“Brand China” on the World Stage: Jingju, the Olympics, and Globalization

Leading up to the 2008 Beijing Olympics, multinational corporations such as McDonald's exploited jingju (Beijing opera) as an internationally legible marker of “Chinese-ness.” Though jingju received muddled exposure in the Olympics opening ceremony, post-Olympic deployments prove it persists as a central component of an emerging “Brand China” that emphasizes the synthesis of traditional and 21st-century elements.