The Prince’s visit to
Shanghai has further revurberations in the Global Economy.
Shanghai’s Festival of Creativity is a collaborative
initiative that will reverberate on the Global Market. As China’s Cultural and
Creativity Industry (CCI) aims to gain further steps, Britain spearheaded by
Prince William are creating business links to further implement their
knowledge-based economy.
The city of Shanghai has been the hallmark of creative
industries taking off in China as it has played host to international film, art
and fashion festivals in recent years. The best of British talent and expertise
on show at this week’s Festival of Creativity will caim to stimulate the
high-level Shanghai business audience present.
The festival showcases high-end technology, fashion,
entertainment and other commerce from UK creative sectors. The demand for
British products in China is at its highest. Shown yesterday by one of the UK’s
oldest institutions, the Royal Mail, joining the online shopping boom in China
by opening a virtual shop on an Alibaba Group Holding Ltd owned site.
The International Co-operation supports the development of
China CCI, which in recent times has transformed itself to account for about 4%
of GDP. It’s boost in R&D expenditure and increase in the number of patents
has encouraged more foreign investment. This industry can be a powerful tool
for international recognition abroad.
However China currently spends more on licensing foreign
technology than it does on oil imports, recent estimates put it at RMB 1.5
trillion. If China’s intention to develop a creative technology sector is mildly
successful, it would increase China’s trade surplus from countries such as the
UK, the US and Japan. When these knowledge economies provide consulting on how
to produce the most state-of-the-art creative works, as Paddington Bear clearly
is, are they not just fuelling the more numerous competitor.
The Chinese company, XiaoMi, launched a GoPro-styled sports
camera yesterday for a fraction of the price of the Amercian model. This gives
a picture of China beginning to establish itself in the high-end technology
sector. The UK creative sector must thus be wary of treating China as a cash
cow. Britain as a knowledge economy can’t really predict how its Asian trading
partner will alter the international terrain and may lose its ‘absolute
advantage’ in international creative industry trade markets.
That is unless you are to believe the most-heard voice on
TED talks in Sir Ken Robinson. He talks about the importance of creativity, and
notes that ‘Every education system on Earth has the same hierachy of subjects:
at the top are mathematics & languages, then the arts’. This seems
particularly evident in China where a students restraint from doing something
the wrong way, might just prevent them from doing something original and
innovative.
These innovative inefficiencies have sparked the government
to subsidise returning Chinese mainlanders,
encourage greater transnational educational partnerships and pursue
further university research collaborations. Sino-UK collaborations here are at
a record high as well as the volume of collaborative papers output has
increased four-fold over the last 10 years. UK universities also saturate the
Chinese Higher education market with multiple exchange programmes.
Britain and China have mutual interests that interlink in
each countries current development strategy. I feel that Britain has to
continue innovating to maintain its position, while China must change its education
ethos to engage better with its ambitions to be innovative again.
