China’s remarkable economic growth in recent years has been matched by a boom in the arts. The barren years of the Cultural Revolution seem long forgotten today, as China makes a splash with its artistic dynamism and excellence. Chinese films and film-makers are lauded worldwide, while its visual and conceptual artists are at the global cutting edge. Twenty years ago, many artists worked underground, were forced to work abroad, or had their shows cancelled. Today, the regime seems to have adopted a more relaxed approach and have embraced the arts as an international status symbol. China’s Cultural Olympiad will result in 100 new museums being opened in 2008 (and 1,000 by 2015). Private galleries have sprung up to showcase experimental work, major exhibitions have been staged, and international loans of Chinese art are now so numerous that the authorities have introduced a rationing scheme.

But as all Chinese art becomes fashionable in the West, ironically Western classical music has become all the rage in China, with an estimated four million professional musicians, 30 million piano students and 10 million violin students.  Conservatories are bulging and new concert halls and opera houses are built across the country. Cellist Julian Lloyd Weber notes that Chinese children are taught Western music without the defensiveness seen in the UK. Some even believe that China will be the ‘salvation’ of classical music as it declines in the West. Will China’s own traditional indigenous artistic traditions suffer if people look West for musical inspiration? How healthy can the arts be in a society notorious for censorship and repression? What can we learn from China’s new cultural revolution?