(Image: “Mao Zedong”(wax statue) at Beijing Museum of Fine Art, photograph by the author, August 2005)

In China, history hangs low and heavy like the grey smog blanketing the country’s industrial cities.  Though not entirely opaque, it is ubiquitous; it colors the sights you see and flavors the air you breathe. Most disturbingly, while the senses of a new arrival in China are shocked, it is not long before historical weight recedes quietly into the everyday and is hardly noticed at all.

Today, however, it is not the past, but the future which concerns Chinese society. Utopianism has a long and distinguished history in China, from Confucian notions of datong (the absolute union of heaven and earth) to the revolutionary fervor of the late 20th century. Be it the road to a Communist utopia or the the road to economic development, China is (at least according to official rhetoric) moving forward step by step. This tendency toward dynamism becomes especially interesting now, in 2007, as Beijing prepares for the 2008 Olympics, and a forward-looking urgency sweeps the entire country.

China is concerned with how it is perceived by the world, as well as by its own people. After decades of propaganda and revolution, China is an old hand at showing the people to themselves, although at times it was more of a fun house mirror than a true reflection. What is new, and what interests me, is that after a historical disinterest in engaging the outside world, China is now eager to “show” itself to the world. This unprecedented campaign of self-imaging is less a reconsideration of Chinese identity (in flux though it may be) than it is a marketing strategy for “brand China.”

China’s deliberate exposure could be seen as a debutante’s coming-out party or a strip-tease. If it’s the latter, the rest of the world is finally getting to see some skin. If it’s the former, the rest of the world is whispering “Is she really wearing white?”

This imagery might strike some as an orientalist throwback, but Western media coverage of China smacks of prurient interest, if base fear. China is alternately a mail-order bride of a sleeping giant. This is no Cold War paranoia, because beyond posing a phantom political threat, China offers the Uncle Sam an economic reach-around he is not disciplined enough to resist. And who can blame him? She’s one sexy dragon.

To investigate this, I will make this blog a picture book of political imagery, from American caricature of China from the past two hundred years to China’s far-reaching Olympics campaign. Clearly, China has a vested interest in showing itself in a certain light, and the US has a chronic inability to see China without projecting its own images on it. Representations on either side cannot be trusted to show the real China, if such a thing can even be said to exist. The lie of the political image is that it is singular, autonomous and undeniably true. This blog will re-present what is represented, what we are presented. And on a more personal note, this will be an exercise for me in shaking off my overly-academic tone. So I promise, the next entries will be better illustrated, and a lot more fun to read!