Kim Sung-hyun

Assessing a nation's competitiveness is a complex job. It involves more than economic power, military might and diplomacy. The biggest news from the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition last month, one of the most prestigious piano competitions in the U.S., was that 19-year-old Chinese pianist Haochen Zhang won it. The first Chinese pianist to win at a world-class competition was Yundi Li, who in 2000 became the youngest pianist ever to win the top award at the Chopin Concours. All of China celebrated the achievement at the time, but now nine years later, Chinese grand-prize winners have become practically commonplace.

Accomplishments by Chinese classical musicians are not limited to competitions. Lang Lang and Yundi Li, both born in 1982, signed exclusive contracts with the world's premier classical record label, Deutsche Grammophon. Recently, a 22-year-old pianist named Yuja Wang signed on with the label. A clip on the internet of her performance of the "Flight of the Bumble Bee," demonstrating breathtaking technique, was a sensation. She has also played with the world's leading orchestras, including the New York Philharmonic and the Chicago Symphony, and the release of her debut album positions her to become one of the world's leading classical performers.

Naturally, media outlets in the West, such as the New York Times and Gramophone, have been reporting on Chinese advancements in classical music. With the end of the Cultural Revolution, which had denounced Western music, classical music in China was restored to its previous status in the 1980s, and it is the performers from the generation born around this time that have been making great strides. Yundi Li's parents, employed by a steel company, moved from Chongqing in western China to Shenzhen in the east so that he could have access to better musical training. And Lang Lang's father moved to Beijing to support his son while he attended the Central Conservatory of Music there.

These parents are now being called the modern mothers of Mencius. Lang Lang does not hide his confidence in the Chinese capacity for Western music: in interviews with the Western media, he has said, "Tens of thousands of young pianists are in line behind me."

As a matter of fact, the zeal for classical music in China resembles the one that spread among Koreans a generation ago. The same passion demonstrated by the mother of the Chung Trio, who moved a piano to Pusan from Seoul for her children during the evacuation of the Korean War, can be seen in Lang Lang's and Yundi Li's parents. The decisiveness of the mother made possible the trio -- Chung Myung-wha (cello), Chung Kyung-wha (violin), and Chung Myung-whun (piano and conducting). The news that that the fastest-growing industry in China is piano manufacturing reminds me of the 1970s and 1980s in Korea, when the piano occupied a prominent place in Korean living rooms. 

The narrowing gap between China's and Korea's achievements in music is cause for concern. Koreans have taken pride in a music industry that was more strongly established than China's and demonstrated higher artistry than Japan's. Now, as China takes precedence in artistry and Korea's industry falls behind Japan's, there is a growing sense that Korea is once again stuck in the middle.

China used its centralized control to manage investment in music education, sending young talent overseas and building concert halls to foster musicians. Japan has become a major market for classical music, regularly hosting performances by world-class companies such as Russia's Bolshoi Opera and Mariinsky, the Bayern Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, all of which will be playing there later this year.

The "nutcracker" theory, which describes the Korean economy as stuck in the middle between China's low costs and Japan's high technology, also seems to apply to Korea's music industry, which is lost between China's human potential and Japan's developed market.

By Kim Sung-hyun from the Chosun Ilbo's News Desk