I mean, China has lots of ‘cool’ things, but it is actively suppressed by the media landscape in the west. It should also be noted that China lacks soft power only in western countries. According to the Bennett Institute, China is more popular in the global south than the US.

Previously this may have been true, mostly because South Korea and Japan have been embraced by the US as vassal states. Obviously China will not have the same level of cultural exchange with the US.

For example, do we complain about a lack of Cuban, Vietnamese, or Laotian soft power in the West? No, because those countries are also marked as enemies by the US.

Today, Chinese cultural exports are starting to be able to stand on their own in the global market without extra help from Western governments. For instance, Genshin Impact, made by miHOYO from China, earned the highest ever first-year launch revenue of any video game.

Her analysis is insanely narrow, and fails to take into account any of these historical issues. Her conclusion boils down to: “China should make the West happy so they buy more C-pop.”

does china really NEED media exports to appease westerners though? of course on the western internet china will seem “uncool” or be the punchline in jokes, because the western internet is full of racist, anti-communist liberals or neo-nazis. china is powerful enough on the overall world stage, and especially the global south, to not need to have “soft power” propped up by capitalist media that westerners eat up like kpop or anime (that is also rife with exploitation in their respective industries as well). to me this just kinda seems like “why doesn’t china make itself look nicer for the western internet users???”.

I didnt watch the video but had it pop up in my recommended.

Japan and Korea I feel on some level create things with the knowledge that it will be exported and consumed by ally nations and propped up by weeaboos and koreaboos.

I don’t think China really needs to export their media. They have a huge domestic market, they don’t need western countries in order to succeed. I feel that most Chinese media is made for domestic audiences and therefore they don’t need to create things with westerners in mind. For example square enix will make a video game set in basically medieval Europe (FFXVI) starring primarily westerners. China does not need to do that. It doesn’t need international critical acclaim for media. So they can make films that focus on Chinese stories like “Better Days”.

Also because the intended audience is domestic, a lot of the media created is pretty niche. For example something focused on a businesswoman that speaks Shanghai dialect at home.

Most media creators there just don’t need that international market to succeed and so there is no push to export. The west is so rabid in their brainwashed anti China hate that they would reject anything from China except for small pockets of the population so there is no demand for Chinese media either.

Try pirating some smaller Chinese films, you’ll see how difficult it is to get one with English subtitles.

Some media recommendations with easy to find English translations

films: Better Days

White Snake (3d animated movie)

Webnovel: Daoist Gu

Novel: Three Body Problem

Series: Link Click Three Body Problem Countless BL romances that American AO3 Tumblr types gush over

Games: most of the ones I would like have no English translations. But I’ve played a few like Gujian where it’s fun but not my type of game.

Mobile/gacha games(I don’t like mobile games) Genshin Honkai star rail

Also Chinese devs have been killing it with apps.