists only believe military power and, to a large extent, economic power are effective,” said Gong. “I don’t think soft power will surpass China’s emphasis on economic statecraft. It is only playing a complementary role in terms of reducing the concerns of Southeast Asian countries.”
President Xi first proposed the Belt and Road Initiative during a 2013 visit to Indonesia.
— The writer is an intern at The Jakarta Post.
