The good, the bad, and the unseemly in rising New Core pillars
Tuesday, March 21, 2006 at 7:34PM ARTICLE: “India draws up blueprint for full conversion of the rupee,” by Jo Johnson, Financial Times, 20 March 2006, p. 1.
ARTICLE: “A Study in Diplomacy: Chinese, Japanese Friendship Offers Glimpse Into Difficulty Nations Face Getting Along,” by Sebastian Moffett and James T. Areddy, Wall Street Journal, 21 March 2006, p. B1.
ARTICLE: “Chinese Regulators Caution TV Talent Shows,” by David Barboza, New York Times, 21 March 2006, p. C6.
One of the hardest things I wrote in Blueprint for Action was my description of what the journey is like from Gap to Core. I had collected all these snippet stories, and I needed an ordering principle for grouping them. So I developed triplets, as in, “if the Gap = X, then the New Core = Y and Old Core = Z.” So, for example, going from the Gap to Core is like going from the youth bulges of the Gap to the rapid middle aging of the New Core to the aging demographics of the Old Core.
Putting that list of triplets together was fun. The trick was figuring out a logical order of presentation and then deciding when to cut it off, as in, “Enough already.” But in the end, I didn’t worry about that, figuring Mark Warren would take care of it for me, which he did, lopping off a couple thousand words from the section when it seemed like I was tossing in the kitchen sink. Eventually, when I get done doing my director’s commentary on the entire book (I’m only, sad to say, through chapter 2), I’ll have to dig out the cuts and post them as “deleted scenes.” Then I’ll post the “storyboard” version that Bradd Hayes generated for me, post-writing, or my current brief.
But I digress...
Point of telling you that was just to remind myself that I love collecting these sorts of stories still, like the one about India making it’s currency, the rupee, more convertible, reflecting its growing confidence that its market it maturing.
Up to now, India has allowed such conversion really only for trade purposes, as in, if you convert, you’re buying or selling abroad (goods and services). Now, authorities are basically moving in the direction of making the rupee fully convertible, as in, you can speculate in both directions or invest in either direction. Just as important as making foreign direct investment easier into India, this will make it that much easier for Indian money to go abroad for investment opportunities, further linking India to the global economy.
Will this development push China a bit on this subject? Sure. And every little competitive nudge helps.
That’s the good. The “bad” is a nifty article in the NYT about two young women who’ve maintained a friendship despite their sometimes marked dislike of the other’s culture (Japan v. China). A small story, but a microcosm of the rising nationalism among the young on both sides as the two countries become more intertwined with economic connectivity. Old wounds, yes, but new government programs that fund high schoolers spending time in each other’s cultures.
And yes, every little bit helps get both sides to grow up a bit about the other.
The unseemly is the Chinese authorities warning TV talent shows like the super-popular (as in 400 million viewers last season), American Idol-like “Mongolian Cow Sour Yogurt Supergirl Contest” (plus all the copycat shows it has spawned) to tone down the fist-pumping, “overly” emotional delivery that too many of the contestants seem to be favoring. You know, that old chestnut of “vulgar” clothes and the promotion of “philistinism” (ah yes, the ancient threat of the Philistines rears its ugly head yet again!).
The Chinese Communist Party is just beginning to realize how powerful commercial popular culture is becoming in China--a force unto itself. But this, as I argued in BFA, is just a natural cultural milestone of a New Core state’s emergence: your stars become powerful at home and abroad, big global brand acts tour your market more and more (the Rolling Stones just made it finally, but being elderly, they have to watch the flu season more than most), and it starts to become a very big thing to be famous in your market (a process which creates social power not easily controlled by the Party--look out for the Chinese George Clooney!).
All this makes sense to me: I look at my 14-year-old Emily, and her favorite musical acts right now are Shakira (Brazil--strike that, Colombian), a Chinese (strike that, too, I find out she's originally Korean) female singer named Boa, and the kinky Russian duo Tatu. When Em finally falls for some Indian singer, we’ll have a complete BRIC musical set.
Me? I just watch Shakira’s toppling of Britney Spears with the usual detachment of a middle-aged father, as in, just one fantastic bellybutton replacing another.
Reader Comments (4)
man, if you want to test the limits of your fatherly detachment, check out Tatu's performance at the mtv music awards a couple years ago -
http://youtube.com/watch?v=BCuhC2bJvtY&search=tatu%20mtv%20music%20awards
those Russians really know how to push the envelope - svengali doesn't even begin to describe the genius dirty old man (supposedly a child psychologist, if I remember correctly) that invented these guys. 'I call your Britney Spears and raise you an entire friggin orgy of Russian schoolgirls stripping down and making out with each other while singing barely-disguised teen lesbian pop anthems'. compelling, highly advanced pop product, v impressive!
Great summary, Tom.
However, just to note, Boa is a Korean girl who developed her talents in Japan before spilling over back to South Korea, China and the rest of Asia. Even cooler, huh?
I just returned from Shanghai back to Tokyo, and I am always reflecting on my various experiences. Monday, for example, I had lunch in Shanghai with some officials from another city on the Yangtze, Jiangyin. I had met them in Kawasaki, near Tokyo, as they are doing cross-Asia benchmarking for developing their river ports. Well, also attending the lunch was one of the offical's cousins, who happens to be on vacation from being stationed in Tehran, Iran. He will be there for a while, but it just illustrated how close certain issues like the US relationship with Iran can hit home. The cousin, not surprisingly, is managing petrochemical trade with Iran for production of plastics and other products in China. Of course, we stayed away from talking politics and everyone was extremely friendly. Some very illustrative, crazy dynamics of how intertwined the world is these days.
For my part, I am going to work on that China-Japan thing. ;-)
Oh, and lastly, I think it might be helpful to think of the Gap to Core journey in terms of the product/industry life-cycle. An Old Core country, like a mature business, can reinvent itself through innovative products and services so that it replicates New Core excitement (the innovative start-ups on the product/industry life-cycle). I think out of the current Old Core, the US, Japan and Germany are best positioned to reinvent their "products and services." In other words, Old Core isn't necessarily a destination as much as it is a phase. However, like mature businesses, if they don't innovate, they just stagnate, die, get acquired, merged, replaced, etc--whatever scenario fits the situation.
Best Regards,
Shawn
Shakira is from Colombia. Sorry, she's a Gap girl. Interestingly, Colombia has quite a few international pop stars-- Juanes (for when Emily starts hankering for boys) and Andrea Echeverri (for when she gets her empowerment chops) are heavy hitters.
Michal
Ouch! I am corrected on all fronts.
I think I knew that about Shakira.
Boa, I was going off my daughter on that one.
And yes, I am aware of the Tatu story. Unfortunately, one can only do so much about such things.