现在的北京和上海就像1890年代的纽约和芝加哥：热闹、喧嚣，甚至有点儿疯狂。财富源源而来，又稍纵即逝。当地官员热衷地产和生意。获得成功的家庭和公司成为新兴贵族。
欧洲人当年看着美国崛起，心里不免鄙夷。他们不喜欢艺术和金钱搅合在一起。我怀疑许多欧洲人现在对中国抱有同样的偏见。他们声称“中国创新”是自相矛盾的说法，以为中国缺少甘冒风险、大胆尝试的西方精神。他们把中国斥为山寨之国。
但你只要去街上走一走，或者看看出口数据，就可以看到中国创新正在勃兴。曾经的低端制造业大国，如今拥有引人注目的艺术、设计、数字媒体和时尚产业。
我估计，去年上海新开的时装店要比纽约多10倍。江苏无锡女装品牌店BK Design可以在布鲁克林区站稳脚跟。伦敦去年新开的最大时装店——耗资3千万英镑——是中国的波司登。
腾讯（中国三大互联网巨头之一）运用先进技术满足了6亿中国网民的需求，用户量是美国总人口的两倍。马云的阿里巴巴销售额超过了亚马逊与eBay两家的总和。马云正准备在纽约上市，其公司估值料将超过脸谱（Facebook），其中一个原因是，阿里巴巴的移动端服务更为多样化。
令人惊讶的是，中国的创意产业是私营部门领头。所有时装店都是私人的。中国大多数创意产业公司获得的国家扶持力度少于西方。
西方抱怨中国抄袭也不无道理。确实存在大量抄袭。中国人抄袭的理由和手段就和工业化初期的英国、德国、法国、美国一模一样。模仿总是最好的学习方式。后来，欧洲和美国在20世纪创造了最优秀的艺术、文学和设计作品。中国将在21世纪实现同样的成就。
不过，有谁要是用过微信、看过普利兹克奖获得者王澍设计的中国美院象山校区，然后还硬要说中国全是山寨货，那就是“睁眼说瞎话”了。诚然，中国模仿的程度超过了西方人礼貌、合法的限度。一家重庆公司据说抄袭了扎哈•哈迪德的整套设计。这应当谴责——但别忘了，西方应该想想自己是怎么走过来的。从伦敦到华盛顿，西方建筑师们都曾高高兴兴地抄袭帕拉迪奥（文艺复兴时期的意大利杰出建筑家——观察者网译注）。
王澍设计的中国美术学院象山校区
就我个人经验而言，中国政府在某些方面很严格，对创意、创新的尊重程度和世界其他地方没有区别。西方的怀疑情绪只会让自己错失良机。中国政府知道她必须引进新思维，才能治理规模史无前例的建筑潮。李克强总理称，中国城市的管理方式将决定生活质量和经济弹性。中国需要大量的规划师、城市交通专家、“智慧城市”设计者、景观设计师、绿色能源工程师和内部装潢设计师。西方过去的成绩不错。但在李克强总理上个月与欧盟委员会主席巴罗佐关于创意城市的对话中，欧洲方面没有提供什么新理念，令人失望。
电影领域也是如此。《阿凡达》导演詹姆斯•卡梅隆正在与天津的电影公司合拍下一部作品。我曾问过几家西方电影公司对中国有没有兴趣；还没有一家公司踏出这一步。
转战中国成功的西方公司具有四大特点。一，专注自己的特长；二，开设办事处——最好大一点，因为大场面能镇住中国人；三，把本地人才与西方技术结合起来。
最后一点，这些公司尽可能频繁地访问中国，因为中国和1890年代的美国一样，都注重商业中的私人关系，都会经历个人自由、国家角色、风险意识、社会风气方面的变革。这是值得参与的中西对话，而创意产业则是最好的对话起点。
（本文原载于英国《金融时报》网站2013年12月12日，原标题Take Chinese creativity seriously – or lose out；观察者网朱新伟/译）
请看英文原文
Take Chinese creativity seriously – or lose out
By John Howkins
December 12, 2013
Beijing and Shanghai are like New York and Chicago in the 1890s: excitable, rumbustious and slightly crazy. Fortunes are made and lost quickly. Local government officials are deeply involved in property and business. The families and companies that succeed become the new aristocracy.
The Europeans looked at emerging America and found it slightly vulgar. They did not like the way art mixed with business. I suspect many feel the same about China . They say Chinese creativity is an oxymoron. They believe the country lacks the west’s bravura and risk-taking. They dismiss it as a nation of copiers.
But walk the streets, or check the output figures , and you see Chinese creativity on the march. Once reliant on low-cost manufacturing, China is now catching attention for its art, design, digital media and fashion.
I estimate that 10 times more fashion stores opened in Shanghai than in New York last year. BK Design, a womenswear shop in Wuxi city, Jiangsu province, could hold its own in Brooklyn. The most expensive fashion store to open in London last year – at a cost of £30m – was China’s Bosideng.
Tencent – the Hong Kong-listed company that is one of China’s top three internet groups – is ingenious in catering to China’s 600m netizens, twice as many as live in America. Sales at Jack Ma’s online retailer Alibaba exceed those of Amazon and eBay combined. Mr Ma is planning an initial public offering in New York; the valuation is likely to exceed that of Facebook, partly because Alibaba offers a wider range of mobile services.
A surprising fact about China’s creative industries is the extent of private initiatives. Those fashion stores are all private. Most creative start-ups receive less state support than their equivalents in the west.
The complaint that the Chinese are a nation of copiers is half-true. They are astonishing copiers. They copy for the same reasons and with the same skill as did the British, Germans, French and Americans when they industrialised. Copying is often the best way to learn. In the 20th century, Europe and America went on to produce the greatest art, literature and design, and China may well do the same this century.
Yet anyone who uses Tencent’s WeChat messaging app or sees the Pritzker Prize-winning Wang Shu’s Art Academy in Hangzhou and says everything is copied is just not looking. It is true the Chinese tend to copy more than the west thinks polite or legal. One Chongqing company allegedly copied a whole complex by architect Zaha Hadid. This is reprehensible – but again, the west should remember its own history. Architects from London to Washington happily copied Palladio.
In my experience, while Beijing imposes shackles in some sectors, creativity and innovation are as highly valued in China as elsewhere. But the west’s scepticism means opportunities are being missed. Beijing knows it must import new thinking to manage the biggest building boom in history. Prime Minister Li Keqiang says the way China manages its cities will determine both quality of life and economic resilience. China needs masterplanners, urban transport specialists, “smart city” designers, landscape architects, low-energy engineers and interior designers. The west has a good record here. But last month’s meeting on creative cities led by Mr Li and Europe’s José Manuel Barroso was disappointingly short of Europeans with new ideas.
It is the same in film. James Cameron, the film director who used motion capture to make Avatar, is working with a new studio complex in the city of Tianjin, outside Beijing, on his next movie. I have asked several western motion-capture companies if they are interested in China; none has made the move.
The companies that move in successfully have four principles. They focus on areas where they have a clear advantage. They open an office – preferably a big one, since the Chinese are impressed by size. They know how to mix their own skills with local talent.
And they visit as much as possible because business in China is based on personal relationships, just like the US in the 1890s. Like America, China is experimenting with individual freedoms, the role of the state, the nature of risk and the kind of society that results. It is a conversation worth having, and working together in a creative business is the best place to start.
