Another cultural revolution?

Press, 26 January 1979, Page 12

Another cultural revolution?

A little more than a decade ago most young Chinese to be seen in the streets of China’s cities would have been holding the little red book of the sayings of Chairman Mao. This year’s visitors to China will be more likely to see young Chinese with a bottle of Coke in one hand and perhaps, if present trends continue, a piece of Kentucky Fried or a McDonald’s hamburger in the other.

The Chinese themselves have been careful to play down the importance of admitting to their country, for the first time since 1949. the trappings of Western popular culture They have insisted that the Coca-Cola, to be imported and later bottled in China, is intended mainly for foreign visitors. China’s leaders may find it hard to keep Coca-Cola out of the hands of the Chinese people In the far-ofl days before Coca-Cola was freely available in New Zealand, enterprising youngsters knew very well how to win bottles of the then precious elixir from visiting United States servicemen or sailors. Chinese youth are likely to prove just as enterprising The Chinese have also supplied sound economic reasons for establishing chains of fast-food eating places in Chinese cities and have declared that

instead of fried chicken and hamburgers, Chinese fast-food chains will sell distinctively Chinese foods. Greater productivity is the Chinese goal. What is happening in China may well amount to a new Cultural Revolution, especially as the egalitarian standards of Mao’s China are discarded in favour of allowing economic and social inequalities to emerge in the interests of economic growth.

Perhaps the new leadership in Peking believes that a contract with Coca-Cola will look much more impressive to the American people than any amount of diplomatic papers, or that adopting the tactics of Colonel Sanders symbolises more than a treaty parchment Peking may be right, and since the Chinese people have put up with so much in the past they can surely stomach the idea, of having a rushed lunch in the interests of economic efficiency and international understanding. Many people, however, may believe that the Chinese would have a warmer opinion of the West if they kept a leisurely table. In fact, this cause for concern is probably very slight: China has shown in the past that it will always be China.