Only artistic products should be on sale here. The argument, which has spilled into website chatrooms, is one of several taking place on the relationship between Chinese culture and its new market economy, heavily influenced by the west. The policy has been approved by the Communist party and written into China's five-year plan. Chinese cultural experts argue that their country must compete with the west at its own game. The companies operate in a new environment in which politics no longer always comes first.
Western culture is seen as entirely acceptable in some fields.
Mr Wu's company has brought the New York Philharmonic and the Kirov Ballet to Shanghai, and it promoted the recent tour of China by the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra. The Shanghai Art Biennale, now taking place in the former headquarters of the colonial-era Race Club ,adopts a different approach. In reality, most of the artists have moved away from the Chinese tradition to explore dimensions of pop, installation and performance art which clearly reflect western influence. The show is less adventurous than exhibitions of avant garde Chinese art outside the mainland, but many exhibits convey pessimistic images of current life in China, among them the sculptor Liang Shuo's dejected figures of peasant migrants and Liu Shaodong's group portrait of listless Chinese youth. Some 20 independent exhibitions of more controversial work are being staged on the fringe of the biennale.