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Between Tradition and Modernity: Wuzhen and China’s Soft Power in the 21st Century
LIN Mao
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DOI:10.17265/2159-5836/2017.11.009
History Department, Georgia Southern University, U.S.A.
In recent years, Wuzhen, a Ming-Qing style water town located south of the Yangtze River, has quickly become one of the most popular tourist destinations in China. The success of Wuzhen was so influential that the term “Wuzhen Model” quickly became a buzzword in Chinese economic and cultural discourses. Promoters of Wuzhen have claimed that it embodies both tradition and modernity, therefore representing the best of China. While Wuzhen was first reconstructed as a “living museum” of Chinese cultural tradition to attract tourists, it increasingly started to claim itself as a leading “smart town” for China’s future development. Moreover, the so-called Wuzhen Model fits seamlessly into China’s overall strategy of projecting its soft power both domestically and abroad. The purpose of this paper is to examine how Wuzhen was culturally constructed and how it helped to project China’s soft power. It also examines how Wuzhen was perceived abroad, focusing primarily on major English-speaking countries including the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia, to understand its impact on China’s soft power.
Wuzhen; Chinese soft power; tourism; modernity; Chinese foreign policy
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