Dao of the Bizarre Immortal has become the first Chinese web novel IP to be featured at Universal Studios Singapore. The King's Avatar has partnered with Switzerland Tourism to transform the "Zurich World Championship" from the novel into a tangible travel destination for fans. The British Library placed Lord of the Mysteries alongside Shakespeare's classics in a collaborative event... These events are not just brilliant highlights of Chinese online literature and art "going global," but also signify a crucial leap for Chinese cultural exchange, evolving from mere commodity trade to emotional co-creation and civilizational dialogue.
As the blueprint for the 15th Five-Year Plan takes shape, China's cultural export efforts are entering a critical transition period. Experts point out that China has already become the world's most important market for digital culture. In the future, leveraging its massive market scale and increasingly mature industry, China should focus on building three "cultural high-speed channels" – technology, industry, and co-creation – to accelerate the overseas expansion of the cultural "new trio" comprising web novels, web dramas, and online games, establishing them as powerful engines and core drivers for Chinese culture's journey to the global stage.
Data shows that in 2024, the market scale of Chinese web novel overseas expansion surpassed 5 billion yuan (RMB), reaching over 350 million overseas users; the global short drama market reached US$15 billion, with Chinese productions accounting for 80%; and the overseas sales revenue of China's self-developed games continued to maintain double-digit growth.
"China has become the world's most important leading market for digital culture," noted Zheng Huanzhao, Associate Professor at the School of Chinese Language and Literature, Jinan University. He pointed out that with platforms like "WebNovel" established overseas, Chinese web novels have reached over 200 countries and regions worldwide, forming what is hailed as the "world's fourth major cultural phenomenon," following Hollywood movies, Japanese anime, and Korean dramas.
Narrative models of Chinese web novels are gaining global popularity
"During the '15th Five-Year Plan' period, it is necessary to build a comprehensive 'high-speed railway' network in the cultural domain," Zheng emphasized. "This is key to bridging the last mile from 'going out' to 'breaking in,' and is an essential requirement for consolidating the Chinese strength in global digital culture under the theme of building a community with a shared future for mankind."
As a leading industrial group in the overseas expansion of Chinese web novels, China Literature's practices corroborate this approach. Its overseas portal, WebNovel, has attracted 500,000 overseas authors who have created approximately 770,000 original works, establishing a global IP co-creation ecosystem. Simultaneously, aided by technologies like AI translation, the global expression of Chinese web novels has entered a new stage of "global reading, global creation, and global development." Industry experts believe this shift signifies that the narrative models and cultural elements of Chinese web novels are achieving deeper cultural penetration through the borrowing and integration by global creators.
A person in charge from China Literature revealed that Chinese web literature, through methods like copyright licensing, work translation, and cultivating local writers, has accumulated a vast readership in North America, Southeast Asia, and Africa. More notably, a growing number of overseas authors are drawing inspiration from Chinese web novel narrative models and incorporating Chinese cultural elements into their creative practices.
Deep-level cultural integration brings unique charm
Beyond web novels, online games and web dramas are also crucial carriers for the overseas expansion of Chinese online literature and art. The "China Game Industry Quarterly Report for Q1 2025" shows that the actual sales revenue of China's self-developed games in overseas markets reached US$4.805 billion, a year-on-year increase of 17.92%. Representative domestic games like Genshin Impact and Rise of Kingdoms not only top the charts in Europe, the US, Japan, and South Korea but also release strong soft power through cultural integration. Li, a former game development project manager at a leading mainland online gaming platform, noted, "Behind almost every hit game lies the unique charm brought by cultural fusion."
Also, data supports that in the past five years, the number of games containing traditional Chinese cultural elements has nearly tripled. "Game + Culture" has become the core competitiveness of Chinese online games going global.
Sun Yixue, Professor and Dean of the School of International Cultural Exchange at Tongji University, wrote in an article that China's current "cultural product exports" primarily rely on tangible carriers like books, films, anime, and games. In the next stage, the export of abstract elements, including Confucian, Buddhist, and Daoist cultures and lifestyles, will be conducive to building an autonomous discourse system.
"Precise delivery"
The future path of cultural exports will shift from a widespread, scattergun approach to a focused, precision-targeted one. This involves creating tailored content based on the cultural backgrounds, audience preferences, and political environments of different countries and regions, deeply adapting cultural resources to regional and national differences to achieve "precise delivery."
To achieve this goal, building an efficient and diverse communication system has become an industry consensus. A person in charge from China Literature proposed that the next five years require full efforts to build three "cultural high-speed channels" to escort Chinese online literature and art overseas: the Technology Path uses AI as the engine to lower cross-cultural communication barriers and build an AI-driven IP ecosystem; the Industry Path creates long-term international IPs through the "book-comic-film/TV-derchandise" industrial chain; and the Co-creation Path leverages global ecological cooperation to build a world stage for Chinese IPs.
Li also believes that compared to "Post-70s" and "Post-80s" generations who perceived the world through film, television, and music, many current Gen Z build their worldview and form global communication networks through games. This shift in intergenerational cognitive habits provides a historical opportunity for the deep dissemination of Chinese culture through digital carriers. It is foreseeable that with the accelerated construction of the three "cultural high-speed channels," Chinese culture will march towards the center of the world stage with a more open, inclusive, and vibrant posture. During the 15th Five-Year Plan period, it will steadily achieve the historic leap from a major cultural country to a strong cultural power, contributing more "Chinese strength" to promoting exchanges and mutual learning among human civilizations.
(Source: Wen Wei Po; Journalist: Hu Ruozhang; English Editor: Darius)
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