Labubu Diplomacy

China has been good at a lot of things: manufacturing cheaply, catching up on A.I., dominating renewable energy, building hard power. What it’s been less good at is soft power. But that seems to be changing. Have you heard about Chinamaxxing? Read on.

Today, my colleague Vivian Wang in Beijing writes about how China is suddenly winning hearts and minds. (Spoiler alert: It might not actually have that much to do with China itself.)

Cool China

By Vivian Wang

Last week, my colleague Yan Zhuang wrote about a funny trend: young people on TikTok who are “becoming Chinese” by embracing stereotypically Chinese behaviors — drinking hot water, wearing slippers, eating congee.

“Becoming Chinese” (or “Chinamaxxing,” if that’s your preferred term) may just be a TikTok fad. But it fits into something I’ve noticed recently: To a growing number of people around the world, China seems to be getting cooler.

Major American influencers, like the YouTuber IShowSpeed and the streamer Hasan Piker, have traveled to China, where they raved about its high-speed trains and LED light shows. The N.B.A. star Victor Wembanyama spent 10 days meditating at a Shaolin temple. A new Adidas jacket inspired by the historical Tang suit was a viral fashion hit. And of course, there was the Labubu.

Over the course of its decades-long ascent, China has been good (and is getting better) at many things: developing technology, dominating supply chains, building up military power. What it has not been great at is winning hearts and minds, especially in the West — until, seemingly, now. So what changed? It might not actually have that much to do with China itself.

Savvier outreach and glittering infrastructure

China’s struggles with soft power have usually boiled down to its authoritarian government, which has hurt the country’s image abroad in multiple ways. (Just last week, a Hong Kong court sentenced the pro-democracy media mogul Jimmy Lai to 20 years in prison.)

Government censorship has also limited many outsiders from seeing the full range of Chinese creativity. Instead, the government has tried too hard to manufacture a state-sanctioned version of Chinese cool, with heavy-handed movies. (Remember the film “The Great Wall,” starring Matt Damon? Most people don’t.)

The authoritarianism hasn’t changed, but the government has gotten savvier in its outreach efforts — for example, making it easier for foreign tourists to visit China. Most casual tourists won’t encounter the more suffocating political controls here, and they get to interact with ordinary Chinese people, in all their diversity. Visitors often say they’re surprised by how normal everyday life seems.

But the biggest reason for China’s sudden appeal may have little to do with China itself. Polls show that opinions of China in the West are still, on the whole, mostly negative. It’s just that America, to many people around the world, is looking bad, too. And according to scholars, if people are looking for an alternative to the United States, China may be the most obvious place to turn.

Even aside from the most drastic actions by the Trump administration — its threats to take Greenland, its defense of killings by federal agents in Minneapolis — there’s a sense that the U.S. has failed to provide basic things, like functioning infrastructure. China’s gleaming trains look appealing in comparison.

The political and cultural fracturing of America has “significantly weakened the appeal of the U.S.,” Ying Zhu, a film studies scholar who has studied Chinese soft power, told me. “The appeal of China at the moment is more of a reaction” to that than real enthusiasm for China itself, she said.

Can the vibe shift last?

Still, these shifting attitudes — regardless of what’s behind them — could have real implications for how other countries approach China. Many Western leaders have visited Beijing recently, promoting trade and cultural exchange, despite blowback from China hawks at home. If there was less domestic pressure, those types of visits could become easier and more frequent. And there would probably be less appetite for moves against China, as we saw in the opposition from many young Americans to the TikTok ban.

A recent survey by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace found that most Americans, especially younger ones, were not very worried about what would happen if China surpassed the U.S. in global influence. That “casts doubt on whether the American public would be willing to bear significant costs to maintain a power position superior to China’s,” the authors wrote.

An important question is whether this vibe shift can last. Zhu was skeptical. “Cultural trends come and go,” she said. “Fashion and fads are sensitive to the shifting geopolitical dynamic.” She noted that, despite viral trends and Labubus, China had yet to produce, say, a global hit movie.

Parts of the Chinese government, too, seem worried that other countries’ soft power is still stronger. The Ministry of State Security last month published a warning, seemingly directed at Chinese influencers, about posts showing off glossy lives outside China.

“They one-sidedly showcase the glamorous aspects of foreign countries. Even worse, some have selectively ignored China’s development achievements,” the post said. “That provides an opportunity for the ‘soft aggression’ of Western ideology.”

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