The Ocean as Metaphor and Avenue for Progress: Views of World History in Chinese Television Documentaries

Robert Y. Eng

     River Elegy (1988)¹ and The Rise of the Great Powers (2006)² are two television documentaries that were broadcast to huge audiences in China at critical junctures in the reform era. Both examined history for clues to the future direction that China should take to modernize itself, and both stimulated much cultural debate and political discussion on their theses and political significance. This paper compares the political and cultural factors in 1988 and 2006 that made it possible for the production and broadcasting of these documentaries that broke political taboos. Who were responsible for sponsoring and for creating these documentaries? What literary, historical, cinematic and documentary techniques were employed in the production of the scripts and the films? This paper further examines the meta-narratives that each series projects: River Elegy's explanation for the backwardness of China in the past, and The Rise of the Great Powers' perspectives on why certain nations emerged as great powers historically. Finally, it compares the media through which public discourse on these documentaries was conducted, the range of political and cultural meanings they elicited in interpretations by the intellectuals and the general public, and the reactions of the Chinese Communist party-state.

Political and Cultural Background to the Production and Airing of River Elegy and The Rise of the Great Powers

     The 1980s was a time of great social and cultural ferment in China, which was beginning its economic reform under the aegis of the Four Modernizations. The political legitimacy of the Chinese Communist Party had been seriously damaged by continuous political turmoil, particularly during the decade of the Cultural Revolution from 1966 to 1976. The party, under the leadership of Deng Xiaoping since 1978, was now trying to bring about economic growth and an improved standard of living for the people through market reform and opening to the outside world, thereby gaining what Samuel Huntington terms "performance legitimacy."

     How to achieve those goals, however, was like "groping for the stones to cross the river," in the memorable metaphor of Deng Xiaoping. By proclaiming that China should "let some get rich first, so others can get rich later" as early as 1979, Deng was sanctioning a trickle-down economic strategy. In the early 1980s, rural entrepreneurs benefited from the introduction of the Household Responsibility System, and the formation of township and village enterprises. The income gap between rural and urban areas narrowed. Once overseas investment (including investment from Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan) began to flow into the coastal regions, particularly the newly formed Special Economic Zones, the Chinese economy grew rapidly. But so did growing income disparities between urban and rural residents and between coastal and inland regions. By the late 1980s, rising economic prosperity was accompanied by rampant inflation, increased unemployment, growing labor migration to the coastal areas, and higher crime rates and levels of corruption.³ The liberal and conservative wings of the Communist Party were seriously engaged in ideological and policy debates over how best to achieve "socialism with Chinese characteristics" and to deal with social and political problems associated with economic growth.

     Meanwhile, the Chinese cultural scene, enlivened by the influx of foreign intellectual and aesthetic trends and social science paradigms during the "culture fever" (wenhua re) of the mid- to late 1980s, stimulated intense intellectual debates on the future of China. Reportage novels exposing social ills and corruption through a combination of journalistic and literary techniques became enormously popular with Chinese readers and gave rise to the "reportage fever" (baogao wenxue re). A group of influential cultural activists emerged during the culture fever and the reportage novel fever: they sought "to change China by fostering and spreading new ideas and new ways of thinking, through publication, education, and other forms of public dissemination."⁴ The script writers of River Elegy would be drawn from the ranks of these cultural activists.

     While the subject of River Elegy, the future direction for China if it were not to be "expelled from membership of the earth,"⁵ is consonant with contemporaneous policy and intellectual debates about the course or even the desirability of economic reform within and outside the Communist Party, the circumstances behind its creation were partly accidental.  In 1987, China Central Television (CCTV) collaborated with NHK Television of Japan in shooting a documentary about the Yellow River. The resulting series was poorly received in China. CCTV asked Su Xiaokang, a leading reportage novelist, to revise the series. But Su and Xia Jun, a member of the NHK-CCTV production team, proposed instead to write a totally new script. CCTV approved and provided the budget for Su and Xia's proposal.⁶ The writing team of Su Xiaokang, Wang Luxiang, Jin Guantao and two other cultural activists completed the script in April of 1988.⁷

	Figure 1: Su Xiaokang, chief scriptwriter for River Elegy, Filming on Location in in Northern Shaanxi in 1997.

     Despite River Elegy's political overtones, CCTV and the Ministry of Radio, Film and Television treated it as a cultural product for its audience and experts to critique and discuss. Their leadership therefore approved the script without raising any problems and did not interfere with its production.⁸ The series ran on national television between June 11 and June 16, 1988, with the script being published simultaneously in the People's Daily.⁹ It aroused strong reactions, ranging from enthusiasm for its iconoclastic message to outright condemnation. The Minister in charge of mass media ordered a revision of the series. A second broadcast on national television in August sparked "a second, even more intense shock."¹⁰ River Elegy was also broadcasted and rebroadcasted on many local television stations, eventually attracting a wide audience of over 200 million viewers.¹¹

     Although River Elegy was endorsed after its broadcast by important reformist party leaders including General Secretary Zhao Ziyang and State Councilor Huang Hua, and by Deng Pufang, the eldest son of Deng Xiaoping, it also provoked strongly negative reactions from conservative leaders, including notably Vice-president Wang Zhen.¹² More importantly, River Elegy was produced not as a directive from above, but as an initiative of cultural activists from below. While the relaxed ideological atmosphere of mid-1988 and the divisions between the reformist and the conservative factions of the party leadership created political space for River Elegy, "there is no evidence that the film was produced under the initiative of the reformist faction."¹³ Rather, River Elegy was a spontaneous cultural project by Su Xiaokang and his collaborators to support political reform, a major concern for many members of the national intelligentsia.¹⁴

	Figure 2: River Elegy book cover.

     In contrast, The Rise of the Great Powers (2006) was produced with much stronger roots in official party policy. Some have alleged that the documentary was "probably an idea of the Politburo and a prelude to the next wave of reform in China," and produced on the order of President Hu Jintao.¹⁵ However, according to Ren Xue'an, the chief producer/director of the series for CCTV, The Rise of the Great Powers originated accidentally when, stuck in a car in a traffic jam in Beijing on November 24 of 2003, he heard over the radio news about the Politburo of the Chinese Communist Party attending a seminar on the historical lessons from the development of nine major world powers from 1500 to the present day.¹⁶ Ren, who was in charge of the economy channel of CCTV, felt summoned by "the call of history," and was thereupon inspired to develop this 12-part series, to "explore the developmental history of the modern and contemporary world" from the Chinese standpoint, and to use "the perspective of history and the range of the entire globe to seek keys to the modernization of today's China." CCTV Channel 1 quickly approved the proposal for the series, and preparation for its production began after the Spring Festival of 2004, with Ren as chief editor, director and producer.¹⁷ Peking University historians prepared preliminary chapters on nine world powers that served as the basis for the final script, while Qian Chengdan of Nanjing University, lecturer at the 2003 Politburo seminar, was academic advisor and "arguably the mastermind of the documentary."¹⁸

	Figure 3: Ren Xue'an, chief producer/director of The Rise of Great Powers (Baidu baike).

     The Rise of the Great Powers took three months of overseas shooting in nine countries by seven teams, but one and a half years of script writing involving over one hundred Chinese and foreign academics and a lengthy period of post-production. The series was first broadcast on prime time in November of 2006 and repeated three more times due to popular demand. Over 400,000 authorized DVDs were sold by the summer of 2007. An eight-volume book series released in tandem with the TV series was reprinted twelve times in eleven months.¹⁹

     Ren Xue'an categorically denied that there was any political background to the making of The Rise of the Great Powers. He emphasized that the starting point of the documentary was history, not ideological perspective, and that its only purpose was to reflect on what lessons for China's peaceful rise might be derived from an exploration of the factors behind the rise and decline of the great powers since 1500. The documentary itself explicitly expressed what the filmmakers intended to convey, and if anyone were to discover hidden meanings, that would be derived from his or her own perspective, not the filmmakers'.²⁰ Zhao Huayong, the head of CCTV and one of the directors for the series, similarly disclaimed receipt of a political order to make The Rise of the Great Powers. Rather, the series was "intended to address the dream of being a power that was in the heart of every Chinese, and to reflect the rising status of present-day China …"²¹

     However, even if The Rise of the Great Powers did not originate in any explicit orders from above, the 2003 Politburo seminar on the great world powers was undeniably a catalyst, and the series served the political agenda of the party leadership united in pursuing the goal of the peaceful rise of China. Moreover, the TV series overlapped with and further stimulated a contemporaneous cultural boom in academic and publications on the rise of the great powers.²²

	Figure 4: Zhao Ziyang, reformist General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party who greenlighted the rebroadcast of River Elegy on national television in 1988 (1985 photo, Wikimedia Commons).

     The political context behind The Rise of the Great Powers was further differentiated from River Elegy's by the much more unified Fourth Generation leadership under Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao in the 2000s than the leaders of the 1980s who were seriously split between liberal reformers headed by Zhao Ziyang and conservative leftists like Wang Zhen. While many of the domestic problems that confronted China in the 1980s continued to plague the nation in the 2000s, there was no longer any question about abandoning economic reform. Rather, the current leadership sought to stay on the path of economic reform, but to divert more resources to address the problems that accompany unrestrained market developments, including income disparities, unemployment, and corruption, with a "harmonious society" as the goal.  At the same time, phenomenal economic growth since Deng Xiaoping's 1992 Southern Tour had created a much more confident and assertive nation, eager to reclaim China's historical greatness. To alleviate increasing concerns among some Western nations and Asian neighbors about China's growing economic power and military potential, the party-state emphasized China's rise as peaceful and beneficial to the world.²³ The question was no longer whether China will be "expelled from membership of the earth," as River Elegy put it, but how China could achieve its peaceful rise, for which The Rise of the Great Powers attempted to find clues from the historical experiences of nine great powers.

	Figure 5: Hu Jintao, President of the People's Republic of China from 2003 to 2013, who might have ordered the making of The Rise of the Great Powers (Wikimedia Commons).

Meta-Narratives of River Elegy and The Rise of the Great Powers

     What meta-narratives were conveyed by River Elegy and The Rise of the Great Powers, in response to the different big questions that each tried to address, and how did they go about bringing out their messages? The two documentaries adopt very different expository techniques.

     As Dingxin Zhao pointed out, "The River Elegy series was a combined outcome of the culture fever and reportage novel fever." While River Elegy critiqued Chinese culture in a style similar to that of reportage novels, it went beyond them by combining "modern television, arts, journalism, history, and sociology into one form."²⁴

     River Elegy is polemical, rhetorical, and provocative. According to Su Xiaokang, River Elegy seeks to approach the Yellow River from a cultural and philosophical perspective in order to create a political commentary for television. It breaks the limits of paradigms followed by previous documentaries: the spatial paradigm which, in the case of The Yellow River from which it drew extensive footage, follows the river from its source to the ocean; the historical paradigm adopting a chronological sequence; and the worshipful paradigm which permeates travelogues—the worship of the nation, the worship of history, the worship of ancestors. Instead, River Elegy unfolds in six thematic episodes to highlight the rich meanings of the Yellow River: 1. Searching for a Dream; 2. Destiny; 3. The Glimmering Light; 4. The New Epoch; 5. Sorrows and Crises; 6. Azure. The exposition breaks the limitations of space and chronology: it juxtaposes shots from different locations along the river and about different periods of time. It seeks to offer a critical commentary on the heritage of the Yellow River through a rich mixture of cultural and philosophical ideas and to create a dialogue with the audience.²⁵ The river representing China and the blue ocean representing the West are contrasted in binary oppositions: static vs. dynamic, land-based agrarian vs. ocean-going industrial, despotic vs. democratic, superstitious vs. scientific, etc.²⁶

     The literal meaning of Heshang, the Chinese title of River Elegy, is "lament for the untimely death of the people of the river." River Elegy constantly challenges its Chinese viewers by juxtaposing historical events with modern references and contemporary developments, and by deconstructing and casting in a starkly negative light the revered national symbols and icons of China: the Yellow River and its loess plateau, the dragon, and the Great Wall. It contrasts what it sees as a stagnant Chinese civilization that nurtures a servile and earthbound mentality of the Chinese people submitting to imperial power and bureaucratic authority and to scratching out a subsistence living from farming, with a dynamic Western civilization which fosters the free and adventurous spirit of the Westerners who brave the dangerous blue water of the ocean in search of conquest, wealth and markets.²⁷ The Chinese people's dragon worship and fatalistic spirit were founded on their respect for and fear of the Yellow River as the source of life and death.  Just as the dragon was the tyrant of the realm of nature, the emperor, who believed that he was the embodiment of the dragon, was the tyrant of the human realm.²⁸ As for the Great Wall, it symbolizes the smothering of mobility and trade by imperial policy inhibiting the Chinese people from understanding freedom and commerce.²⁹

     Here are a couple of examples of how River Elegy juxtaposes references across time and space to establish its points. In Episode 5, "Sorrows and Crises," written by Su Xiaokang, the point is first made that the Yellow River is the cruelest river in the world, flooding twice every two years and changing course once every hundred years on average, shifting its role as the nurturing mother to sadistic despot. It then draws a parallel to the cyclical destruction in history, with a major political upheaval every two to three hundred years, with concomitant severe depopulation, massive destruction of the most prosperous economic regions, and the loss of scientific discoveries which had to be reinvented in later periods. However, even today social cataclysms are still no stranger to the Chinese people: does the Cultural Revolution, which followed so closely the turmoil of the pre-Liberation days, mean that cycles of major social disruptions will continue into the future?³⁰ Cycles of environmental destruction are juxtaposed with cycles of political disorder; old social diseases of bureaucratism, elite entitlement to privileges and corruption undermine the Four Modernizations, and are analogous to the silt deposited by the Yellow River, accumulating over time to lead towards a crisis.³¹

     Later in the same episode, Su refers to the stories of two people at Kaifeng eight hundred years apart that are deeply imprinted in the hearts of the Chinese people. The first person is the black-faced Judge Bao, whose memorial hall still attracts tourists from all over China endlessly. What does the persistence of the yearning for an incorrupt judge signify? The second person is President Liu Shaoqi, who during the Cultural Revolution was secretly incarcerated and died in a decrepit bank building not far from Judge Bao's memorial hall. "When the legal system cannot protect an ordinary citizen, in the end it also cannot protect a President of the People's Republic … If China's social structure is not renewed, if China's politics, economy, culture and ways of thinking are not modernized, who can guarantee that tragedy will not be repeated?"³²

     As David Moser observes, not only did River Elegy launch iconoclastic assaults on such sacred symbols of Chinese agrarian civilization as the Yellow River and the Great Wall, but it even dared albeit obliquely to accuse Chairman Mao Zedong of causing political crisis and social crisis, by juxtaposing Mao's image with inflammatory and condemnatory lines narrated by the voice-over announcer. As the narrator intones, "This is a longstanding nightmare. Many times China tried to bury feudalism for good. Yet it always seemed to die, but not to stiffen," the video cuts to Chairman Mao waving to the crowd of hysterical Red Guards holding up Mao's Little Red Book.³³ Frederic Wakeman points out that Su Xiaokang and his collaborators were engaged in the old Chinese political practice of pointing at the mulberry but actually reviling the locust tree (zhisang mahuai), i.e. critiquing the world of the Yellow River to attack current political leaders. A conservative critic at the time condemned the writers "for venting their grievances upon Chinese tradition when they are actually expressing their dislike of Mao's dictatorial rule."³⁴

     Yet the iconoclasm of River Elegy should not obscure the fact that its writers were inspired by a fervent nationalism. Frederic Wakeman recalls that at a seminar on River Elegy in late 1988, Su Xiaokang responded testily to Marshall Sahlins' criticism of cultural self-deprecation and idealization of the West. Su argued that "one had to learn from the enemy, one had to recognize one's own weaknesses, before national dignity could be restored."³⁵ Suisheng Zhao characterizes River Elegy as "a quest for qiangguomeng, a viable dream of a strong China." Similarly, Zhang Shuqing concludes: "beneath the rebellious message against time-honored ancestral values throbs the impatient heart of a full-blooded new generation with an urgent sense of mission to reassert the pride of being Chinese."³⁶

     In contrast to the highly polemical style of River Elegy, The Rise of the Great Powers is much more conventional in structure and exposition. The first eleven episodes cover the individual histories of nine great powers chronologically: Portugal and Spain; Holland; England (2 episodes); France; Germany; Japan; Russia; the Soviet Union; the United States (2 episodes). The final episode sums up the series by searching for explanations of the rise of the great powers since 1492 and thereby shedding light on the road to the future. Commentary by eminent academics, political leaders and other luminaries from China, Japan, Europe and the United States are liberally dispersed throughout the script. Besides the Chinese scholars and a few Japanese professors, the voice of only one non-Western figure is represented: Mahathir Mohamad, the former Prime Minister of Malaysia.³⁷

     What is groundbreaking for The Rise of the Great Powers in the Chinese context is that it departs from and implicitly rejects the dialectical materialism and colonial critique that still characterized Chinese history textbooks at that time, as viewers noted. The series focuses on the institutional, technological or ideological reasons for the rise of the great powers rather than on colonial wars, violence and exploitation.³⁸ Even the foreign invasion of China is barely mentioned in the series, and it is only in the last episode that one finds a brief reference to the colonial powers exploiting their colonies.³⁹ In effect, what is jettisoned is the victimhood discourse of PRC historiography, which has emphasized "the Westerner powers' moral corruption in invading other people's spaces" and China's century of humiliation through foreign aggression and imposition of unequal treaties. Instead, the focus is on "examining the underlying causes for the momentous transformation of the nine "world powers" and their achievements."⁴⁰ As Qing Cao observes, The Rise of the Great Powers' non-moralistic narrative substitutes "competitors" for the "villains" and the "victimizers" of the victimhood narrative, and portrays such national leaders as Queen Elizabeth of England and Peter the Great of Russia as "hero-seekers" who rose to the occasion of a crisis or a challenge and elevated their nations to "great power" status.⁴¹ Q. Edward Wang further notes that in addition to political leaders, considerable attention is paid to great thinkers (Adam Smith), successful businessmen (Shibusawa Eiichi) and scientific inventors (Thomas Edison).⁴²

     Throughout the series, economic factors take a back seat to culture and institutions as explanatory variables for the rise of individual great nations. In the case of Holland, one of only three global powers in world history according to the series (the other two are England and the United States), the Dutch tradition of urban self-government, their creation of the first joint stock company (the Dutch East India Company) and the first stock exchange in the world, their commercial and banking expertise, and their honoring of ordinary people rather than kings and aristocrats in their arts are mentioned as key factors in Holland's rise to great power status.⁴³ As for England, the Glorious Revolution of 1688 established the principle that the king's authority stemmed not from God but from the people through the institution of parliament, thereby creating an open society and paving the way to democracy. In addition, the British were the first people to establish a patent system that offered protection for intellectual property and kept talent and inventions in England. The British also demonstrated respect for scientists such as Isaac Newton, who was buried at Westminster Abbey. Finally, Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations provided the intellectual foundations for free trade as national policy.⁴⁴

     While The Rise of the Great Powers emphasizes that many different explanations for national greatness have been presented by the over one hundred academics and public figures interviewed for the series, and that each nation must seek its own way to become a great nation and not copy blindly, nonetheless there is general agreement that thought and culture must be liberated and liberating, and that legal, political and financial institutions play key roles.⁴⁵

     Another conclusion of the series is that those powers that relied on military coercion and force would fail. Dependence on violence and failure to adapt are cited as reasons for the ultimate decline of Iberia.⁴⁶ French development was slowed by eighty years of war and political turmoil following the Napoleonic Wars that negated the French revolutionary principles of liberty and equality. The historical lesson that military campaigns could not sustain a world power (in the case of both Louis XIV and Napoleon), only peace and a strong economy could, was drawn by Charles de Gaulle, who ended the French colonial empire in Algeria in 1959, signed a treaty of friendship with Germany in 1963, and established diplomatic relations with China in 1964.⁴⁷ Germany brought great suffering to its neighbors and its people when Wilhelm II dismissed Bismarck who was opposed to military expansionism and embarked on an aggressive foreign policy, and again when Hitler rose to power.⁴⁸ Imperial Japan was yet another example of how militarism brought destruction to its neighbors and disaster to itself.⁴⁹

     The conclusion of The Rise of the Great Powers is that greatness of a nation is meaningful only when it brings happiness to its own people and peace and prosperity to the world. "To build a permanently peaceful, mutually prosperous harmonious world is the direction for humankind to strive for together."⁵⁰

Public Discourse on River Elegy and The Rise of the Great Powers

     As Dingxin Zhao puts it, "in terms of the extent to which the River Elegy TV series caught the attention of the general public, and especially of the students, it was extremely successful. Its immense passion, elegant prose, and sobering tone were fully extended by its temporally and spatially unbounded moving pictures, further adding to its theoretical flavor, and showcasing a way of thinking that was novel to most Chinese. The series captured the attention of millions of Chinese as soon as it was televised by the China Central Television Station (CCTV) during prime time in June 1988. A "River Elegy fever" developed immediately."⁵¹

     Su Xiaokang stated that he received over 1,000 letters within one week of the end of the series, written by a broad range of correspondents of diverse age groups, professions and cultural levels, including soldiers, policemen, workers, young peasants, students and old cadres.⁵² Over five million copies of the transcript were sold.⁵³ In remote villages without access to television, teachers read the script of River Elegy to their students.⁵⁴ In Wuhan, summer camps holding speaking and writing contests over River Elegy were organized.⁵⁵ In the fall of 1988, a million youth participated in an Azure Movement, discussing and debating the contents and meanings of River Elegy.⁵⁶

     An extremely high percentage of intellectuals and students watched the series, and their reactions were overwhelmingly positive. Of 58 student informants interviewed by sociologist Dingxin Zhao, fifty had watched the entire series, and five had watched part of it. Of those fifty-five, only six had negative reactions while forty-nine evaluated the series positively.

     University students were particularly active in discussions of and debates over River Elegy.⁵⁷ Peking University students declared that they had seen nothing like it, "a TV show that tells the truth (shuo shihua)." They posted handwritten commentary on River Elegy on the outdoor bulletin boards. Students at Tsinghua and other universities across China held informal discussions of the series.⁵⁸

     In addition to the widely circulated script, a number of books devoted to collections of mainland and overseas Chinese intellectuals' responses to and commentary on River Elegy were quickly published.⁵⁹ On the whole, reactions of intellectuals were positive but often critical of the series' historical inaccuracies and dubious references to Western paradigms such as Karl Wittfogel's theory of hydraulic societies. Lin Yusheng, for example, agreed with the fundamental premises of River Elegy, but pointed to various factual errors and the overly simplistic characterization of China as uniformly backward and the West progressive.⁶⁰ Tu Weiming questioned the assumption that Chinese civilization originated from the single source of the Yellow River, and pointed out that in fact Chinese civilization emerged from a mix of various cultures, and from the confluence of agrarian culture and grassland culture. Nor was Confucianism self-destructive: The Yellow River itself flows into the Pacific Ocean, and today the Pacific Basin is a Confucian cultural zone of considerable economic and cultural vitality.⁶¹

     Such critical comments are often trenchant and on the mark, and yet, as Dingxin Zhao suggests, "critics might have taken the matter too seriously, because even though the authors had intended to make the series look scholastic, it was not a truly scholarly work in terms of its nature, quality, and attitudes."⁶²

     As mentioned earlier, River Elegy provoked intensely contrary reactions among the divided ranks of the Communist leadership, with support from the reformist wing under Secretary General Zhao Ziyang and condemnation by the party hardliners. With the suppression of the Democracy Movement and the removal of Zhao from his leadership position in 1989, the conservatives blamed River Elegy as a source of spiritual pollution that incited the student demonstrators, and its authors were placed on the wanted list, with four of the five scriptwriters fleeing to America.⁶³ River Elegy became the target of severe attacks by several party-sponsored books. It was condemned for its total negation of Chinese civilization, failure to adopt a materialist conception of history, insult to the Chinese people, failure to credit the Chinese Communist Party for its historical achievements, glorification of Western Civilization, paying lip service to reform but actually contradicting Deng Xiaoping's socialism with Chinese characteristics, and a host of other sins.⁶⁴

     In contrast, The Rise of the Great Powers might have been a project initiated from above by a fairly unified Communist leadership, and at the minimum had its tacit approval. It reached an even greater audience than River Elegy, as television access had become virtually universal in China by 2006 and video copies were readily available for sale in China and on the Internet, along with a companion 8-volume book series.⁶⁵

     Because of its relatively bland tone, a cultural scene that had become much more highly commercialized and less intellectually oriented around big issues and theories than in the 1980s, an economy that was clearly on an upward trajectory even though there were serious contradictions and problems, and a population that was increasingly materialistic and less adventurous politically than in the 1980s, The Rise of the Great Powers did not inflame passions to the degree that River Elegy had. Interest among overseas Chinese intellectuals was certainly not much in evidence, unlike River Elegy which aroused a lot of commentary from that group.

     If The Rise of the Great Powers did not trigger systematic and institutionally organized debates and discussions in the way that River Elegy did, nonetheless it stimulated a great deal of reflections and commentary in the Chinese and international press, and, in particular, on a medium of communication that became available to the Chinese people only since 1993, the Internet. Starting from very low levels of penetration, the Chinese cyberspace has grown by leaps and bounds in recent years. As of the end of 2006, 138 million people in China, or 10.5% of the total population, used the Internet.⁶⁶ Many people in China now actively engaged in all sorts of lively discussions on electronic bulletin boards and personal blogs. Since the Hu Jintao leadership proclaimed the slogan of "peaceful rise," the topic "rise of great powers" attracted as many as 1.45 million postings on Baidu, China's leading portal as of 2006.⁶⁷

     Because The Rise of the Great Powers presents its thesis in a seemingly objective fashion and hedges by stating that the rise of each great nation was based on unique historical and cultural conditions that can provide valuable lessons but should not be blindly copied or imitated by a nation aspiring to achieve greatness without considering its own particularities, it is open to a wide range of interpretations, more than the clearly articulated River Elegy. Some commentators praised it for breaking new paths by departure from orthodox Chinese historical interpretations, while others saw it as being stuck in the same limited modernization perspectives of the Self-Strengthening Movement of the 19^th century. Some feared that it might even suffer a similar fate of being suppressed as River Elegy for its bold direction, while others looked for clues for the future path of the reform policy of the government. Some condemned it for seemingly justifying economic imperialism and emphasizing economic growth over social justice, democracy and legal reform. But others declared it to be rejecting the "authoritarian rise" of Germany, Japan and the Soviet Union, while advocating the "democratic rise" of England and the United States.⁶⁸ Also debated was what criteria should be employed to determine national "greatness": should the success of the Scandinavian countries in implementing effective and inclusive social welfare institutions free of corruption qualify them as "great" nations?⁶⁹

     Despite differences in cultural and political context and in mode of presentation, River Elegy and The Rise of the Great Powers do share some common outlooks and conclusions. First of all, neither documentary should be considered academic works, but highly politicized cultural products. Yuan Zhiming, one of the screenwriters for River Elegy, freely admitted that it did not qualify as a scholarly work. Its use of historical facts was highly selective, based not on seeking answers to questions but on whether they supported the thesis of the writers.⁷⁰ As historian Wang Xi observes, the making of The Rise of the Great Powers "had been guided by a predisposed thinking for a preconceived agenda, which had in turn dictated the research and use of historical materials. The objective of the series of the series is not to present a solidly researched history but to use history … to articulate a highly politicized outlook of world history." While the tone and the style are vastly different from River Elegy's, both documentaries fall into the genre of "literary reportage in film," "a hybrid of literary writing, historical research, and political commentaries."⁷¹

     Secondly, for both River Elegy and The Rise of the Great Powers, the ocean represents openness to new ideas, and "the cradle to nurture great nations."⁷² Willingness to learn from foreigners enhances national power, while closure to external contacts diminishes it. River Elegy posits that the Great Wall, which "secluded China from the rest of the world,"⁷³ "was a memorial to a great tragedy unleashed by historical destiny." It represented closure, conservatism, and weak defense rather than strength, progressiveness, and glory.⁷⁴  The Rise of the Great Powers praises Peter the Great of Russia for embarking on his educational odyssey to learn from Denmark, Holland, England and other European countries, and adopting Western reforms thereafter, even as many Russians considered his policies forcing them to adopt West European culture to be a betrayal of Russian civilization and Russia's historical mission as the Third Rome, and rebelled against him.⁷⁵ Despite the economic and industrial achievements of the Stalinist policies, The Rise of the Great Powers also identifies many fatal weaknesses in the Soviet system, including blocking information about the outside world.⁷⁶

     Thirdly, both documentaries agree on rule of law and market economy as vital to a nation's strength, and key to China's renewal. River Elegy rejoices in the first courageous no vote cast by a member of the National People's Congress, and emphasizes that, despite all the hindrances and dangers that may be encountered, the Chinese people must move forward with the reform of political institutions, to break through the cycle of history for the future generations.⁷⁷ The Rise of the Great Powers concludes that economic and political reform was a key variable in the emergence of great powers. As Qian Chengdan states, the formation of modern political institutions in Britain (including the cabinet system, constitutionalism, two-party system, and government being responsible to parliament) brought about long-term political stability that was conducive to economic development. Wang Jisi, Dean of the School of International Studies at Peking University, adds that the balance of power through the Constitution and a fairly complete legal system in the United States favored the growth of productivity.⁷⁸

	Figure 6: Qian Chengdan, Nanjing University professor and chief academic consultant for The Rise of the Great Powers.

     Finally, both River Elegy and The Rise of the Great Powers engage in an Occidentalist construction of the West. Through the discursive practice of Occidentalism, the Orient (China and others) constructs its Western Other in order "to participate actively and with indigenous creativity in the process of self-appropriation, even after being appropriated and constructed by Western others."⁷⁹ Both documentaries invert the official Chinese Communist historiography of a "monstrous, evil, and threatening West,"⁸⁰ and project an Occidentalist image of a progressive West characterized by "youthfulness, adventure, energy, power, technology, and modernity."⁸¹

     In her analysis of River Elegy, Xiaomei Chen makes a distinction between official Occidentalism, by which "the Chinese government uses the essentialization of the West as a means for supporting a nationalism that effects the internal suppression of its own people," and anti-official Occidentalism, practiced by opponents of the government or party apparatus, as exemplified by the creators of River Elegy.⁸² Ironically, seventeen years after the banning and condemnation of River Elegy, The Rise of Great Powers engages in a practice of an updated form of official Occidentalism with a rosy image of the West glossing over its imperialism and exploitation of non-Western societies, similar to that of River Elegy (though without a harsh condemnation of traditional Chinese civilization). As Qing Cao argues, the key roles of national leaders, rule of law, and science and technology valorized by The Rise of the Great Powers also naturalizes, legitimizes and reinforces the "authoritarian technocratic rule" of the current Communist leadership.⁸³

	Figure 7: The Rise of the Great Powers (Baidu baike).

Robert Y. Eng is Professor of History at the University of Redlands where he teaches Asian history and world history. A long-time member of World History Association, he was also a former board member of two organizations dedicated to the promotion of Asian Studies in the undergraduate curriculum: ASIANetwork and The Association of Regional Centers for Asian Studies (ARCAS).  Eng is the author of Economic Imperialism in China: Silk Production and Exports, 1861–1932, as well as articles on Chinese socioeconomic history, East Asian historical demography, popular media and identity politics in Asian societies, Sino-Japanese relations, and China historians' contributions to world history as a discipline. He is also engaged in historical research on Chinese communities in Southeast Asia.

¹ For the script of River Elegy in Chinese, see Su Xiaokang and Wang Luxiang, Heshang [River Elegy] (Hong Kong: Sanlian shudian, 1988). For a complete English translation with annotations and interpretive essays, see Xiaokang Su and Luxiang Wang, Deathsong of the River: A Reader's Guide to the Chinese TV Series Heshang, trans. Richard W. Bodman and Pin P. Wan, Cornell East Asia Series 54 (Ithaca, N.Y: East Asia Program, Cornell University, 1991). The video series can be accessed via a YouTube playlist at River Elegy, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39j4ViRxcS8. Unfortunately, there is no complete version with English subtitles. But there is an abridged 58-minute version by Deep Dish TV that can be viewed or downloaded via Archive.org: China: Presenting River Elegy, Digital video, 2006, http://archive.org/details/ddtv_40_china_presenting_river_elegy.

² The title has been alternatively translated as "The Rise of [the] Great Nations," as daguo can refer to either "great powers" or "great nations." However, the context of the making of this documentary, as discussed below, indicates that "great powers" better fits the agenda of its creators. The complete Chinese text can be found online at "Daguo jueqi—wenji (wanzheng ban) [The Rise of the Great Powers—Text (complete edition)]," 360doc, November 26, 2012, http://www.360doc.com/content/12/1126/01/1890163_250239122.shtml; the complete video series (Chinese soundtrack and subtitles only) can be accessed online at Daguo jueqi | yi kaifang de xintai wei guoren dakai siye [quan 12 ji][The Rise of the Great Powers - Broadening the Vision of the Chinese People through an Open Mentality (complete 12 episodes)], http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwXMmy5fUrVzrhuQ4Bp-CB9qIN1rOmhdf. There is a DVD set of the documentary series with English subtitles that was released in Malaysia, but it may be hard to locate. However, Cynthia Project, a language learning YouTube channel, has posted all twelve episodes with English subtitles, https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_l66eHmT9XrBGlLbQts2cg/search?query=rise+of+great+nations.

³ Chen Fong-ching and Jin Guantao, From Youthful Manuscripts to River Elegy: The Chinese Popular Cultural Movement and Political Transformation 1979–1989, Monographs in Contemporary Chinese Culture 2 (Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 1997), 227.

⁴ Chen and Jin, 4–5.

⁵ Chen and Jin, 224.

⁶ Shu-Yun Ma, "The Role of Power Struggle and Economic Changes in the 'Heshang Phenomenon' in China," Modern Asian Studies 31, no. 1 (February 1996): 43.

⁷ The creators of River Elegy had diverse professional and intellectual talents. Director Xia Jun was a TV journalist. Su Xiaokang was a reportage writer and lecturer. Wang Luxiang was a social scientist. Zhang Gan was a journalist. Xie Xuanjun was a cultural anthropologist. Yuan Zhiming was a philosopher and ethicist. Jaiyan Mi, "The Visual Imagined Communities: Media State, Virtual Citizenship and Television in Heshang (River Elegy)," Quarterly Review of Film and Video 22, no. 4 (October 2005): 328, https://doi.org/10.1080/10509200590475805.

⁸ Su Xiaokang and Wang Luxiang, Long de beichang [Sorrow of the Dragon](Taipei: Fengyun shidai chuban gongsi, 1989), 29.

⁹ Chen and Jin, From Youthful Manuscripts to River Elegy, 222.

¹⁰ Chen and Jin, 224.

¹¹ David Moser, "Thoughts on River Elegy, June 1988-June 2011," Archived October 10, 2016 by Internet Archive Wayback Machine, The China Beat (blog), July 14, 2011, https://web.archive.org/web/20161003062255/http://www.thechinabeat.org/?p=3607.

¹² Chen and Jin, 223.

¹³ According to Su Xiaokang, he did not know General Secretary Zhao Ziyang, who moreover was unaware of the project until River Elegy was aired. Zhao did not approve of the series' negative views of traditional Chinese culture, but nonetheless authorized a second broadcasting of River Elegy after the Central Propaganda Department had condemned and banned it. Zhao did so to "strengthen the voice for reform" and to demonstrate good will to the intellectuals by sticking to the state policy of non-interference with artistic works. Ma, "The Role of Power Struggle and Economic Changes in the 'Heshang Phenomenon' in China," 33–38, 43–44.

¹⁴ Ma, 45.

¹⁵ Sun Bin, "The Rise of the Great Nations - a Chinese Documentary," Sun Bin (blog), November 28, 2006, https://sun-bin.blogspot.com/2006/11/rise-of-great-nations-chinese.html; David Bandurski, "Taste: The Rise of Great Nations," Wall Street Journal, December 8, 2006.

¹⁶ These Politburo seminars or collective study sessions were introduced by the Hu Jintao-led leadership as "a new format of policy consulting." The sessions covered a wide range of broad subjects and were led by scholars and experts from leading universities and think tanks. Gotelind Müller, Documentary, World History, and National Power in the PRC: Global Rise in Chinese Eyes, Chinese Worlds 32 (London; New York: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2013), 22.

¹⁷ Zhu Wenyi, "Daguo jueqi yilou de gushi — Chengben yu daijia [The Stories Left Out of The Rise of Grea Powers — the Costs]," Sanlian shenghuo zhoukan, December 12, 2006, http://www.lifeweek.com.cn/2006/1212/17248.shtml.

¹⁸ Q. Edward Wang, "'Rise of the Great Powers'=Rise of China? Challenges of the Advancement of Global History in the People's Republic of China," Journal of Contemporary China 19, no. 64 (March 2010): 275–76, 279, https://doi.org/10.1080/10670560903444223.

¹⁹ Müller, Documentary, World History, and National Power in the PRC, 26.

²⁰ Jiang Shengxin, "Xiwang bie wudu Daguo jueqi[Please Don't Misread The Rise of the Great Powers]," CCTV.Com, December 4, 2006, http://finance.cctv.com/special/C16860/20061204/104065.shtml; Long Yuqin and Shen Liang, "Daguo jueqi meiyou teshu zhengzhi beijing [The Rise of the Great Powers Does Not Have any Special Political Background]," November 30, 2006, archived on Internet Archive Wayback Machine on December 5, 2006 at https://web.archive.org/web/20070102000519/http://www.nanfangdaily.com.cn/zm/20061130/xw/szxw1/200611300009.asp.

²¹ Müller, Documentary, World History, and National Power in the PRC, 24.

²² An important example is The Historical Evolution of the Nine World Powers Since the Fifteenth Century (2006), edited by Qi Shirong, a world historian at the Capital Normal University who had lectured at the Poitburo seminar. Nicola Spakowski, "National Aspirations on a Global Stage: Concepts of World/Global History in Contemporary China," Journal of Global History 4, no. 03 (November 2009): 486–87, https://doi.org/10.1017/S1740022809990179.

²³ The concept of the "peaceful rise" (heping jueqi) of China originated with Zheng Bijian, a senior Communist party official and a confidant of President Hu Jintao. Zheng first promulgated the concept publicly at his speech on "The New Road of China's Peaceful Rise and the Future of Asia" at the 2003 Boao Forum, and further elaborated it in later writings and interviews. As Zheng put it, China's development path is "not only a path of striving for rise, but also a path of adhering to peace and never seeking hegemony." Bonnie S. Glaser and Evan S. Medeiros, "The Changing Ecology of Foreign Policy-Making in China: The Ascension and Demise of the Theory of 'Peaceful Rise,'" The China Quarterly 190 (June 2007): 294–95, https://doi.org/10.1017/S0305741007001208.

²⁴ Dingxin Zhao, The Power of Tiananmen: State-Society Relations and the 1989 Beijing Student Movement (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2001), 72.

²⁵ Su Xiaokang and Wang Luxiang, Heshang [River Elegy](Hong Kong: Sanlian shudian, 1988), 2–3. Jaiyan Mi provides a short summary of the script in his article, "The Visual Imagined Communities," 328–29.

²⁶ Mi, "The Visual Imagined Communities," 329.

²⁷ Chen and Jin, From Youthful Manuscripts to River Elegy, 221–22.

²⁸ Su Xiaokang and Wang Luxiang, Heshang, 12.

²⁹ Su and Wang, 37.

³⁰ Su and Wang, 80–82.

³¹ Su and Wang, 90.

³² Su and Wang, 92–93.

³³ Moser, "Thoughts on River Elegy, June 1988-June 2011."

³⁴ Wakeman elaborates that in River Elegy, the Yellow River "is a mothering force of nature as long as it remains in the northwest," where the Communist base at Yan'an was located. But once it leaves the Northwest, "it turns monstrous, oppressive, tyrannical." Frederic Wakeman, Jr., "All the Rage in China," New York Review of Books, March 2, 1989, 21.

³⁵ Wakeman, "All the Rage in China," 21.

³⁶ Suisheng Zhao, "Chinese Intellectuals' Quest for National Greatness and Nationalistic Writing in the 1990s," The China Quarterly, no. 152 (December 1997): 738.

³⁷ For a trenchant critique of The Rise of the Great Powers, see Wang Xi, "Rise of Great Nations or Great Powers?—Reflections on Da Guo Jue Qi," The Chinese Historical Review 14, no. 2 (Fall 2007): 291–301. For a very detailed analysis of the contents of The Rise of the Great Powers, see Müller, Documentary, World History, and National Power in the PRC, 30–77.

³⁸ A 28-year old Beijing finance worker exclaimed, "I can't believe it's produced by China Central Television … Unlike our textbooks, the programme did not attribute western countries' success to their invasions of other countries, and it did not mention Marxism in the section about Germany, which we had to learn when we were at school." Li Chuchan, a lawyer, noted: "The documentary is quite objective, a far cry from the stereotypical rhetoric we heard when we were younger." Irene Wang, "China: Propaganda Takes Back Seat in Feted CCTV Series," South China Morning Post (November 27, 2006); Joseph Kahn, "China, Shy Giant, Shows Signs of Shedding Its False Modesty," The New York Times, December 9, 2006, sec. Asia Pacific, https://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/09/world/asia/09china.html.

³⁹ The Rise of the Great Powers, episode 12.

⁴⁰ Qing Cao, "The Re-Imagined West in Chinese Television: A Case Study of the CCTV Documentary Series the Rise of the Great Powers," Journal of Language and Politics 9, no. 4 (January 10, 2011): 617–19, https://doi.org/10.1075/jlp.9.4.08cao.

⁴¹ Cao, 620–21.

⁴² Wang, "'Rise of the Great Powers'=Rise of China?," 278.

⁴³ The Rise of the Great Powers, episode 2.

⁴⁴ The Rise of the Great Powers, episode 4.

⁴⁵ The Rise of the Great Powers, episode 12.

⁴⁶ The Rise of the Great Powers, episode 1.

⁴⁷ The Rise of the Great Powers, episode 5.

⁴⁸ The Rise of the Great Powers, episode 6.

⁴⁹ The Rise of the Great Powers, episode 7.

⁵⁰ The Rise of the Great Powers, episode 12.

⁵¹ Zhao, The Power of Tiananmen, 73.

⁵² Su and Wang, Long de beichang, 32.

⁵³ Zhao, The Power of Tiananmen, 73.

⁵⁴ Su and Wang, Long de beichang, 33.

⁵⁵ Su and Wang, 35–36.

⁵⁶ Su and Wang, 35.

⁵⁷ Zhao, The Power of Tiananmen, 73.

⁵⁸ Moser, "Thoughts on River Elegy, June 1988-June 2011."

⁵⁹ Examples include: Su Xiaokang and Wang Luxiang, Long de beichang; Cui Wenhua, ed., "Heshang lun [Discussions of River Elegy]," Yooread.com, December 7, 2015, http://www.yooread.com/13/4737/; Cui Wenhua, ed., Haiwai Heshang da taolun [Major Discussions of River Elegy Overseas](Harbin: Heilongjiang jiaoyu chubanshe, 1988), http://books.google.com/books?id=baIxAAAAMAAJ.

⁶⁰ Su and Wang, Long de beichang, 46.

⁶¹ Su and Wang, 53–55.

⁶² Zhao, The Power of Tiananmen, 73.

⁶³ Ian Buruma, "The Pilgrimage from Tiananmen Square," The New York Times, April 11, 1999, sec. Magazine, https://www.nytimes.com/1999/04/11/magazine/the-pilgrimage-from-tiananmen-square.html.

⁶⁴ Li Fengxiang, ed., Heshang baimiu [One Hundred Absurdities of River Elegy] (Beijing: Zhongguo wenlian chuban gongsi, 1990).

⁶⁵ The fact that there were many more TV stations and channels in 2006 than in 1988 is counterbalanced by many more TV programs competing for attention in 2006. Nonetheless, it is likely that The Rise of the Greater Powers reached more people than River Elegy, particularly given that the latter was banned in China since 1989.

⁶⁶ "China Internet Users," Internet Live Stats, accessed August 10, 2018, http://www.internetlivestats.com/internet-users/china/.

⁶⁷ Shi Ying, "Dianshipian Daguo jueqi yinqi guangfan taolun [TV Series Rise of Great Powers Elicits Extensive Discussions]," Epoch Times, November 28, 2006, http://www.epochtimes.com/b5/6/11/28/n1536770.htm.

⁶⁸ Shi Ying.

⁶⁹ Spakowski, "National Aspirations on a Global Stage," 489.

⁷⁰ Xiaomei Chen, "Occidentalism as Counterdiscourse: 'He Shang' in Post-Mao China," Critical Inquiry 18, no. 4 (Summer 1992): 701.

⁷¹ Wang Xi notes further that although many scholars, both Chinese and foreign, were consulted on the project, they had no control over it. The finished documentary did not reflect the diverse views of the interviewed scholars, who were quoted mainly "to fill in storylines." Wang Xi, "Rise of Great Nations or Great Powers?—Reflections on Da Guo Jue Qi," 295–96.

⁷² The Rise of the Great Powers, episode 12.

⁷³ Chen, "Occidentalism as Counterdiscourse," 694.

⁷⁴ Su and Wang, Heshang, 35.

⁷⁵ The Rise of the Great Powers, episode 8.

⁷⁶ The Rise of the Great Powers, episode 9.

⁷⁷ Su and Wang, Heshang, 93–94.

⁷⁸ The Rise of the Great Powers, episode 12.

⁷⁹ Chen, "Occidentalism as Counterdiscourse," 688.

⁸⁰ Mi, "The Visual Imagined Communities," 332.

⁸¹ Chen, "Occidentalism as Counterdiscourse," 695.

⁸² Xiaomei Chen cites Mao Zedong's Theory of the Three Worlds as a quintessential example of official Occidentalism. Though ostensibly expressing support for Third World countries oppressed by the United States and the Soviet Union, Mao's theory was actually "a strategy to consolidate Mao's shaky and increasingly problematic position with the Chinese Communist party" through "the domestic legitimation of Mao as the "great leaders" of the Third World." Chen, 688–92.

⁸³ Cao, "The Re-Imagined West in Chinese Television," 627.