Latest technology offers China greater cultural influence

With the unprecedented development of online digital technology and the internet of things, information technologies are playing a greater role in helping cultural exchanges and cooperation among the Chinese mainland, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macao. The Chinese cultural industry as a whole is gaining global influence, said officials and experts at a forum, part of the sixth World Internet Conference, on Sunday.

The Cross-Straits, Hong Kong and Macao Internet Development Forum was held in Wuzhen, Zhejiang province. The event demonstrated the new spirit and look of the Chinese inheriting traditional culture and built a platform to share the opportunities brought by the development of internet technologies.

At the forum, cultural celebrities and enterprises discussed how internet technologies can promote the inheritance and development of traditional Chinese culture. They also probed how modern technologies are reshaping the cultural industry and how culture can endow technologies with humanity.

“Internet technology, including big data, artificial intelligence and augmented reality, is expected to become a shared platform for us to enhance the influence of traditional Chinese culture,” said Liu Liehong, vice-minister of the Cyberspace Administration of China.

Chinese culture forms solid heritage for Chinese people, inspiring them to innovate communication and diversify cultural products with each of their strengths, such as the mixed features of Chinese and western cultures in Hong Kong, the cultural exchanges between China and Portuguesespeaking countries in Macao and the diversified Chinese culture with local characteristics in Taiwan, Liu said.

Chinese culture is shared by cross-Straits Chinese people, all of whom have the responsibility to strengthen cultural exchanges and carry forward the traditional Chinese culture with the support of new technologies, said Chen Yuanfeng, vice-minister of the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council.

“Chinese people can work together to promote their traditional culture with global influence and competitiveness,” Chen said. “The internet industrial resources and market in the Chinese mainland can bring Taiwan more development opportunities.”

“The Chinese animated blockbuster Ne Zha was a hit this summer with the box office hitting 5 billion yuan ($705.88 million),” said Zhang Xiaoying, president and editor-inchief of Economic Daily based in Beijing. “It has set a shining example of how traditional Chinese culture can inspire innovations in the new technology context.”