There has been a trend to revive Shanghai along the lines of its 1930s Republican splendor. Party functionaries, economic planners, and Taiwanese businessmen (many scions of pre-revolutionary Shanghai industrialists) support the revisiting of the past either out of the imperative of development, nostalgia, or lack of better ideas.
This plan is desirable for many reasons. It rebuilds a wellspring of early 20th century Chinese polity and memory. Even as it attracts wealthy overseas Chinese back with the rebuilding of the days of their parents' innocence, it also builds a centrally located industrial and financial center to counter balance regional development inequalities (Beijing in the north, Chongqing in the west, and Hong Kong in the south. Although this obsessive focus on Shanghai has had the opposite effect of exacerbating regionalism.)
Apparently, this revival of Republicanism came at a fortuitous time when the Qing dynasty was mined out of its cultural capital. Soap operas now bubble with Republican era war dramas and old KMT costumes. This fantasy is convenient for everyone. Contemporary China is too boring a copycat of western society to make good TV dramas, not to mention government censorship makes any meaningful commentary bothersome. It is one thing to win film awards in Venice, quite another to make it at home.
Which bring me to my observation that such a reappearance of Shanghai as a colonial city of the past is really lacking in foresight and imagination. Part of this thinking has fostered the delusion that traditionalism associated with the period, the co-oping of Confucianism by the KMT, should also be used as a model for guiding China. Corruption, decadence, national weakness, such are the things the revival of Republican era wants to paint as a mini-golden age of Chinese history. Pardon me if I find this farce unimpressive.
