Celebrity in China

10. China’s Celebrity Entrepreneurs: Business Models for ‘Success’

10 China’s Celebrity Entrepreneurs: Business Models for ‘Success’ David J. Davies In 1992, during his tour through the booming export production zones of southern China, the architect of China’s post-Mao economic reforms, Deng Xiaoping, famously declared: ‘to get rich is glorious’ and he also agreed to ‘let some get rich first’. These statements, along with others of the period, played a role in erasing socialism and guaranteeing the nation’s shift from a centralized economy to one based on market mechanisms. They also shifted the subject of national development from that of the masses of ‘the people’ to the entrepreneurial individual. Chinese were no longer marching together along the ‘great road’ of development toward an egalitarian utopia, but would be led by a new vanguard of socio-economic transformation — the ‘glorious’ new rich (Goodman 2008). Some members of China’s ‘new rich’ have since become spectacularly wealthy and are celebrated as ‘successful business personages’. Bookstores have entire sections devoted to examining their lives and the secrets of ‘studying success’ (chenggongxue). Their life stories, personal musings and consumer tastes are detailed in magazines such as Shangjie [Business] or Zhongguo qiyejia [China Entrepreneur]. They are featured guests on their own popular genre of television talk shows with names like Caifu rensheng [Fortune Time], Caizhi renwu [Corporate Leaders], Huijian caijing jie [Meeting the Business World], Tounao fengbao [Brainstorm] and Boshi tang [Boss Town]. They are also called upon as expert commentators on business or economic-related issues or as guests on ‘reality’ television programs such as China Central Television’s Ying zai Zhongguo [Win in China]. As ‘successful personages’ (chenggong renshi), they speak through the media David J. Davies 194 as authorities offering advice and guidance to those for whom success has not yet arrived, rather than providing mere entertainment. They are living ‘celebrity business models’ for wealth reproduction on the uncertain terrain of China’s new market economy. Successful business personages are framed in the Chinese media as ‘business models’ or road maps for others to follow on their own search for success in the political context of a nation that aspires to international influence and respect. This particular discourse of success emphasizes qualities within the individual, such as perseverance, determination, endurance and hard-work, rather than focusing outward on the external advantages or limitations of opportunity, education, relationships or social class. It is concerned with the question of how to most effectively zuoren. Literally translated as ‘make person’ or ‘become person’ and perhaps most usefully translated as ‘self-making’ — it ties together an individual’s internal thoughts and aspirations and their outward manifestation in social behavior. It is a positive distinction that indicates one’s thinking and behavior are sufficiently aligned with society and the market. For the aspiring successful, correct self-making is considered the prerequisite for getting ‘the first pot of gold’ (diyi tong jin) that if correctly invested is the first step to ‘making it’. ‘Success’ is also framed in terms of a national quest to make China ‘wealthy and powerful’ (fuqiang). Hence, more than simply modelling prosperity for individuals, the ‘successful business personage’ becomes a sign of state economic and developmental efforts, a ‘national hero’ (minzu yingxiong) whose successful economic prowess represents the best and the brightest national hope for global competition akin to a Darwinian struggle. This chapter describes three ‘model’ business personas — Wang Shi, Ma Yun and Yan Jiehe — and their routes to success, beginning with an examination of the ways in which the Chinese media portrays the ‘celebrity entrepreneur’ in print and through television talk shows and reality television. By emphasizing their social role as ‘entrepreneurs’, the media inserts celebrity business models into national discourses of modernization, globalization and global cosmopolitanism that serve to justify their personal wealth and power, while at the same time inoculating them from criticism. Entrepreneurs are presented as linking together the quest for personal wealth and success, the personal process of self-making, and the national quest for realizing a nation that is wealthy and strong. In conclusion, I argue that the practice of speaking about these celebrity entrepreneurs, and 195 China’s Celebrity Entrepreneurs repeatedly listening to them speak through the media as they recount their paths to success and personal experiences, is a means of narrativizing new national subjects for the market economy. Framing the ‘Successful’ Celebrity Entrepreneur Deng Xiaoping may have opened the door to the dramatic economic transformation of reform...