Shakespeare. Dom Post this morning

I must confess a quiet chuckle when I heard the news that funding for the Winn Shakespeare Festival was being cut.The reason cited, is that Shakespeare depicts monarchical structures inappropriate to modern NZ.I recall when I taught English in China, a distraught, under pressure student knocking on my apartment door on a Saturday morning. She was an English Major and part of the sophomore curriculum was in-depth study of one of Shakespeare's plays.  The work that year, was 'The Merchant of Venice' and my flustered Chinese friend was scheduled to give a short talk on the 'Character of Shylock' at 8am on Monday. The Shakespeare section was taught entirely in English. This was at a state-run university in Communist China. You can imagine that just getting the conversation past the traditional enmity between Jews and Christians was an effort.If the Chinese can see an understanding of Shakespeare as an important insight into Western culture, why are we so coy?