Description

China’s participation in contemporary globalization has intensified since its entry into the World Trade Organization in 2001. As the volume of goods labeled “Made in China” grows, many artifacts “faked in China” have also come into transnational circulation. Meanwhile, numerous domestic actors have sought to transform China from a manufacturer of foreign goods into a creator of its own brands – a nation-branding project best captured by the slogan “From Made in China to Created in China.” These different ways of engaging the globalizing Intellectual Property Rights regime have generated competing visions for the nation, at a time when new media technologies have become the daily means of communication for many Chinese. The stories of counterfeit cultural artifacts such as the shanzhai mobile phones, or “bandit” phones made in informal sectors, prompt us to complicate the dominant narrative of China’s economic rise from the perspective of cultural change.

Fan Yang is Assistant Professor in the Department of Media and Communication Studies at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC). She is the author of Faked in China: Nation Branding, Counterfeit Culture, and Globalization (Indiana University Press). Her current research examines how China is imagined in contemporary U.S. media.