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Melissa Chiu
Melissa Chiu, Museum Director and Curator for Contemporary Asian and Asian-American art at the Asia Society, has had a long involvement with Asian contemporary art and is recognized as a[…]
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Chiu, on the cleansing of the Cultural Revolution.

Question: What forces have shaped China most?

Melissa Chiu: I think in terms of today’s China, that the Cultural Revolution was both a terrible time for a lot of the people who experienced it . . . but I think it has set the stage for China to really be able to change in such a quick fashion; thereby this desire to create a new kind of modern-day China by getting rid of the _____ system. I think what it did was it freed up Chinese society to be able to adapt so much quicker to the demands of today. And so I would say that if we were to look at the Chinese situation, that it would really be the Cultural Revolution – that ten year period from ’66 to ’76 – as the major catalyst for what we see as being success in China’s kind of post-industrialization, if you like.

 

Recorded on: Jul 11 2007

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