China's Cultural Power Drive: 7,188 Museums, 20.8 Trillion Yuan Revenue in 2025
A Chinese Academy of Social Sciences expert outlined the nation's cultural power strategy, citing 7,188 registered museums and 20.8 trillion yuan in cultural industry revenue for 2025, up 8.8% year on year. The article highlights achievements, gaps, and five future priorities, including core values promotion, cultural prosperity, industry development, the 'two combinations' principle, and global communication.
This article provides a theoretical exposition on building China's cultural power, with detailed content and clear logic. The core points are summarized as follows.
### Background and Significance - **Opening Year of the 15th Five-Year Plan**: The article anchors on the strategic goal of building a cultural power by 2035, noting that the 15th Five-Year Plan period is a critical phase for action. - **Three Dimensions of Significance**: - **Historical Depth**: Over 5,000 years of Chinese civilization have formed three interconnected cultural forms: fine traditional Chinese culture, revolutionary culture, and advanced socialist culture. - **International Perspective**: China's cultural soft power lags behind its economic hard power, necessitating a stronger voice in intense global competition. - **Theoretical Guidance**: Xi Jinping's thought on culture serves as the fundamental guide for cultural development in the new era, emphasizing party leadership over culture, the 'two combinations,' and a people-centered approach.
### Achievements and Gaps - **Key Achievements**: - Consolidated ideological and public opinion trends, with projects like the National Version Library advancing. - Expanded public cultural services, with 7,188 registered museums nationwide by the end of 2025. - Released cultural industry vitality, generating 20.8 trillion yuan in revenue in 2025, up 8.8% year on year. - Diversified international communication channels, with about 200 million overseas users of online literature. - **Four Major Gaps**: - Insufficient original high-quality works, with a focus on traffic over quality. - Imbalanced public cultural services, showing notable urban-rural and regional disparities. - Unbalanced cultural heritage protection and utilization. - International communication and digital governance capabilities require improvement.
### Future Paths (Five Directions) - **Promote Core Values**: Institutionalize ideal and belief education, and strengthen online civility. - **Flourish Cultural Undertakings**: Adhere to a people-centered creative orientation and enhance cultural heritage protection. - **Develop Cultural Industries**: Foster culture-technology integration, grow digital creative sectors, and deepen culture-tourism integration. - **Uphold the 'Two Combinations'**: Drive the creative transformation and innovative development of fine traditional Chinese culture. - **Strengthen International Communication**: Implement the Global Civilization Initiative, build a Chinese discourse system, and promote cultural going global.
### In-Depth Interpretation This article goes beyond policy interpretation, offering a unique lens on China's modernization process:
- **Confidence Rooted in Civilization**: It bases cultural confidence on a deep understanding of over 5,000 years of continuous Chinese civilization, distinguishing it from ordinary nation-states and providing unique spiritual resources for modernization. - **Significance of the 'Two Combinations'**: This is not just theoretical innovation but a practical path, meaning Marxism must be 'sinicized' and fine traditional culture must be 'modernized,' jointly shaping the cultural form of Chinese modernization. - **Clear-eyed Challenge**: The article does not shy away from problems, explicitly identifying shortcomings such as insufficient original capacity and cultural trade deficits, reflecting cultural confidence and serving as a starting point for high-quality development. - **Pragmatic Orientation of the 15th Five-Year Plan**: It breaks down grand strategies into concrete tasks, such as implementing the national cultural digitalization strategy and deepening culture-tourism integration, showing a practical approach to embedding cultural development in the national blueprint.
In summary, this article is a key reference for understanding China's cultural power strategy, clarifying both its theoretical significance and practical paths, with the core aim of stimulating the nation's cultural creativity through the 'two combinations' to support Chinese modernization with cultural confidence.