Would a developed China or India overtake the US in global pop culture?

[Jiraiyathegallant]

A general scenario: the Nationalist win the war around 47, then oversee rapid development, China is considered developed by 80s, and has a GDP per capita of around 38,000 PPP by today. They see democratization in the 80s, and a relatively stable, free, and conservative society today (at least to the degree that Japan and the East Asian Tigers are).

What kind of media and entertainment would we see from China? Would they be able to become number one in the world in terms of cultural influence/exports?

How about a similar scenario for India. They avoid Raj system and see better governance, get developed status by the 90s, and have a GDP per capita of 35,000 PPP by today.

Given just how big Indian culture is and their gigantic population, would they overtake the US?

 

[Deleted member 93645]

Developed China and India would be huge cultural exporters, but probably not overtake the US. Hollywood was already established before the POD, so the U.S. film industry would probably still be the largest.

If developed India is particularly religious, or Nationalist China is particularly nationalist, that might slow the diffusion of their mass media. On the other hand, if they become less religious like Japan, their entertainment industries would dominate globally.

Another consideration is that there would be less emigration from China and India, so their influence would be from exporting commercial products.

 

[EternalCynic]

Another consideration is that there would be less emigration from China and India, so their influence would be from exporting commercial products.

Actually, for much of OTL, emigration from China and India was low and only took off after they commenced economic reforms in the 1980s. So the two Asian giants soaring to first world levels by now would almost certainly mean a much larger, and much wealthier diaspora. So their influence on global pop culture will be magnitudes greater.

India would likely never have been partitioned. Imagine how much more investments it could have made had its two richest provinces not been divided into hostile states. So its identity would have been more secular.

If Nationalist China is *that* successful, it would have developed like OTL South Korea: a right-wing, unstable military dictatorship which nonetheless prioritizes economic development. Any nationalism would be anti-USSR (which they'll reign in to prevent escalation to war) than against Japan or the west.

If OTL South Korea is so successful at exporting pop culture, imagine how China and India would be!

 

[Flocculencio]

Well even IOTL Indian pop culture is pretty popular throughout Africa, the Middle East, and much of SE Asia.

 

[riggerrob]

Shhhhhh!
Don't tell the OP about Bollywood films are invading Vancouver and definitely don't tell him about all the Punjabi-language radio stations.

 

[thekingsguard]

One big gap here is that America enjoys one distinct advantage - that we speak English, which courtesy of two centuries of British and American economic, military and cultural dominance, has pretty much become the world's lingua franca.

The issue with much of the work of China and India in OTL is that the pool overseas for Madnarin or Hindi works is relatively small, limited to expatriot communities. English on the other hand, works on damned near any country on Earth

That said, India could take advantage of that as they are starting to now by producing more English language films and works, with some Bollywood studios looking to fill the gap of midbudget features Hollywood seems to have abandoned. It's actually a pretty solid business move.

 

[Alon]

As already noted, Bollywood is already huge, and India only has a PPP GDP per capita of about $6,000. China is more insular... but honestly, so is the US. Examples:

1. When the BBC wanted to make an Independence Day tie-in on radio, Fox sold them the rights on condition that in the tie-in, the British not contribute in any way to the ultimate defeat of the aliens by the US military.
2. English-language Canal+ shows, such as XIII and Borgia: Faith and Fear, are obscure in the US, even when they're well within the range of what sells in the US today (e.g. The Borgias).
3. Europeans and other foreigners in US film tend to be butt monkeys (e.g. the European passenger in United 93 yelling "we must not interfere"), mooks (e.g. the Asian characters in multiple Scarlett Johansson movies, like Lucy, Lost in Translation, and maybe Ghost in the Shell), or nonexistent (quick, name a far-future science fiction production where the cast looks like the world and not like America).
4. The non-English-language films I watch on Lufthansa flights - presumably popular enough to be offered as in-flight entertainment - are practically unheard of in the US. Have you heard of Haz West al-Balad and Jian Bing Man? Because I can't find a single English-language review of the former, and only the barest about the latter, mainly talking about how weird and foreign it is.

Also, please scrap the "China is a relatively stable, free, and conservative society today (at least to the degree that Japan and the East Asian Tigers are)" wank. I mean, one of the reasons East Asian action films are obscure in the US is that they're often so violent they'd get NC-17 ratings, e.g. Battle Royale. (In contrast, anime is a global export.) I presume a China with the GDP per capita of Japan would be able to sell action movies better, probably better than the US - it has a larger population base, and its action movies couldn't possibly be more nationalistic than US fare (or James Bond).

The language barrier with China is something that's going to shrink as China gets richer anyway. Right now, Europe is learning English more, and this is unlikely to change, but Chinese is growing as a foreign language as China's economic influence grows. Given the number of anime geeks I know who have learned Japanese in order to relate to their favorite shows better, I think a positive feedback loop is likely, at least to some extent. If China produces a Romance of the Three Kingdoms serial on five times the budget of Game of Thrones, more people are going to learn the language.

With India, the language barrier is unlikely in any scenario in which India is rich. A richer India is a more Anglophone India, since English is the only neutral language between the various language communities in the countries, and thus the main language of business and higher education. A more Anglophone India is an India that has several times as many English speakers than the US, which means it could plausibly displace Hollywood entirely, in the same way the British film industry isn't anything to write home about. Yes, in theory Hollywood could adapt and make movies for a primarily Indian audience... but it's too American to do so, even in OTL, with slower and less surprising Indian growth than you're positing in your ATL.

 

[Jiraiyathegallant]

Could Chinese overtake English as a global language?

 

[greenbay2014]

Could Chinese overtake English as a global language?

No. English is also the language of free speech. You don’t have anybody on the Internet censoring speech in English. English is also a more neutral language, sharing grammar and - heck, the lettering - with other languages.

Chinese is also incredibly difficult to learn. The U.S. Foreign Service Institute estimates it takes a native English speaker 2,200 hours to reach professional fluency in Chinese (4 times as long as it would French or Spanish).

For most Americans, Brits, and Australians, learning a foreign language is a choice, not a necessity. China Daily estimates 400 million people in China are studying English, heck, after the United States the largest countries already with English speakers are India, Pakistan, Nigeria and then the United Kingdom.

 

[thekingsguard]

English will likely never be overtaken as the global language - two hundred years of British and American dominance, combined with the dawn of global communications, as ensured that.