Michel Hockx (University of Notre Dame)

Ever since the start of the reform era in the late 1970s, there has been an understanding between the Chinese leadership and Chinese writers that literature need no longer function as propaganda, the way it was expected to under Mao. The current leader Xi Jinping, in his public statements about literature, has maintained this consensus and often confirmed the independent aesthetic value of writing. At the same time, though, PRC cultural regulatory institutions are attempting to push literary writing and writers in a specific direction, often using moral rather than political arguments. Much ideological pressure is also being exerted on publishers and authors of online genre fiction, which has developed into a major cultural industry. Read more by clicking on the associated link.