Tianjin tries to improve its cultural soft power and build a leading cultural city with unique charm

Tianjin has always attached great importance to the cultural construction and set strategic goal of developing itself into a powerful city with unique cultural charm and creative vitality. It has taken the cultural development and prosperity as a tough task and formulated guidelines for the task. Tianjin has always adhered to the progressive direction of China’s advanced culture, taken the construction of core socialist values as a fundamental goal and regarded reform and innovation as driving force, so as to satisfy the spiritual and cultural needs of the people, continually enhance the city’s cultural soft power, and make remarkable achievements in cultural reform. First, the cultural projects benefiting people are constantly advanced: The projects include the sharing of cultural information and resources, the cultural service centers in towns and villages, film screening services in rural areas, and the full coverage of television and radio broadcasting services in all villages. Second, the colorful creation of high-quality cultural and artistic products is an important symbol of cultural development and prosperity and the core content of the city’s cultural construction. In recent years, Tianjin improved the artistic creation system and mechanism and produced a group of excellent works, providing people with spiritual enjoyment. Third, the cultural projects develop rapidly. The city fully mined the historical and cultural resource, liberated and developed the cultural productive forces unceasingly, sped up the construction of new and good cultural projects, and tried to cultivate the cultural industry into a pillar industry. Fourth, the reform and innovation of cultural system and mechanism is advancing. Tianjin has been continuously deepening the reform of cultural system, finished the state-owned for-profit cultural units’ transformation into enterprises in the fields of publishing, distribution, and film. The state-owned troupes’ reform has made remarkable achievements and China’s first incubation base for private theatrical companies was founded in Tianjin. It actively promoted the separation of publicity and operation and the separation of television production and broadcasting, and completed the reforms of the city and its districts’ and counties’ cultural radio, film and television administrative system and the comprehensive law enforcement reform of cultural market, which made the city a leader in cultural system reform in China. Fifth, the global presence of Tianjin culture is growing. The city gives full play to Binhai New Area’s opening-up and port, effectively integrates the cultural resources to build an exchange platform with other countries and regions, and actively promotes the Tianjin culture to go global. During the 13th Five-Year Plan period (2016-2020), Tianjin will continue to adhere to the progressive direction of China’s advanced culture, promote the coordinated development of material and spiritual civilizations, and develop itself into a charming city with cultural prosperity and social civilization. The city constantly improves its public cultural service system and enables people to enjoy achievements on its cultural development. During the 13th Five-Year Plan period (2016-2020), Tianjin will provide more public cultural resources to grassroot levels and rural areas, build and renovate a group of public cultural facilities, set a “15-minute cultural service circle”, and realize a 100-percent coverage of cultural facilities in all urban communities and villages by 2020. It also carried out cultural activities benefiting people and advanced the expansion projects of Tianjin Song and Dance Theater, Cultural Palace of Nationalities, Yuan Ming Qing Tianfei Temple Museum and No 2 Workers’ Cultural Palace. It will vigorously develop the cultural undertakings and promote its cultural industry rapidly. The city will also implement the “Culture plus” strategy, promote the deep integration between culture and technology, finance, and tourism, explore to build a national culture-finance cooperation pilot zone and a national demonstration base for culture-technology integration. By 2020, the added value of the city’s cultural industry is expected to account for 6.5 percent of Tianjin’s GDP. Tianjin will launch a campaign to protect a number of key cultural relics projects and renovate historical buildings, such as the “Wudadao” pilot zone and a cultural route relating to the Xinhai Revolution (1911) on Anshan Road. The historical architectures, celebrities’ former residences, as well as commercial and industrial sites will be open to the public. Students in middle and primary schools will be encouraged to learn the history in museum. The national and municipal endangered intangible cultural heritage will receive retrievable protection. To improve the citizen’s ethical quality is Tianjin’s other important task in the next five years. It is promoting the construction of a “reading-oriented society” and encouraging people to do more reading. It has launched a campaign to advance the construction of reading rooms in urban and rural areas. Tianjin has organized fitness activities, built a group of modern fitness centers and sport parks, provided local residents with more accesses to the sports venues, allowing people to enjoy the benefits brought by hosting the National Games in 2017.