Two surveys recently conducted in 41 countries and 96 countries, respectively, show that respondents generally perceived China more favorably than the United States.  These survey findings signal to Chinese leaders that their efforts to help improve China’s global image through the development of cultural industries have produced results.  To President XI Jinping, in particular, these findings help fuel his latest plan to accelerate the transformation of China into a cultural power.

China’s Improved Global Image

According to the latest results of the Democracy Perception Index—which surveyed more than 111,000 respondents across 96 countries to show how they perceived core democratic values had been practiced around the world—released in May, the net perception rating of the United States dropped to -5% (versus +22% in 2024), while that of China was +14%.  Respondents residing in countries in the Middle East and North Africa clearly had better perceptions of China than the United States.  This is likely a reflection of China’s success in strengthening its ties with these countries.  What is interesting is that favorable attitudes towards China were also expressed by respondents in European nations.

“[…] by the end of May, the U.S. net favorability rating was -1.5 while that of China was +8.8.”

Similar changing global attitudes towards the United States and China were also reported by another survey conducted by Morning Consult to cover respondents in 41 countries, including Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, South Korea, Spain, and the United Kingdom.  According to this survey, by the end of May, the U.S. net favorability rating was -1.5 while that of China was +8.8.  Their respective ratings were above 20 and around -5 in January 2024.

China’s Cultural Industries

Such an improvement in China’s global image was an outcome that Chinese leaders aspired to see when they set the goal to accelerate the development of cultural industries in the country’s 12th Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development (2011-2015) (“the 12th Five-Year Plan”).  In the plan, Chinese leaders emphasized the need to “vigorously develop key cultural industries” such as “film and television production”, “performing arts and entertainment”, and “digital content and animation”.  The development of cultural industries, together with “the exploration of the international cultural market”, was considered to be crucial for China to “enhance the influence of Chinese culture” and “increase the country’s soft power”.

In the 13th Five-Year Plan (2016-2020) and the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-2025), Chinese leaders particularly stressed the need to accelerate and improve the development of “modern cultural industries” such as online audio-visual industries, digital publishing, and animation and online games.

These development priorities have yielded impressive breakthroughs.  In 2017, the added value of China’s cultural industries was nearly RMB 3.5 trillion, accounting for 4.2% of the country’s GDP.  In fact, cultural industries in four provinces/provincial-level municipalities were so important that their added value accounted for more than 5% of the GDP of each of these provinces or municipalities: Beijing (9.64%), Shanghai (6.79%), Zhejiang Province (6.19%), and Guangdong Province (5.37%).

“The emphasis on ‘modern cultural industries’ over the past 10 years has led to success.”

The emphasis on “modern cultural industries” over the past 10 years has led to success.  In 2018, online games independently developed by China had overseas sales of USD 9.59 billion, a year-on-year increase of 15.8%.  When “Black Myth: Wukong” was released last year, the sales number of the online Chinese game, which was inspired by the Chinese classic novel Journey to the West, surpassed 10 million within three days, disseminating powerfully the story about the legendary Sun Wukong (i.e., the Monkey King).

A Cultural Power

All these achievements and the aforementioned surveys showing China’s improved global image should bolster Chinese leaders’ confidence in taking the country’s cultural industries to another level, culminating in the transformation of China into a cultural power—a vision shared by President Xi Jinping in his article published in Qiushi, a periodical published by the Chinese Communist Party, in April.

In the article, President Xi calls for the transformation of China into a cultural power by 2035.  To this end, he suggests various means, including stimulating the creativity of the whole nation by “exploring effective mechanisms for the integration of culture with technology” and increasing “the influence of Chinese culture” through, for example, “various forms of international cultural exchanges and cooperation” and the “creation of a batch of cultural achievements that integrate the past with the present and that connect China with the rest of the world”.

These suggestions align with China’s commitment to leveraging “new quality productive forces” (see, e.g., Key Talks in 1992, Court Cases in 2024, and “New Quality Productive Forces”) and international cooperation (see, e.g., China’s Free Trade and Innovation Haven) to carry out the country’s long-term development.  In the current rapidly changing world, these priorities provide a particular level of certainty that should be welcomed by businesses struggling to stay afloat.  With its ability to offer certainty during the trying times, albeit in limited areas, China is likely to continue to improve its image and, as a result, receive favorable international perception ratings.

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• The citation of this article is: The Editorial Board of SINOTALKS^®, China’s Improved Global Image and Cultural Industries, SINOTALKS.COM^®, SinoExpress™, June 11, 2025, https://sinotalks.com/sinoexpress/global-image-cultural-industries. ↩︎

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