For decades, analysts have tracked a gradual shift in global soft power momentum toward East Asia, with South Korea building its cultural influence through intentional strategy and Japan rising to cultural prominence through organic, unexpected growth. This long-running trend has left one major question unanswered: When will China, the region’s largest economy and geopolitical heavyweight, launch its own sustained global cultural wave?
For years, the expected Chinese Wave has been slow to materialize. Previous analysis has argued that China’s closed political system, strict censorship regime, ubiquitous surveillance, and tight control over media and speech have created an environment where only cautious, inoffensive cultural production can thrive, with cutting-edge creativity confined to tiny, underground subcultural pockets. The Great Firewall, which blocks most global cultural content from reaching Chinese audiences, also cuts China’s domestic creators off from the global cultural conversation, leaving their work isolated from the cross-pollination that drives innovative artistic change. While the country has produced high-grossing blockbusters and popular video games, it has yet to push global cultural boundaries in the way South Korea and Japan have done.
Over the past year, however, a new social media trend called “Chinamaxxing” has sparked claims that China’s long-awaited soft power breakthrough has finally arrived. Spreading first among U.S. Gen Z creators on TikTok before gaining global traction, the trend sees Western creators embracing what they frame as stereotypically Chinese habits and aesthetics: drinking hot water and herbal fruit tea for wellness, practicing traditional Chinese exercises and gua sha, wearing Chinese-inspired fashion, eating hot pot, wearing slippers indoors, and even mimicking the daily routines of Chinese retirees in a trend called “uncle core” that pushes back against Western hustle culture.
Despite widespread media coverage of the trend across outlets from Fortune to the BBC, Chinamaxxing bears little resemblance to the organic, product-driven soft power waves that originated from Japan and South Korea. Unlike K-pop, J-dramas, or Japanese anime, Chinamaxxing involves almost no engagement with actual Chinese original cultural products. Western participants are largely not watching Chinese dramas, listening to Chinese music, or playing Chinese video games; the viral Chinese-style Adidas jacket that became a trend staple, for example, is produced by a German brand. Even China’s highest-profile domestic cultural products have failed to gain significant traction outside the country: *Ne Zha 2*, the highest-grossing animated film of all time, earned over 99% of its total revenue inside mainland China, while hit game *Black Myth: Wukong* generated more than three-quarters of its Steam sales domestically, with very few Chinese musicians breaking through to Western mainstream audiences.
Beyond cultural products, the trend also relies heavily on curated content about China’s cutting-edge urban infrastructure, with Western influencers relentlessly posting one-note content praising Chinese cities as superior to Western metropolises. Critics argue this content often feels like a coordinated publicity campaign rather than organic enthusiasm, with influencers almost exclusively showcasing grand, iconic landmarks, new train stations, and shiny new developments instead of capturing everyday, ground-level life. This is no accident: unlike organically grown global cities like Tokyo or Paris, most modern Chinese cities were built rapidly from scratch, dominated by sterile gated microdistricts, wide arterial roads, and massive concrete plazas that are impressive from a distance but lack the walkable, mixed-use streetscapes that give older cities their charm.
Hard data backs up the idea that this new fascination with China remains surface-level. As of 2024, international tourism to China remains far below pre-pandemic levels, while the number of American students studying in China has plummeted even more sharply. By comparison, far smaller Japan and South Korea have not only fully recovered their pre-pandemic tourism levels from the U.S. but have exceeded them, proving that the current social media hype around Chinamaxxing has not translated to tangible, widespread engagement with China among Western audiences.
In reality, the Chinamaxxing trend is far more about disillusionment with the West — and the United States in particular — than it is about authentic attraction to Chinese culture and society. As multiple analysts have noted, the trend’s subtext is rooted in Gen Z frustration with systemic failures in the U.S.: the lack of affordable housing, underfunded and unreliable public transit, widespread gun violence and high crime rates, rising loneliness and social atomization, and soaring costs for education and healthcare that have left the American promise out of reach for many young people. Chinamaxxing romanticizes qualities that young Americans perceive as available in China but out of reach at home, serving as a quiet protest against the failure of U.S. institutions to deliver widespread prosperity.
This dissatisfaction with the U.S. reflects a broader global shift. Since Donald Trump’s first election, Gallup data shows that global confidence in U.S. leadership has fallen below confidence in Chinese leadership for the first time in modern history. While China itself is not broadly popular globally, it is increasingly seen as a credible alternative to U.S. leadership by much of the world, and Trump’s persistent unpopularity among young Americans has directly fueled interest in the Chinamaxxing trend. Compounding this is the very visible breakdown of public order in many major U.S. cities, where progressive policies that have decriminalized homelessness and low-level crime have left many urban areas perceived as dirty and unsafe, a contrast pro-China influencers often highlight to great effect.
It is important to note, however, that the narrative of China as a perfect alternative to the U.S. is largely a myth. As analysts have pointed out, China faces many of the same structural social and economic crises as the U.S., with similar levels of income inequality that grow even worse when accounting for limited social redistribution. The affordability crisis for education is far more severe in China than in the U.S., with the bottom 20% of households spending an extraordinary 57% of their income on their children’s education. Homelessness and extreme poverty remain widespread, but the Chinese government has criminalized unhoused populations and pushed low-income groups out of major city centers, making their hardship invisible to visiting influencers. Age discrimination is legal and rampant, with mass dismissal of workers over 35, and youth unemployment remains far higher than in the U.S. even after government statistical changes to reduce the official numbers.
This gap between hype and reality explains why few Chinamaxxing creators follow through on their stated admiration by moving to or even visiting China: it is far easier to post a TikTok pretending to be a Chinese uncle than to actually build a life in the country. For China’s leadership, however, this hype serves an alternative purpose: it is not aimed at winning over young Western creators, but at convincing Chinese scientists, engineers, and business leaders living abroad to return home. And this strategy has seen some success, with anti-immigration policies in the U.S. and widespread dissatisfaction with urban conditions pushing increasing numbers of high-skilled Chinese expats to return home, a trend that U.S. leaders should be far more concerned about than social media trends among Gen Z.
Despite the forced, superficial nature of the Chinamaxxing trend, there are genuine, organic green shoots of growing Chinese soft power that cannot be ignored.
The first major breakthrough is Chinese micro-dramas (duanju), a new format of 1 to 2-minute vertical episodes designed for mobile scrolling, perfectly suited to the age of short-form social media. Because thousands of new micro-dramas are produced every year, the volume of content is too large for Chinese censors to fully monitor, leading to looser content restrictions that have allowed edgier, more innovative stories to flourish — a parallel to the early development of Japanese manga and anime, which grew under the radar of conservative mainstream media to become a global cultural force. As of 2025, Chinese micro-drama platforms ReelShort and DramaBox have exploded in the U.S. market, with ReelShort hitting 370 million total downloads and generating an estimated $1.3 billion in annual U.S. revenue, making the U.S. the largest overseas market for the format.
The second bright spot is Chinese consumer retail. Popular Chinese drink chains including Chagee, Heytea, Mixue, and Luckin Coffee have gained loyal followings overseas, while variety retailers like Miniso and collectible brands like Popmart now have locations in malls across the globe, and Chinese fashion designers are starting to gain international recognition. Because food, beverage, and consumer design are inherently apolitical, these products have been able to cut through political barriers to gain global traction far more easily than film, television, or music.
Third, the Chinese city of Chongqing has developed a genuine global cult following for its unique urban landscape. Unlike the generic, sterile skylines of newer first-tier cities like Shenzhen, Chongqing’s dramatic urban canyons and layered, cyberpunk-inspired streetscape feel raw, authentic, and one-of-a-kind. Even viral videos complaining about the city’s difficult commutes have captivated global audiences, and the city has become a genuine tourist draw for travelers seeking its unique mix of traditional old streets adjacent to modern downtown development, creating the walkable, mixed-use density that draws visitors to global cities like Hong Kong and Tokyo.
Ultimately, it would be extraordinary for a country of 1.4 billion people with China’s growing economic clout not to develop natural, organic soft power appeal. While coordinated official campaigns and social media fads like Chinamaxxing do not represent a genuine Chinese cultural wave, organic cultural innovation is already finding ways to flow past censorship and state marketing, introducing the world to a more authentic, dynamic China — and that growth is only just beginning.
