Studies On The Globally Cultural Trade Barriers

In recent years, the boom in cultural industries as well as favorable balance of trade for years in China is catching more public attention. However, there is still a long way to go for our cultural trade because the import turnover of cultural product is totally smaller than that of export value. Although we are the No.l exporter of cultural product globally, the poor performances on export of core cultural product can be regarded as the lost of international competition, Trade barrier then acts as a shield against foreign threat. But the real effect on cultural trade barrier is a paradox.The plan for this dissertation begins academic explanation for international cultural trade, followed by the sections of historical inspection, contemporary situation, theoretical discussion about less efficiency of trade barrier, case studies and research into the effect of cultural trade barrier in China.The imbalanced structure of international cultural industries leads to the situation that developed countries of European & North America dominate global cultural trade. Cultural product from developed countries rushes into less-developed countries with the damaging effect on the survival of native cultural industries. On the other side, international cultural trade mainly occurs among developed nations, showing the tendency towards Intra-Industry Cultural Trade(I2CT). I2CT arises from the following factors:economic development, integrated degree, information technology, differentiation of cultural product. According to the formula of Grubel & Lloyd, I figure out the I2CT index to be as highly as 0.725.There are two opposite opinions on the I2CT. US claim free trade policy towards international cultural trade, while other countries prefer cultural protection in the practice of cultural trade. This paper believes that the usual cultural trade barrier includes customs duty, quota and subsidy, all of which would bring about economic welfare loses, what's more, the adoption of preserving native culture is facing more and more restrictions, its factual impact may be unsatisfactory.Multiculturalism is advocated by UNESCO, the International Network of Cultural policy(INCP) and other parallel associations. In October 2005, UNESCO published a report titled Convention on the Protection and Promotion of Diversity of Cultural Expression. Multiculturalism thus can be cited as the basis of cultural protection in the practice of international cultural trade. But the legal effect of the Convention is inferior to that of WTO, making it difficult to protect domestic culture in the process of international cultural trade.Cultural product of US rushes into Canada heavily because of geographical propinquity, the same language and similar cultural origin. Canada feels threat by cultural product of US lest Canadians may be Americanized. In the magazine aspect, Canada passes the Income Tax Act and Tariff Code 9958 to provide financial aid & postal subsidy to magazine publishers, at the same time discriminates against American magazines simultaneously. When Americans succeed in circumventing Canadian's cultural trade barriers by the technical progress of communication, a trade dispute erupts between them. The Dispute Settlement Body of WTO finally make a judgment that Canadians violate the provisions of WTO, so Canadian government has to modify its cultural trade policies.As to the significant challenge to cultural independence, there is something in common between China and Canada. However, cultural trade barrier in China has its own characteristic of great dependence upon numerous and disorderly administration measures, in order to provide impediment to the inrush of foreign core cultural product. China's cultural controlling measures cover nearly the whole value chains of cultural industries, from qualification examination in advance, content filtering in the process of creation, mass production, distribution to subsequent supervision. One of the aims of controlling is to build a firewall against foreign culture product.The cultural administration is carried out by several Chinese government bodies, such as the Ministry of Culture, the State Administration of Radio Film and Television, General Administration of Press and Publication of China, and the Propaganda Department of CPC. The government bodies function normally only within the range of traditional mass media, but are incapable of various forms of New Media, e.g. microblog. When the traditional media companies turn to New Media increasingly, government's regulation falls into straitened circumstances, indicating the limitations of cultural trade barrier.When US government prosecute China against its measures affecting trading rights and distribution services for certain publications and audiovisual entertainment products, it is obvious that the best way of protecting domestic culture should be the further development of domestic cultural industries, in view of limitations of cultural trade barrier.This paper try to conduct the research into inefficiency of cultural trade barrier by multi-disciplinary model, and manage to depict the structure of international trade in books, Artistic works, film and television, music products with convincing statistical data for the first time in China.