Nowadays, the word “creative industry” is undoubtedly one of the most popular words in China. The development of “creative industry” has also become a state policy of China and the development strategy of many regions in recent years. Though many people may not have a clear knowledge of the nature of “creative industry”, they all have a firm belief for its bright future. Therefore, “creative industry” is like a growing movement, and “creative industrial park” bloomed all over the country. Many governments, companies and individuals invest large amounts of money in this industry for their own purposes. They all expect this industry to make great achievements in the near future.
Several years ago, I was designated to work for the development of “West Lake Creative Valley (Kaiyuan 198)”, an industrial park in Shangcheng District, Hangzhou City. So I had the chance to communicate with the government and many companies, and also encountered various questions from the government, its functional departments, enterprises, professionals in creative industry, public, media and students from all fields, and even from the industry itself. I believe that the transformation of the concepts on the “creative industry” is definitely not an easy thing. Since the development of “creative industry” has become a general trend, we need to get down to think about the essence of this industry, to examine and make clear its connotation from the perspective of an “industry”, and thus adjust our developing trend according to its essence and connotation.

Chapter One
There have been many definitions for the “creative industry” by now, including several sayings from foreign countries, such as Innovative industry，la Creation d’ industrielle. However, we need to discuss it under the special situation in China.
Just as its name implies, “creative industry” may be understood as pulling this “industry” with “creativity”. In fact, “creativity” is a normal term in art education field. Students in art major, especially in artistic design major, have been inculcated with words like “originality”, “creativity”, “innovation” and “invention” since their first class in college. But no one would ever link these familiar words with some great and profound words like “state policy” or “industry”.
In Chinese language, the essence of “creative industry” is the “idea” that is “created” (which is the character意). Why do people take the “idea(意)” as the essence? We can start with the meaning of “idea(意)” in Chinese. There is something interesting in the meaning of this character, and it is helpful for us to better understand the connotation of “creativity”. The character “idea(意)”is made up of two characters: “heart(心)” and “sound(音)”. So, from its composition, we can assume its meaning as “the sound from the heart” or the “heart of the sound”. That is to say, the meaning of “idea(意)” is the “sound(音)” that comes from the “heart(心)”. In other words, idea means the process from internal thinking to meaningful sounds. This “idea” is often triggered by certain things, including things in the mind, actual things or affairs, and these things are mainly caused by the touch of heart. So the so called “creativity” is the thinking activity evolving on the things mentioned above. There is some cause for every “thing”. If we search for the cause of every “thing”, we can find out the logic in these causes. To find out these logics, we need to use our hearts and ideas. After we find out these logics, we can apply them into initiating and developing many assistant industries and related industries, and thus form an industry status. And ultimately, “career”, “industry”, “industrial chain” and their system are formed in the process mentioned above.
The reason why we should start our discussion on “creative industry” from the root meaning of “heart” is that the Chinese traditional culture attaches much importance on the perception and affects of heart. If we didn’t have enough knowledge on this culture, the “idea” created by our hearts would be lack of cultural and spiritual foundation, and it would be hard to form any “thing”, not to mention any “industry”.
In order to understand the operation of Chinese culture under the circumstance of “creative industry”, we need to acquire a keen knowledge of the relationship between people and “heart”, between “heart” and social “attitude” with a modern humanistic “mind” suitable for the global situation, to mingle the cultural affects with traditional features and cultural feelings with modern fashions, to create an “idea” with our efforts, intelligence and tolerance, to seek for the “mind” of various people in modern urban life, to explore and create their needs with the help of high-tech multidimensional means, and even to build an environment for our hearts with physical ways and create all kinds of product schemes suitable for the market expectation. This is the process of so-called “creative” activity, which is the initial part of “creative industry”. If we produce and promote the products of these schemes by means of brand marketing, this industry can gradually enjoy a high-added value, and the strategic target of “creative industry” can be realized in this way.
In order to form a “creative industry”, the following basic conditions are required. First, the desire for an atmosphere of leisure. This is one of the urgent needs of people who live in the tense modern life. Nowadays, the material supply greatly exceeds the public’s basic needs; the market is getting more and more competitive; the brand marketing is developing prosperously; the social consumption is under the circumstance of economic globalization; the demand of the public for their living quality is rising constantly; the elements of enjoy are gradually becoming a part in the consumption process of actual goods. Therefore, there are more and more mental contents in materialized goods to meet our spiritual needs. This is the coming of the era for “mental consumption”. Second, the requirement for mental life diversification is increasing; in products design and environment building, the requirement for diversified and multi-leveled living is increasing; and these requirements all provide stages for regional traditional culture and modern international fashion to interpret themselves. Third, the inheritance and innovation of traditional culture has become an important factor, but the requirement for high quality is the mainstream now. We should try to revive folk arts with the help of both high technology application and traditional handcraft, and adjust the folk arts to the modern urban life. Fourth, new products should be promoted and improved by means of high technology application to enrich the contents of cultural arts and satisfy people’s mental needs.
We need to calm down and think for a measure with our minds and hearts to deal with the facts mentioned above, to constantly promote new concepts and new manners for our life, and to create new needs, new resources, and new products for our life. And thus we can form a new history in this process. We should construct this industry with a core of “creativity”, show the originality of individuals and teams, and intensify the culture and artistic concepts in these products during this construction process. And the constructed industry should play a key role in the economic practice. In our times, the invention and creativity activities triggered by the internal desire for physical and mental lives emerge as the times require. With these invention and creativity activities, we can build or draw many related industries, and these are the so-called “creative industry”.

Chapter Two
Mr. John Hawkins, who is renowned for the book Creative Economy and enjoys high popularity in the international new thinking field, has visited China Academy of Art recently. The author of this article talked with him for several hours. Mr. Hawkins introduced the reasons for the formation of “creative industry” in UK and its development. The author thinks these may have some inspirations for the development of creative industry in China. In early 1990s, many problems appeared in European society, especially in UK. First, the technology and economy in some small Asian countries and regions grew rapidly; China had greatly improved its economy and became the world’s manufactory. Many traditional manufacture industries in UK had been jammed in predicament because of their movement to the east. There were more and more unemployed young people. They had received good education, even higher education, so they were not content to work in traditional industries like their parents, but it was hard for them to find a gratified job at that time. Second, though some Asian companies took the traditional manufacture industries from European companies, those European companies were the actual winners. Not only because they had left all risks and environmental disasters to those Asian developing countries, but also because they had benefited a lot from innovative products and brand marketing, in which products with high cultural added values had the highest profits. Hawkins found the relationship among traditional culture, cultural renovation and the new market, between products and the economic growth with high added value and low risks. Then he further analyzed the characters and development rules of 13 kinds of economies and industries on culture, art and design which are related to the “creative industry”. After this analysis, he promoted the concept of “creative industry” to the society, and persuaded the government and parents to encourage young people with good quality to take on creative jobs with their “creativity”. In this way, these young people could produce many fashionable products constantly, and their works also indicated a bright future of “creativity” and this “industry” for the public. After Mr. Hawkins’ efforts, Britain managed to get rid of the social contradiction of unemployment, and also greatly increased competitiveness of their products. Meanwhile, Mr. Hawkins did some researches on the countries with a well-developed “creative industry”, such as UK, France, USA, Korea, Denmark, Holland and Japan etc and came to a famous conclusion: “the creative economy in the world is creating 22 billion US dollars every single day, and this amount is increasing at the speed of 5%.”
In our communication, Mr. Hawkins admits that the products and services promoted by British “creative industry” are not the best in the world. To be exact, they are at the “second level”. However, Britain has fully exerted the advantage of this “second level”. In this level, the original creative activity requires little investment and enjoys low risks, and hence leaves much space for strategic analysis in the process of social and economic development. The most important significance is that it helps the British economy to transform from manufacturing type to creative and service type. And in this process, the creative industry achieved a remarkable increase and gradually gained an important place in the growth of British macroeconomy.
In this communication, Mr. Hawkins also mentioned another important suggestion: professionals and institutes in creative industry should make some education and promotion activities for the public in the “creative industrial circle” and then make the public enjoy joining in the construction of this industrial circle. According to different situations, there are many ways to implement the above suggestion. For example, some interactive ways in which we promote the industry in the community and the public visit our industrial parks. In this way, not only could they advance their creative consciousness and taste, but also they could find some opportunities in the process, and start their own businesses. In this way, they all contribute to the construction of supporting services of this industrial circle, and also find an opportunity to develop their career and increase their living quality. The construction of an ecological “creative industrial circle” requires the participation of people from all walks of life, especially the local people.

Chapter Three
Though the “creative industry” in China is not at the beginning, the industry and its market is not so mature yet. The unstable supply-demand relationship and incomplete industrial chain is threatening this newly-born industry from time to time. In order to adjust the development trend of the Chinese “creative industry” to the development rules of this industry, we still have a long way to go.
First, officials in the government and its functional departments should hold a correct attitude, understand the nature, feature and rules of this industry, and support it with the managing policies and taxation systems suitable for its operation and development, especially in its developing period. The public should know that a real creative industry is an industry with great R&D abilities. It takes “originality” as its goal, and tries to transform this “originality” to mature products. This course needs lots of experimental researches, in which large amounts of human power and material resources are to be invested. The funds for creative industry are always the types for scientific research. So it’s hard to simply consult the taxation management modes for traditional industries and IT industries. If this mode is not well managed, companies in this industry could try tax evasion in their early stage, or they could not make a living.
Second, though “creative industry” is with production ability itself, there is one precondition for it, that is, leaders in both traditional and newly-emerged manufacture industries should respect brainwork and admit its value and research costs. Investment in R & D stage is sure to gain returns with high-added value in the market. This return appears at the production and marketing periods thereafter, but there is less return at the early stage (R & D stage). So it is very important to protect the intellectual property rights and comply with rules in this field, especially when the copyright royalty system is not well established. Otherwise, it’s very hard for the “creative industry” to operate in a sustainable way.
Third, people in this industry should bear correct consciousness for ratepaying. Once the construction of a basic platform is completed, they are obliged to discuss with the government about the way to build an effective taxation management system. Otherwise the government could not have an ever-lasting enthusiasm to support this industry.
Fourth, “creative industry” needs a good entrepreneurial environment, including effective policy supporting mechanism, infrastructure supported by high technology, various platforms for design and proofing experiments, service environment with good thinking and discussion, as well as well-established environment and mechanism to protect the intellectual property rights. These all require efforts from the government and related industries.

In conclusion, “creative industry” is a newly-emerged industrial form. It is a knowledge-intensive industry with high culture and art composition, high added value and high integrity. It is of great importance for the transformation and optimization of our industrial structure and the increase of our industrial development level. We believe that in the near future, the demands for “creativity” will grow rapidly. And there is a bright future for the market, economic profits, and even social profits of this industry.
Additionally, “creative industry” must enjoy great popularity among the public, and form a social mainstream ideology. We should educate and encourage the public to actively participate in creativities and inventions, especially encourage young people to take part in it, because they are the hope of a county and a nation. Just like Mr. Hawkins says, “If the government does not encourage creativity, especially does not encourage young people to be creative and start their businesses with their wisdom, there will definitely be huge crisis for such nation.”
In China, “creative industry” is an unavoidable road to take. It is the impulsion for the growth of a green GDP, for it concerns the hope of the national economies and industries. Therefore, no matter how hard it is, we should overcome the difficulties with our intelligence. The development of this industry is a course to the future, and hence is a path requiring our joint efforts.

May 5th, 2007