Annals of Tourism Research, Vol. 35, No. 4, pp.

969989, 2008 0160-7383/$ - see front matter 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved Printed in Great Britain

www.elsevier.com/locate/atoures

doi:10.1016/j.annals.2008.09.004

CULTURAL TOURISM, CEREMONY AND THE STATE IN CHINA

Hongliang Yan Bill Bramwell Shefeld Hallam University, UK
Abstract: The state is uniquely placed to determine how cultural heritage is used for tourism. Yet, even in highly centralized regimes, at times the central state is likely to respond to societal pressures and local government initiative in order to maintain its political hegemony. The paper explores the changing attitudes of Chinas Communist Party-led national government toward cultural heritage and Confucianism, and the consequences of that shift for tourism and a Confucian ceremony at Qufu World Heritage Site. A gradual acceptance by central government of tourism and traditional cultural activities at the site is related to growing tensions and instabilities in Chinese society and to a slow decentralization of government policymaking. Keywords: state policy, cultural tradition, cultural tourism, socialism, China. 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

INTRODUCTION Through visiting tourist attractions and reading promotional material, tourists may be able to make a connection between themselves and their society, thereby inuencing their sense of identity and feelings for social cohesion. This paper examines the states efforts to inuence such connections between tourism and cultural identity. Governments may seek to shape cultural identity by promoting aspects of a countrys cultural patrimony for tourism, and by ignoring or resisting others. They may also attempt selectively to re-work and re-write the cultural heritage presented at tourist attractions (Palmer 1999). Behind these actions there may be intentions to strengthen loyalties to the governments favored ideologies and political objectives. These intentions might include the use of tourism and its promotion in an effort to exercise control and demonstrate authority and legitimacy (Henderson 2002:73; Handler 1988; Leong 1997; Light 2007; Tunbridge and Ashworth 1996; Wood 1984). Tourism may be used, for example, to transmit images of the competence of the ruling elite and the correctness of the governments political beliefs (Richter

Hongliang Yan and Bill Bramwell are respectively, Researcher and Professor in tourism at Shefeld Hallam University (Shefeld S1 1WB, United Kingdom. Email: <Gordon_y66@ hotmail.com>). The former is researching modernity, sustainability and heritage tourism in China and the connections between tourism and change in Chinese society; and the latter has research interests in actors and political economy, the politics of sustainability, and Chinas tourism development. 969

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1999). Governments may also attempt to use tourism as a tool in shaping national identity, such that tourism and nationalist policies are often complementary (Henderson 2002:72). This can have wide signicance as peoples sense of identity may cohere around the idea of the nation, with the nation being not only a political entity but something which produces meaningsa system of cultural representation (Hall 1992: 292). Yet the state is rarely the only actor inuencing how cultural heritage is developed and used, and it may well have to respond to societal tensions and instabilities. There may be pressures from the broad changes affecting groups in society, such as tourism industry groups, conservation interests, the media or community groups. Although the state has very considerable powers, it is rare that it will completely ignore all tensions and interests, especially if they operate in concerted ways. Purcell and Nevins (2005:212) suggest that In order to maintain political legitimacy and effective authority over its people, the state must reproduce a politically stable relationship between state and citizen. In capitalist societies there may be crises exerting pressure on the state to alter its policies toward cultural tradition: these can include economic crises, when the economy sees limited accumulation and fails to meet popular expectations, and legitimation crises, where the state loses its ability to reect the popular will (Majone 1999; Swyngedouw 2000). In addition, the state is itself composed of central government, or the national-level state, and also regional and more local tiers of government (Yuksel, Bramwell and Yuksel 2005). Each of these government tiers may have different objectives for cultural heritage and for tourism uses of that heritage. For such reasons the hegemony of the central state or national government is never total. Continuing processes of adjustment are usually needed in order to develop and maintain support in society and thus to legitimate the states position. While the central state may select policies to strengthen its position, these policies may not be completely of its own making. Rarely do people remain passive and powerless in the process (Wood 1984). Henderson (2002:73) suggests that attempts to harness tourism to hegemonic ambitions are not always successful. Local residents may dispute promulgated notions of identity. This is evident in Cano and Mysyks (2004) assessment of the Mexican states attempts to transform a cultural celebration in a rural community the Day of the Deadinto a tourist attraction, such as by developing a small hotel and promoting cultural tourism. The authors show that the government was opposed by some residents, who attempted to control tourist activity during the celebration. These residents are depicted as having at least a minimal amount of power to cause the state to reexamine its tourism strategies (p. 894). Because the residents were essential to the celebrations success, the state made several concessions to ensure their continued participation. Yet, while the state rethought aspects of its strategy due to this opposition, it remained intent on using this cultural attraction for tourism. In the present study the connections between the state, tourism and cultural identity are examined for a socialist country led by a com-

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munist political party. Henderson (2007:250) contends that The value attached to tourism as a propaganda channel is especially high within a communist context where the fundamental insecurity of authoritarianism gives rise to a compulsion to trumpet the superiority of the doctrine and the benets of life in a socialist utopia. There is an emerging literature on the roles that the state may play in tourism development in these socio-political contexts, mostly in Central and East European countries and recently also in Asian countries. This work shows that in several communist countries in Central and Eastern Europe between the 1960s and 80s tourism commonly was used to present their unique identities as socialist states, and sometimes to highlight the superiority of socialist ideology (Hall 1981). Sites of religious pilgrimage there were often regarded as irritants and they were not ofcially encouraged as tourist attractions; while numerous open air village museums were promoted so as to inculcate national pride in the shared socialist endeavour (Hall 2000). In Albania, small groups of international tourists were taken on carefully constructed tours to sites of signicance for socialism (Hall 1990). Henderson (2007:249) argues that in North Korea some sites contribute to xenophobia and a siege mentality which is fundamental to the regimes preservation. Since communisms collapse in many Central and East European countries in 1989, tourism has been one of several ways in which these nations have sought to remake national identity (Burns 1998; Hall 1999; Light 2000, 2007). The new states have attempted to project post-socialist identities as part of a re-integration into Western Europes economic and political structures (Hall 1999; Light 2001). This has often involved denying memories of the communist past and the construction of new identities oriented to the democratic and capitalist West. Tourism has been used by the state to achieve these objectives, such as through images used in tourism promotion and stories told at heritage sites. Equally importantly, these post-communist governments have promoted tourism in order to attract tourist expenditure as their economies have struggled to adjust to capitalism (Chance 1994; Lowenthal 1997). Even in socialist countries with Communist Party-led governments, the states attempts to use tourism to build cultural identity may not always have gone completely unchallenged or been fully successful. Based on a study of the uses of cultural heritage for tourism in three East Asian socialist countries (Laos, Vietnam and North Korea), Henderson (2007:244) concludes that While the ruling Communist elites allocate the highest priority to retaining their authority, they do confront potentially destabilising questions of political legitimacy and social and economic uncertainties. In post-communist states, the use of tourism for identity-building is less likely to be widely accepted. For instance, while these states have sought to put the communist period rmly behind them, some tourists still want to see evidence of the communist heritage. And there has been some accommodation to this desire because it is a valuable source of income (Light 2000).

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This paper examines the roles of both the national-level state and local state in the relationships between tourism and cultural identity in China. This is a socialist country with a Communist Party-led state. The continuity of rule of the Chinese Communist Party constitutes a striking feature of China today, in contrast to the nations of Central and Eastern Europe. After Mao Zedong assumed political leadership of China in 1949, the communist central state rejected many past cultural traditions, including beliefs associated with Confucianism, and it also resisted tourism development. After Deng Xiaopings 1978 Open Door reforms, however, China began to re-evaluate its cultural past and also to encourage tourism. Authority in China has remained highly centralized over this period, so that cultural and tourism policies are still greatly inuenced by national government. It is in this context that the relationships between state, cultural identity and tourism are explored through the experiences of one cultural sitethe family home of Confucius at Qufu, in East Chinas Shandong Provinceand particularly through a traditional cultural ceremony held there, the Confucius cult ceremony. The buildings and other facilities there are now a UNESCO World Heritage Site and it is a tourist attraction of national importance. The studys rst aim is to assess how Chinas national government has sought to inuence Qufus tourism development and also the Confucius cult ceremony held there. This relationship has been particularly affected by the central states attitudes to Confucianism as a part of the Chinese peoples cultural traditions. A second aim is to evaluate whether the national governments approach to tourism and the cult ceremony at this site has been affected by tensions and instabilities in Chinas society or by pressures from lower tiers of government. Since Dengs 1978 reforms, tensions have emerged between the prevailing socialist ideology and the increasing marketization of the economy, and there has also been a trend towards government decentralization. These issues are examined for this site using both relational and historical approaches to research. Reform in China is usually described as having been gradual due to the persistence of the fundamental principles and political institutions of socialism (Sun 2008). There has been much stability in the conception of authority as deriving ultimately from a single, exceedingly centralized source on high (Shue 2008:141). While the Communist Party-led state retains a dominant position, it might still have had to make concessions at Qufu, even if only in minor ways. This is possible because in recent years China has experienced contradictions and tensions that have started to encourage ideological debates in both society and government (Wang 2008). Tensions have occurred, for example, between socialism and Deng Xiaopings 1978 market reforms, and between socialism and Chinas traditional cultural values. Some central state concessions might also have been encouraged by the growing decentralization in Chinas governance since Dengs reforms. Further, it has been suggested that Chinas state has been adept at incorporating new reforms into pre-existing ideology, and also at putting aside the debate which, in effect, involves allowing something to occur but

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not talking much about it (Shue 2008; Sun 2008). How these processes are worked out can only be fully understood through close studies of the operational realities of practice, rather than through ofcial rhetoric or institutional structures. Thus, the analysis here examines such practice in relation to Qufus tourism development and cult ceremony, and it relates these to wider trends in Chinas governance and society.

CULTURAL TOURISM, CEREMONY AND THE STATE Qufu and the Confucius cult ceremony held there are highly prominent symbols of Confucian philosophy, a traditional set of philosophical beliefs and cultural values that in feudal times profoundly inuenced Chinese peoples lives, and it remains a signicant inuence today. The sites prominence derives from it being the family home of Confucius, the renowned philosopher, educator and politician, who lived there from 551 to 479 BC. While Confucianism is a philosophy rather than a religion, Confucius himself has been deeply revered in Chinese society and Confucianism is a highly inuential cultural tradition in China. At Qufu, additions over many years to the original small house of Confucius have created a huge complex, with the Confucian temple alone having over one hundred buildings (Lu 1994). The sites cemetery contains the Confucius tomb and the remains of over 100,000 of his descendents, and the site also houses a collection of detailed genealogies of his family. Qufu was visited by many of Chinas past feudal emperors in order to pay homage to Confucius (Lu 1994). A focus for analysis here is the traditional Confucius cult ceremony held there. Originally a state-sponsored event established by Emperor Gao in 205 BC, it was stopped during Mao Zedongs era of revolutionary socialism and it has only been re-established in recent times. The ceremonys changing fortunes are considered in the paper, together with their recent connections with tourism development. Changes at the site and in the cult ceremony are assessed here using a relational approach where social life is considered to involve connected and circulating relations interacting in diverse ways (Bramwell and Meyer 2007; Jessop 1990). The complicated relationships among the inner elements of a phenomenon in society, and between that phenomenon and its various contexts, are regarded as perpetually evolving and emergent. This study also adopts an historical or longitudinal perspective. This temporal emphasis seeks to understand the dynamic interplay between Qufus local situation and Chinas political and socioeconomic changes. As Soeld and Li (1998a:273) contend, it is necessary to ensure that any historical study of the particular tourism element also takes into account the changing political and socioeconomic forces at work over time. Chinas shifting socioeconomic and political contexts and their connections with cultural tradition are highly signicant. Much of the nations history was based on a feudal social system and a political order of royal dynasties. That feudal society was guided by traditional philos-

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ophies, religions and spiritual meanings that emphasized respect for societys rulers and elders and morality in personal relationships. Confucianism was highly inuential in that era. These cultural traditions were completely rejected, however, after Mao Zedong assumed political leadership of the country in 1949. In this new socialist era led by Chinas Communist Party, the cultural traditions of feudalism, including Confucianism, were attacked as based on superstitions and an exploitative and unequal social order (Soeld and Li 1998b; Spence 1999). Attitudes to traditional culture began to change again, albeit slowly, after Deng Xiaopings 1978 Open Door reforms. Dengs policies sought to modernize the country through a more market-oriented economy, but still within ideological frameworks and a socialist system led by the Communist Party. The reforms did not really change the dominant position of the Communist Party and state, and the piecemeal character of the reform process has given the government time to adjust its strategies of control (Kang and Han 2008). Since these reforms, the countrys tourism industry has expanded rapidly, including at sites such as Qufu that are based on cultural traditions originating from the feudal period. Shifting relations between Chinas central state and local government have been another important inuence on the sites development. The city of Qufu is responsible for both heritage conservation and tourism development at the site. After 1949 the sites conservation was managed by the citys heritage preservation committee, which later became its Cultural Heritage Preservation Administration (Shandong Province 2007). Its tourism promotion after 1978 was handled by the citys Foreign Affairs Ofce and from 1985 by its Tourism Administration (Li 2001). The Cultural Heritage Preservation Administration was not directly involved in developing tourism at the site, with this being left to the Tourism Administration (Li 2001). The revival of the Confucius cult ceremony was also steered by the Tourism Administration, with the Cultural Heritage Preservation Administration taking just a secondary, facilitating role. In 2005 a new site management committee was established: the Qufu Cultural Heritage Administration Committee. While it combined tourism promotion and heritage conservation, in practical terms the Tourism Administration retained its local dominance in directing tourism development and in shaping the cult ceremony (Jining Tourism Authority 2005). Both the conservation and tourism organizations report to Qufus city government. There is also a hierarchical chain of reporting upwards to corresponding organizations in the larger city of Jining, and from there to Shandong Province and to national government. At the governments top tier, heritage management responsibility lies with the Ministry of State Administration of Cultural Heritage, and tourism is dealt with by the National Tourism Administration (China National Tourism Administration 2007; Qian 2007). This hierarchy of government levels can allow Chinas central state to determine the direction of local decision making. Another potential top-down inuence on local government is that many of its politicians are Communist Party appointees, and many of its ofcials are Communist Party cadres

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who seek to carry out the Partys national policies. Qian (2007) notes how many conservation ofcials also hold positions as Communist Party cadres and must therefore ensure that the Partys agenda is carried out. Yet there has been a slow but growing decentralization of governance in China since Dengs reforms, with the relations between central government, provinces and localities becoming more complex. This process of decentralization has shifted some of the public administration and economic authority from the central state to provincial, city and county levels (Lewis and Xue 2003; White 1992). Consequently, there is a greater capacity than in the past for creative local leadership. Research Methods Multiple sources and methods were used to understand the attitudes of national government and other groups to Qufus heritage, the cult ceremony and Confucian values. In-depth interviews were undertaken with 28 actors. Of these, 15 were policymakers or managers who were employed at the site or worked for local government and were regularly involved with the site. Among these there were employees of local government departments for tourism, cultural heritage and urban planning. There were ve further interviews with residents of nearby Qufu town who were very knowledgeable about the sites development. Two of these were local community leaders as well as descendents of Confucius, and three were retired government ofcials previously involved in the sites management. Finally, interviews with eight ofcials in relevant national and regional government departments provided other information concerning Qufu. They included ofcials from the national and provincial tourism and also cultural heritage administrative organisations, and also from the provincial ofce for compiling historical records. Only two people were unavailable for interview, this being because they were away on business. In addition to the 28 actors, ve academics with interests in cultural heritage and Confucianism were interviewed about views within China concerning cultural tradition. All interviews took place between July and September 2005. They generally lasted 40 to 80 minutes, were guided by a exible schedule of themes and were recorded. The same themes were also considered when consulting a range of documents and when undertaking four site visits in 2005. Several visits had also been made previously. Among the documents reviewed were planning studies, policy statements and monitoring reports produced by national and local government, promotional and interpretive materials, and articles in local and national newspapers. Qufu and the Cult Ceremony Before 1978 Qufu and the cult ceremony are prominent symbols of Confucianism, a philosophy that was central to Chinas society in the feudal period. It

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considers that a utopian society requires the regulation of human relationships, so as to secure social order and also the attainment of harmony between individuals, groups and the nation. It sees a utopian society as one guided by the ve constant virtues of benevolence (ren), righteousness (yi), propriety (li), knowledge (zhi) and sincerity (xin). Confucian teaching also stresses a hierarchical societal order based on the three cardinal guides, whereby the ruler guides the subject, the father guides the son, and the husband guides the wife. These Confucian values became rmly established within the beliefs underpinning Chinas feudal society and its hereditary emperors. Although some scholars avoid describing Confucianism as an ideology, in many respects it served as a state ideology responding to the changing political needs of its believers (Lieberthal 1995), and it retained its inuential position until feudalism was replaced by the Republic of China in 1912. After the death of Confucius, Qufu became a place of devotion and remembrance for his followers, including the nations emperors. In 205 BC, Emperor Gao established the Confucius cult ceremony there. This state-sponsored ceremony centred on offering sacrices to Confucius spirit in the temple. It involved the offering of food to his memory and also an eight-row dance in his honour performed by eight rows of eight dancers. Confucius was the only person to be revered in this way by an imperial ruler. Further evidence of the imperial leaders homage to him over the feudal period was seen in the 12 emperors who paid their respects to him at Qufu, and the deputies of about 100 emperors who attended 196 Confucian cult ceremonies (Xu 1993). The imperial court also sent funds each year to maintain and extend the sites buildings, and in the Yuan Dynasty (12711368) they allowed the building of an enclosure wall around the temple modelled on Beijings Imperial Palace. The position of the site and ceremony changed dramatically after the communist revolution and establishment of the Peoples Republic of China under Mao Zedong in 1949. Mao strove fervently for a socialist socio-economic system based on the philosophies of Marx, Lenin and Mao, which were held to be scientic and revolutionary (Ogden 1995). His search for a modern socialist society involved a strong aversion to feudalisms traditional cultural values, including those associated with Confucius, with these values depicted as major obstacles to socialism. It was contended that feudal elites had used traditional values such as support for hereditary lineage and imperial dynasties, and the veneration of ancestorsas a means to strengthen their exploitation and dominance (Dardess 1983). In 1958 Mao attacked these values and practices, claiming that they needed to be abandoned because only blank paper could draw the latest and most beautiful pictures (Mao 1999:178). The Communist Party severely criticised Qufus cult ceremony as representing a feudal superstition contradicting socialist principles. During Maos era the sites authorities feared the consequences of continuing the traditional activities, and thus they were abandoned. The state under Mao also generally discouraged domestic and international tourism (Chow 1988; Wen and Tisdell 2001), with tourist

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numbers being tightly restricted. Chinas cultural sites were also not promoted for tourism. When tourism occasionally was encouraged it was for propaganda purposes as a part of Chinas foreign affairs policies (China National Tourism Administration 1992; Qiao 1995), such as to celebrate communist achievements through visits to factories and to groups of socialist workers and peasants (Soeld and Li 1998b). Socialist ideology especially discouraged visits to sites associated with traditional culture because that was connected with backward feudalism and with unscientic beliefs. While a heritage preservation committee for Qufu was set up in 1949, its scope was restricted to preservation work rather than to encouraging tourism, and it had only very limited state funding (Li 2001). Qufus fortunes notably deteriorated from 1966 when Mao launched his Cultural Revolution in an attempt to reinvigorate the socialist revolution (Soeld and Li 1998a and b). He called for a more radical removal of past traditions, including the four olds, of old customs, old culture, old habits, and old ideas and, of course, these were essential features of the site (Spence 1999:575). During the Cultural Revolution the Red Guards tried to damage Qufu physically. According to a later account, during one assault on the site they yelled slogans against the Confucius family name of Kong, such as Topple Old Kong! and Burn the Kong family shop! (Peoples Daily 2001; Qian 2007). Two groups of local people, however, sought to stop the Red Guards from causing damage. First, the local Qufu County Communist Party worked hard to dissuade them, arguing that, despite the sites associations with feudalism and imperial dynasties, it was just an artefact administered by national authorities that followed socialist principles, and that those authorities should not to be opposed (Wang 2002:385). Second, nearby residents gathered to protect the site from the Red Guards. Many of these were descendents of Confucius or of Confucian scholars and many were simply proud of the sites associations and reputation. Despite the local opposition, a national-level organizationthe Central Revolutionary Leadership Committee of the Communist Partyallowed the Red Guards to damage the sites buildings and other relicts, apart from the temple, house and cemetery (Wang 2002:385). By the end of the Cultural Revolution approximately 2,700 books, 900 paintings, 1,000 stone pillars and inscriptions, and 6,000 other items had been destroyed there (Xu 1993). The Red Guards even exceeded their authorization, with various objects inside the temple being smashed or burnt, including the statue of Confucius, and the grave of Confucius was also levelled.

Negotiating Change at Qufu After 1978 Deng Xiaopings Open Door reforms from 1978 involved the limited introduction of market forces in the economy and a shift in emphasis from political struggles to economic development. After these reforms, Chinas government began to change its views about traditional cultural values, inuenced by growing instabilities and con-

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cerns in Chinese society. The state remained highly dominant, but there was some interplay between it and the societal tensions that were affecting attitudes to cultural heritage. The discussion next explores how the states reforms and the growing tensions in society encouraged a degree of public debate about cultural tradition, including Confucianism, and also changing views in government about this and about Qufus cultural tourism. After 1978 both central and local government became increasingly enthusiastic about tourism as a stimulus to economic growth and modernization (Wen and Tisdell 2001). Deng recognized in 1979 that there is a lot to be achieved through tourism and that this industry could increase national income (China National Tourism Administration 2000a and b), and the state agencies subsequently endorsed it as a vehicle which could help to achieve national and local economic development, especially for poor areas with rich tourism resources (Hu, Z., 2005:52). The new emphasis on tourism for economic development encouraged the rehabilitation of numerous cultural sites, including those associated with traditional Confucian values. By the early 1980s Qufu had accessed national, regional and also international funding for restoration work, including repairs to damage caused by the Red Guards. There was also a huge inow of investment into new tourist accommodation in the small neighbouring town of Qufu, allowing it to receive 1.3 million domestic and 15,000 international tourists annually by the early 1990s (Li 2001), and 4.5 million and 170,000 international tourists by 2004 (Qufu Committee for Compiling Annual Statistics 2005). The growth in tourism at Chinas cultural sites based on traditional values also reected the central state beginning to re-evaluate those values. This new assessment had complex roots. The Open Door policies encouraged Chinas leaders to start to search for ways to legitimize the incorporation of market forces within socialism and also to maintain the Communist Partys political dominance (Deng 1993:173; Soeld and Li 1998b). As well as the tensions between socialist principles and the operation of the market, there was a growing belief that market expansion had encouraged a moral vacuum in Chinese society, seen in trends toward materialism, the pursuit of individual rather than collective advancement, and increasing selshness. In the years after 1978, the national leadership began to see how a selective revival of traditional Chinese values might assist in reducing tensions. This was because in the past these values had underpinned Chinese peoples senses of social responsibility and shared national identity, and thus a limited revival of these values might allow for a smoother transition from a socialist planned economy to a more market-based economy, and also for a greater acceptance of a distinctive Chinese approach to development combining socialism with certain capitalist features (Mackerras, Taneja and Young 1994). The position of the Communist Party might also be strengthened by a modest revival of traditional values because previously those values had encouraged acceptance of established authority and leadership. An ofcial from the provinces heritage administration contended in

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his interview that cultural heritage was being re-valued and its meanings being reinterpreted for differing purposes by national government since Dengs reforms in the late 1970s. Chinas current President, Hu (2005), has regularly advocated the need to build up a socialist harmonious society. A Confucian academic suggested in his interview that because harmony is a key Confucian objective, then Hus phrase might imply there are merits in combining some features of Confucianism with socialism. Such reasons may help explain why, after Dengs reforms, the Chinese state has accepted a gradual increase in traditional cultural activities, including encouragement to expand tourism at sites associated with traditional values, as exemplied by Qufu. The states changing attitudes after 1978 were seen in a very gradual relaxation of political control over religion in the country, leading to a signicant growth in religious activity. An intensied ritual landscape emerged, particularly in rural areas, with the rebuilding of community temples, ancestor halls and sites of pilgrimage on holy mountains (Jing 2002:335). While Confucianism is not a religion, the reducing controls over traditional values also substantially beneted cultural sites associated with this philosophy. While the states position on traditional culture was starting to be modied, this change was also encouraged by a growing nostalgia among some in China for the moral codes and certainties of the past and for a more supportive social order (He 2002). These ideas were becoming expressed after 1978 by some individuals and groups other than the descendents of Confucius. From the 1990s, increasing numbers of academics argued in public that it was time to revisit and even restore some cultural traditions from the past, including Confucianism. Often they supported Confucianism because its traditional beliefs could help to rebuild social solidarity in response to an alleged moral vacuum. A Confucian scholar from a local university argued in his interview that Confucian teachings are the cultural root of Chinese society and that the promotion of this philosophy in contemporary society could help to re-establish past social morality. In other cases the teachings were supported as a defence against western values and as a means of boosting peoples condence in indigenous Chinese values. In an interview, a researcher from the China Social Science Research Institute complained that socialism and capitalism, as the leading philosophies inuencing Chinas recent history, had originated in the West, and he argued that this made it inevitable that the country would come to revive its own traditional values, including Confucianism. He contended that this country with 1.3 billion people needs the cultural conformity provided by traditional values, and notably by Confucianism. According to another Chinese academic who was interviewed, the countrys assault on traditional culture since Mao had reduced many peoples self-condence, and he believed it could be restored if people were allowed to revere their cultural past. This public debate has been inuenced by some business community members arguing for a selective recuperation of traditional Confucian values (He 2002; Oakes 1998). One private sector interviewee lamented

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how the countrys rapid economic development had resulted in the loss of our proud tradition for moral beliefs. For him, the ideal society would be a market economy with a social order based on Confucian values. Often the private sector was less concerned about the consolidation of socialist values or of a shared national identity, rather their views reected their admiration of the economic success of some other Asian countries, which was attributed to their distinctive combination of Confucian values with Western capitalism (Oakes 1998; Zhang 1999). Further, some followers of traditional religions and of Confucianism began to advocate a loosening of constraints on cultural traditions. Local government in places with cultural attractions associated with traditional values also often advocated further tourism development based on those attractions, seeking the local economic benets resulting from tourists spending and related place marketing. Local government also gained some greater autonomy after Dengs reforms which sought to promote more decentralized public administration and policymaking (Liu 2001). Thus, Qufus Tourism Administration was highly prominent in developing the sites tourism activities and in the re-emergence of a Confucius cult ceremony. The organizations Director emphasized in his interview in 2005 that the cult ceremony was a focus for their work intended to use the media and local heritage to boost the local economy. He also emphasized how one in seven of Qufus residents depended directly on tourism, which meant he considered it essential to develop the ceremony further and in ways that provided long-term, local economic benets. Some local ofcials used the notion of culture taking the stage, and the economic acting upon it. The Cult Dance Show, 19861993 The discussion now focuses on the slow re-emergence of Qufus cult ceremony, which originally was established by an emperor in the feudal era to pay homage to Confucius. The analysis examines the timing of changes to the ceremony and the inuences on those changes. Qufus Tourism Administration organization led the introduction of an event connected with the original cult ceremony. This was rst held in 1986 as part of a domestic and international tourism promotion called Travel to the Hometown of Confucius. This local tourism organization had been set up in 1985, the previous year, and it had grown out of a Foreign Affairs Ofce set up in 1978. Both organizations had quickly gained powers and inuence due to the decentralization of public administration from central government and the booming tourism industry since Dengs reforms. The cult dance show event held annually from 1986 was promoted as part of a program to celebrate the birthday of Confucius, this being seen as acceptable to central government as it distanced it from the cult ceremony of the feudal period that had followed a seasonal pattern based on food offerings. The local authorities also called the event the cult dance show rather than the cult ceremony (Xu 1993) and this gave prominence to the eight-row dance undertaken in honour of Con-

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fucius, and it did not suggest that there were other traditional ceremonial elements. During the planning for the 1986 program, however, there were discussions about holding a ceremony that more closely resembled those held in feudal times, this being argued as necessary because most international tourists likely to attend would be from Asian countries where Confucianism had retained its prominence and traditions. A retired manager of the Qufu site recalled how central government had responded to these local discussions by sending an ofcial to instruct the local authorities that the cult ceremony was forbidden. The local organisers in turn sought to convince the higher government ofcials and Communist Party that the program excluded many elements of the traditional cult ceremony and that it was not a cover for suspect activities. Subsequently, the event was allowed to be held after it was agreed that during the ceremony the temple door would be shut so that nobody could pay homage to the statue of Confucius, homage would not be paid on bent knees, and the lead ceremonial role would not be taken by a descendent of Confucius. Three years later, the program was renamed the International Confucian Cultural Festival and the scale of dancing activities was expanded, but there were no other substantive additions to the ceremonial content. The Civilian Cult Ceremony, 19932004 In acts of ofcial support for Qufu, Prime Minister Li Peng and President Jiang Zemin paid visits to the site in 1991 and 1992 respectively. During Lis visit he left a written statement that the site derives from the essence of Confucianism and it promotes the magnicence of our Chinese culture (Xu 1993:i). According to an ofcial in the citys Tourism Administration, this statement gave local ofcials more condence and a clearer direction for restoring the traditional Confucius ceremony. These visits encouraged local government to believe that the states attitudes to Confucianism were changing, and they decided to restore more of the ceremonys traditional features. The rst cult ceremony took place in 1993 as part of the annual International Confucian Cultural Festival. In addition to the cult dancing show, the ceremony now also included homage paid by representatives of the descendents of Confucius and by several ofcials from the local branch of the Chinese Peoples Consultative Committee. The temple door was now left open revealing the Confucius statue during the ceremonial, including during the dancing, and ceremonial activity now took place in front of the statue. However, while in feudal times the ceremonys participants had included imperial emperors or their deputies, the revived ceremony from 1993 was not attended by representatives of organizations directly within central government or by representatives of the Communist Party. In effect, it was a civilian ceremony that lacked endorsement by the central state through the attendance of its representatives. The one organization with links to central government that sent representatives was the Chinese Peoples

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Consultative Committee. This is an organization for political parties other than the Communist Party that provides policy suggestions for central government consideration. The continuing restrictions at that time on the civilian cult ceremony were criticized by several local interviewees, often on the grounds that the ceremony was largely being developed as a major tourist event rather than to pay homage to Confucius and his philosophy. A local organizer of the event complained that it was still a show put on for tourists, and it was far removed from its original political meanings. Numerous descendents of Confucius and his scholars contended that the ceremony was failing to be true to the essence of its cultural traditions. A descendent of Confucius lamented how the people [apart from the dancers] who took part in the cult ceremony were wearing western-style business suits and ties, but not the traditional cult suit. It was irreverent and ignorant about Confucius and Chinese tradition. Another of their complaints was that the ceremony suffered as it was being revived to cater to international tourists who followed Confucianism as much as to cater for the beliefs of Chinas own population. A local Confucian scholar, for example, used a Chinese saying in his complaint that attitudes in China towards the traditional cult ceremony were like a domestic sale of a commodity originally produced for export. His years of research on the subject led him to believe that people from other countries with a Confucian tradition often displayed a much more serious attitude towards the ceremony than did people living in China. In this period the local Tourism Administration was concerned that international tourists from countries with a Confucian tradition thought that Qufus ceremony was inauthentic, and they feared this would restrict its future tourist appeal. After attending two of these ceremonies, the Director of a Korean Confucian Committee complained that similar ceremonies held in Korea were more authentic and traditional than the Qufu one (Wenweipo 2005). Concerns were being expressed more generally in China over these years that Korea was claiming some traditional Chinese events and activities to be part of that countrys national tradition without reference to their origins in China. Thus, in the interviews, an ofcial in the national cultural heritage administration argued that the government was not credible in claiming the Confucian heritage as its own unless it turns its slogans into our daily practice. During this period the growing political acceptance of the relevance of Confucianism to contemporary China was demonstrated when the national Communist Party awarded Qufu the title of National Site for Patriotic Education in 1997 (Chinas Moral and Civic Education 1997). It had gained UNESCO recognition as a World Heritage Site a little earlier, in 1994 (Lu 1994; UNESCO 2006).

The Public Cult Ceremony, 2005 In 2005 the central state authorities nally gave permission for the restoration of the public cult ceremony. It became public as there

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was involvement by at least some central government representatives. In that year the ceremony was attended for the rst time by representatives of two important national organisations, the China National Tourism Administration and the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television, and also by international organizations that required national authorization to participate, such as UNESCO and the International Confucian Committee. This was in addition to the ofcials of various local and regional government organisations that had been involved for several years, such as representatives of Qufu City Government, Jining Municipal Government, Shandong Provincial Government and Shandong Provincial Tourism Administration. Those attending also included representatives of two NGOs: the Chinese Culture Promotional Organization and the China Confucius Foundation. A manager at the site claimed that increasing support from higher level authorities meant that the 2005 ceremony could have the largest scale yet in the Peoples Republic of Chinas history. For the rst time, Chinas Central TV station broadcast the event live to the world, and the Qufu organizers used their connections with thirty Confucius temples in other countries to hold simultaneous ceremonies. Yet, if judged by the central states main representative who attended the 2005 ceremony, then the state still appeared to treat the ceremony with some ambivalence. As in previous years, this representative was the Chairman of the Chinese Peoples Political Consultative Committee. On the one hand, he was the son of a leading military gure who had been honoured by Chairman Mao, but he still represented an advisory committee for a process still led by the much more powerful Communist Party. According to a local Tourism Administration ofcial, they sought to make the 2005 ceremony more authentic and traditional than previously was the case. The ceremony was now much more fully modelled according to historical records, with traditional utensils used for the food offerings, everyone attending wearing traditional Chinese suits, and the dancers also wearing clothes based on those from the Ming dynasty (13681644). A descendent of Confucius also now took the lead role in the ceremony, and the Mayor of Qufu was the master of ceremonies who read out a cult text in front of the temples Confucius statue. That text was drafted by a Qufu Normal University scholar. He explained how it tries to explain a Confucian perspective on human and environmental relationships, traditional culture, the building of social or moral standards, Chinas economic revival, and on political science (Wenweipo 2005). Local government support for the 2005 ceremony was evident in the substantial role now taken by Qufus Mayor. The text he read drew on many political slogans and phrases used by past national leaders in major speeches, and this openly linked the ceremony and the involvement of this local government leader with the views of Chinas national leadership. The 2005 cult ceremony remained somewhat modied, however, from its traditional form in order to conform to the position on socialist values of the Communist Party-led central government. Two differences were that it did not include paying homage to the Confucius statue on bended knees, with the participants simply bowing to the

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statue and offering owers instead, and that incense was not burnt for the dead Confucian ancestors. This probably reected continuing concern not to upset the national government, but it was also affected by more traditional ceremonies having last been performed almost beyond living memory, and aspects of what took place had not been recorded. Thus, several site managers explained that, despite much research to reconstruct technical details, they had considerable difculty in establishing an appropriate content for the text that was read out in front of the tables with food offerings for the Confucius spirit. A rather different change from the feudal period was that this new public cult ceremony was accompanied by much attention to merchandising opportunities. This was seen in the plans by local ofcials for the sale of copies of the text read out when the food offerings were presented. The increasing commercialism concerned some people, with one local descendent of Confucius complaining that in the past the Confucius cult ceremony was done as a rapturous thing. When economic benets are used as the rationale for the tradition, will people still be awe-struck as they were in ancient times? While the 2005 public cult ceremony differed from those held in the feudal period, a Chinese cultural conservative academic argued that it was through this ceremony that the CCP [China Communist Party] authorities declared to the world that they also respect Confucius and his philosophyConfucianism. With the central governments permission for, and involvements in, the 2005 public cult ceremony, some local ofcials and private sector actors began to plan to promote it as an ofcial state level ceremony under the national governments leadership. But in the interviews some local academics expressed opposition to this plan. One argued that it was potentially unconstitutional: to upgrade the civilian cult to a public cult is illegal and against the PRCs constitution. His contention was that the cult ceremony was a superstitious ceremony little different from other religious activity, and that it would contradict the states constitutional guarantee that all citizens are free to decide for themselves whether they believe in a religion.

CONCLUSION There is still only a modest literature on the attitudes of national governments to how cultural heritage is presented for tourism. Future work on this theme will be enhanced if it is based on an appreciation of wider theoretical debates about the state and governance. According to Jessop (1990:221), for example, the state in capitalist societies can be regarded as a system of strategic selectivity and the nature of political struggle as a eld of competing strategies for hegemony. From his perspective, a key task for research about the states inuence on the presentation of traditional culture for tourism would be to determine how the state, as a strategic terrain, privileges some strategies over others. The states strategic choices are likely to be affected by pressures from various sources, including the tensions resulting from broad

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economic and socio-cultural changes, the struggles between the central and local state, and the efforts and even protests of actors in civil society. While most theoretical interpretations of the state have been developed in relation to capitalist societies, these interpretations may still have a degree of relevance in Communist Party-led socialist political systems, such as in China. How the central state may seek to inuence the depiction of the past at cultural attractions will vary from case to case, and it can be better understood through careful empirical analysis of specic contexts. There is an especial need for detailed studies of particular instances in China today as in that context there can be a great divergence between theory and practice (Sun 2008:110). The present study examined whether the development of tourism and ceremony at Qufu World Heritage Site was affected by shifting views in Chinas state about cultural tradition and Confucianism. A relational and longitudinal perspective was used to understand this relationship from the feudal era to Maos period of revolutionary communism, and then to the decades since Deng introduced his Open Door policies in 1978. During Maos Cultural Revolution, Qufu was associated with the dominance of feudal elites and with superstitious beliefs that contradicted modern socialist principles. However, since Deng introduced his Open Door reforms the Communist Party-led central state has begun to change its views about traditional cultural values and Confucianism, and it was shown how at Qufu it has allowed both cultural tourism and the traditional Confucian cult ceremony to develop. Although Chinas central state has remained highly dominant since Dengs reforms, the changes allowed at Qufu appear to reect how the national government has begun to rethink its ideological frameworks in response to emerging socioeconomic tensions and instabilities. The state has begun to search for new ways to legitimize the incorporation of market forces within a communist society and also to maintain the Communist Partys political hegemony in the context of rapid change. Among the concerns in wider society to which the state is responding is a growing belief that the expansion of markets has encouraged a moral vacuum. In this context a return to some traditional values, including allowing tourism and ceremony at Qufu, might help to maintain social stability and encourage acceptance of the states established political authority. The local state has clearly also played a signicant role in pushing for changes at Qufu, and this has been encouraged by decentralization and a slow devolution of authority from central to local government. Local government there has been particularly concerned to secure tourism-related development at the site for the benet of the local economy. While there has been much stability in the authority of the central Communist Party-state since Dengs reforms, central government appears gradually to have made some concessions to local government organizers at Qufu. Yet many of the changes at the site may actually reect shifting attitudes within central government, and the apparent concessions actually may have been made quite willingly. Shue (2008) has argued that the state in China is rather adept at allowing

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Submitted 21 October 2007. Resubmitted 30 March 2008. Final Version 13 June 2008. Accepted 01 September 2008. Refereed anonymously. Coordinating Editor: Geoffrey Wall

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