Yearender: How China redefines cultural creativity

by Xinhua writer Zhang Yunlong

BEIJING, Dec. 26 (Xinhua) -- In the cosmetics section of a department store in Lanzhou, northwest China's Gansu Province, Wang Xiaoxia, a resident of Zhangye City, bypasses the gleaming counters of international prestige brands. Her destination is Maogeping, a Chinese makeup brand renowned for its "Eastern aesthetics." Over 1,400 kilometers away in Beijing, white-collar professional Dew Zhang observes that passing by the Lao Pu Gold store in Wangfujing invariably means navigating a snaking queue, drawn by the brand's handcrafted gold jewelry featuring traditional Chinese motifs. "People say they love its craftsmanship," she remarks.

A decade ago, such scenes would have been hard to imagine. China's affluent consumers were synonymous with a voracious appetite for Western luxury, equating foreign logos with status. Today, a subtle but profound shift is underway. A new generation of consumers and the creative industries that serve them are quietly rewriting the rules of cultural engagement, turning inward for inspiration while going outward with unprecedented ambition. In 2025, this quiet confidence found its roaring voice, not in propaganda, but in a constellation of cultural products, from billion-dollar blockbusters to scented candles, that are redefining what it means to be "Made in China."

FROM GRAND MYTHS TO GRASSROOTS MIRRORS

The most visible symbols of this renaissance are cinematic. "Ne Zha 2," an animated epic, didn't just break box office records; it shattered paradigms. Becoming the world's first non-Hollywood film to gross over 1 billion U.S. dollars and amassing about 2.2 billion U.S. dollars globally, it "is a miracle and a peak in Chinese cinema, a record that may remain unbroken for a long time," says Chen Xuguang, director of the Institute of Film, Television, and Theatre at Peking University. Its success lies not in mere spectacle -- though its approximately 2,000 VFX shots, a collaborative feat of 138 studios, showcase industrial might -- but in its modern recalibration of a mythological rebel. It channels a universal rage against destiny.

Its companion in success, however, took the opposite path. "Nobody," a 2D animated film about four lowly monsters clumsily impersonating the legendary heroes of "Journey to the West," became China's highest-grossing 2D animation by focusing on the mundane struggle for dignity. "I want to live the way I like," declares its pig monster, a line that resonated with millions. Chen Xuguang sees its genius in this "strong connection to reality," where adults' knowing, bittersweet laughter differs from children's delight. This "grassroots mirror," as moviegoers call it, reflects a cultural confidence secure enough to deconstruct its own myths and find heroism in everyday life.

This impulse may find its purest form in the "New Popular Literature and Art," a wave of amateur creativity where delivery drivers, cleaners, veterans and others from all walks of life turn lived experience into art, whether through poetry, prose or performance, finding their voice and audience on digital platforms.

Wang Jibing, a "delivery rider-poet," recounted in a December People's Daily article that one of his poems, born from observing a tired shop owner and her child, was later translated and published in Italy. "We have caught the golden age of New Popular Literature and Art," he wrote. His experience captures a broader truth: this is a bottom-up democratization of storytelling, where cultural confidence is built from authentic, individual experience.

ALCHEMY OF OBJECTS AND ECOSYSTEMS

This cultural sentiment is also materializing into a formidable commercial ecosystem. The "China-chic" or Guochao is no longer a niche aesthetic but a sophisticated engine of consumption. The proof is in objects that bridge centuries: a refrigerator magnet replicating the Ming Dynasty Empress's phoenix crown has sold over 2.28 million units in just over a year, generating a 200 million yuan product series for the National Museum of China by late August.

That same alchemy is now scaling across industries, transforming cultural heritage into contemporary chic. It has given rise to a cohort of Chinese affordable luxury brands in perfume, makeup, accessories and jewelry that are captivating local consumers and, as industry observers note, beginning to challenge Western luxury incumbents. This sentiment is echoed by consumers like Wang Xiaoxia, who argues, "The development of domestic brands should aim for high quality and high value. Otherwise, we can never compete with first-tier brands."

Simultaneously, entirely new cultural symbols are being born and going global. Labubu, the snaggle-toothed, wide-eyed figurine created by Hong Kong artist Kasing Lung and marketed by Chinese mainland pop culture giant Pop Mart, has become a global Gen-Z obsession. Its potential film adaptation by Sony Pictures signifies a reversal: a Chinese-originated IP feeding the Hollywood content machine. Zhang Dandan, head of the CS-New Consumption Research Institute in Changsha, central China, sees Labubu's global success as emblematic of "Made in China's" evolution from manufacturing hub to imagination-driven value creator.

BEYOND PRODUCTS: SYSTEMIC EXPORTS

This cultural confidence is expressed on the global stage. China is moving beyond exporting singular products to deploying what Shi Anbin, director of the Israel Epstein Center for Global Media and Communication at Tsinghua University, calls "clustered exports."

The spearhead is the digital "New Trio" -- web novels, online games, and web dramas. They form a complementary cluster: web novels attract audiences from Southeast Asia to North America; web dramas are rapidly expanding overseas, finding engaged audiences; and games like "Black Myth: Wukong" have become global blockbusters. This digital ecosystem is amplified by Chinese-born global platforms like TikTok and Xiaohongshu, which provide the infrastructure for organic, peer-driven cultural diffusion. As The Economist noted in a 2025 piece titled "How China became Cool," this grassroots, commercial charm offensive is reshaping the country's international image effectively.

It's increasingly a case, analysts say, that China has stopped anxiously comparing itself to external benchmarks and started building a new language of cultural creativity and confidence. Its codes are written in record-shattering box office numbers, in sold-out museum souvenirs, in viral web dramas, and in the quiet choice of a domestically crafted scent. ■