Shanzhai culture will power China forward with fresh ideas and innovative thinking.

This is not a statement you will hear very often. Instead, the general feeling is the complete opposite, that shanzhai products kill creativity and are little more than brainless copies of existing ideas.

So let's be clear here - my phone is shanzhai and definitely not innovative. As a dodgy replica of a decent touch-screen model, it becomes so excited by movement inside my pocket that it will randomly dial out to share its mood, or more curiously, record the rustling sounds for later.

I bought it because it was cheap and I feel no shame. Aside from appeasing my tight budget, I am also indirectly promoting competition in a marketplace and this has one dramatic effect: innovation.

Take the media industry for example. When a new paper enters the market with a similar structure to existing brands, the older publications are forced to reinvent themselves or die. Maintaining the status quo would be the end for a newspaper, and this can be said of all industries.

The CCTV Spring Festival Gala is the big TV event of the year, locking the eyeballs of millions of viewers across the country - at least that is what they want you to believe.

Instead, the format has become so excessively predictable that the nation is hopping to other channels in search of movies. This loss of interest is not because the public doesn't care about the variety show genre, but because we haven't seen an original idea during the last 10 years.

Which opens the door for a shanzhai version to steal the show. The very fact that there is now a second version will naturally interest the public. Whether it's different or not will not really matter but it will be different - performances will be from amateur entertainers. 
                                                                                                 Source: China Daily