For years, Western observers spoke of China primarily as a manufacturing colossus or a geopolitical heavyweight, useful, formidable, but culturally uninspiring. Until recently, the list of Chinese brands familiar to Western consumers rarely exceeded Alibaba, Shein, Huawei or BYD, firms admired for scale and efficiency but hardly considered trendsetters. Yet a remarkable shift is underway. A wave of bottom-up cultural influence, rather than state orchestration, is recasting China not only as an economic force, but as a generator of global tastes.
According to a report carried by Reference News on November 25, the American luxury-business site Jing Daily recently published an article by Ashley Dudarenok titled “Nezha, Mixue, Labubu: How China Became Cool.” The piece chronicles a series of cultural “acts” that together form an emerging “Chinese narrative”, and a surprisingly compelling one.
The first tremor came from an unlikely source: a video game about a mischievous monkey. When Black Myth: Wukong launched on August 20, 2024, it sold more than 10 million copies in just 72 hours. More than commercial success, it marked a stylistic breakthrough, proof that Chinese mythology, rendered with cinematic fidelity, could resonate with global audiences without dilution. Western developers took note that the new competition in creative industries may now come from Hangzhou as much as from Los Angeles.
Then came a shock from the opposite end of the cultural spectrum: artificial intelligence. In January 2025, Hangzhou-based DeepSeek released its R1 model, which rapidly climbed to the top of the U.S. Apple App Store. What truly rattled Silicon Valley, according to the report, was not only performance but cost. With a training budget of merely US$294,000, “a rounding error for American rivals”, the feat suggested a structural shift in the economics of AI innovation.
The geopolitical repercussions were immediate. The U.S. debate on restricting TikTok inadvertently triggered what Reuters called a “digital migration,” as more than 700,000 American users reportedly flocked to Xiaohongshu within two days. For the first time, a Chinese lifestyle platform became a refuge, not a curiosity, for displaced American creators.
Cultural momentum continued into cinema. Nezha: The Devil Boy’s Turmoil at Sea, released during the 2025 Lunar New Year holiday, smashed box-office records. In an entertainment industry long dominated by Hollywood and Japanese anime, an animated epic rooted in Chinese folklore captured global attention with the confidence of a studio that no longer feels compelled to imitate.
Even livestream culture, often dismissed in the West as niche, received an unexpected boost when U.S. livestreamer iShowSpeed (with more than 45 million YouTube subscribers) toured China in March. His broadcasts attracted tens of millions of viewers and inadvertently served, as Reference News put it, as a “masterclass in cultural diplomacy.”
Meanwhile, the global toy market has been swept by a different kind of Chinese export: the “ugly-cute” figurines of Pop Mart. Labubu collectibles, backed by more than one million TikTok posts and a feverish second-hand market, have demonstrated that China can invent, not just manufacture, global fads.
Beyond these headline-grabbing events lies a deeper structural change: the steady internationalisation of Chinese consumer brands. BYD commanded 18% of the global pure-EV market in the 2nd quarter of 2025, while Mixue, with more than 46,000 stores as of March, became the world’s largest fast-food chain by outlet count. These are not isolated victories; they signify that Chinese companies now compete on design, experience and brand identity, not just on cost advantage.
The cumulative effect is measurable. According to the Reference News report, China’s global net favorability in 2025 exceeded that of the U.S. for the first time, and China rose to second place in global soft-power rankings, its highest position ever.
For policymakers and business leaders abroad, several lessons emerge.
First, cultural influence today is increasingly decentralised. China did not plan for a mischievous monkey, a budget AI model, a foreign livestreamer or a quirky toy to reshape her global image. Authenticity, not campaigns, is driving the shift.
Second, the sources of global creativity are diversifying. In a hyperconnected world, cultural flows no longer run exclusively from West to East. Shanghai, Shenzhen and Chengdu now appear alongside Silicon Valley and Hollywood as potential incubators of the next global phenomenon.
Third, dismissing Chinese brands as mere copycats is becoming analytically untenable. Whether in AI cost-discipline, electric-vehicle engineering or cultural IP creation, Chinese firms are increasingly setting, not following, global benchmarks.
The Economist often reminds readers that soft power is not simply charm; it is the ability to shape preferences. China’s emerging cultural confidence, organic, globalized and commercially viable, suggests a significant realignment in how influence is generated in the 21st century.
If recent months teach us anything, it is that the spark of the next global phenomenon, whether artistic or technological, may just as readily flare from Shanghai or Shenzhen as from the long-established capitals of innovation. The currents of culture, like the tides, shift with time; today’s periphery may become tomorrow’s source of light. And so the world watches, some with expectation, others with surprise, but all with an awareness that a new creative energy is gathering strength in China.
Jin Ming is a Beijing-based commentator.
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in the “Opinion” column are those of the authors and do not reflect the views or positions of this magazine.
