As a young Yueju Opera performer adjusts her headdress backstage, her costume—blending traditional elegance with modern tailoring—reflects the convergence of two eras. Yueju Opera, a local opera originating in Zhejiang Province hundreds of years ago, is now the second most popular opera in China.

Chen Lijun, a star of the Zhejiang Xiaobaihua Yueju Opera Troupe, embodies this duality: an inheritor of a century-old art and the idol of millions online. Her performances draw both traditional patrons and digital natives and her clips are disseminated and reimagined across the web. This cultural moment quietly poses a deeper question: How can an ancient civilization find and assert its contemporary voice in a global age?

Chen brought this question for discussion at the Forum on the International Communication of Chinese Culture held in Beijing on December 19, 2025, which drew over 100 representatives from culture, technology, education and other fields. Its theme, Confidence, Inclusiveness, Innovation, was no empty slogan but a diagnosis of the complex landscape of contemporary Chinese culture going global.

All rivers run into the sea 

In his opening address at the forum, Chang Bo, President of China International Communications Group (CICG), highlighted the inherent openness of Chinese culture. "Since ancient times, Chinese civilization has been renowned for its openness and inclusiveness, embracing diverse elements with broad-mindedness," he stated. He emphasized that as China's role on the world stage grows, engaging with different civilizations through exchange and mutual learning is becoming more crucial for demonstrating this inclusive cultural vision.

Data provide the most intuitive footnotes: China now grants either unilateral visa exemption or mutual visa-free entry to about 75 countries and 240-hour visa-free transit to citizens of 55 countries. Official data reveal a 48.3-percent year-on-year increase in visa-free foreign entries in the third quarter of 2025, reaching 7.25 million. This expanding visa-free policy fuels global interest in traveling and shopping in China.

Additionally, it has directly spurred the China Travel trend. The first step in cultural dissemination is often the elimination of physical distance and the facilitation of human movement. As travelers from around the world gain easier access to China's cities and landscapes, a form of understanding based on firsthand experience begins.

While human movement has physical limits, the flow of ideas, illuminated by technology, can reach previously unimaginable corners. Chang pointed to the rising international influence of China's new cultural trio—online literature, dramas and games. The influence is reflected in official statistics: China's short-video user base now exceeds 1.068 billion worldwide, while the number of overseas readers of Chinese web literature has surpassed 350 million, covering over 200 countries. Chang called for continued integration, urging the application of digital technologies like AI to innovate the creation and sharing of culture.

Li Jingze, Vice Chairman of the Chinese Writers Association, elaborated on this digital success. He also noted that Chinese web literature has captured global attention. "We are embracing the new force of online literature, interacting with the world with innovative narratives," he said. The industry is evolving from exporting works to fostering cultural understanding, supported by cross-media adaptations. The association has also established Chinese literature reading clubs in over 20 countries, having hosted more than 160 reading events so far.

The fusion of technology and culture now reaches beyond the digital realm, toward the cosmos. Wu Weiren, chief designer of China's Lunar Exploration Program and a member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, framed space exploration as an expression of national innovation. He announced a partnership between the Deep Space Exploration Laboratory and CICG to launch an integrated platform that transforms technological milestones into channels for cultural dialogue. This initiative embodies a larger vision: As images from lunar rovers converge with ancient myths and modern art, civilization's narrative expands to a cosmic scale—transcending geography.

The forum also featured several launches, including the presentation of the Voices From Chinese Writers to the Stars project, and the donation of A New-Era Panorama of Rivers and Mountains, a digital artwork composed of nearly 30,000 satellite images, to the National Archives of Publications and Culture. Du Zhanyuan, President of the Translators Association of China, remarked at the forum, "Innovation has transformed from individual acts into a systematic collective habit and mindset." This implies that the systemic planning for cultural communication must outpace technological iteration.

Tangible outcomes 

The forum's high-level discourse resonates with tangible actions across the wider world. Sometimes, these echoes come from unexpected quarters.

Recently, a book titled Breakneck: China's Quest to Engineer the Future climbed bestseller lists in the United States. Its author, Wang Dan, is a young researcher born in Yunnan Province, southwest China, and raised in Canada. The book's popularity stems partly from its unique perspective—one of close observation.

A cycling journey from Guiyang to Chongqing reshaped Wang's perspective. He discovered that Guizhou—a province where all counties had lifted themselves out of extreme poverty as of late 2020—boasted road and tunnel networks surpassing in quality and density those of wealthy U.S. states such as California. This firsthand experience dismantled abstract stereotypes, allowing his work to present a tangible example of engineering prowess and governance efficiency.

While not without debatable points, the book serves as a kind of cultural bridge. It has resonated with Western audiences, revealing the dynamism of a rapidly evolving China. As Peking University professor Zhang Yiwu noted at the forum, such narratives carry the "power of witnessing"—they allow the world to perceive China's changes, the texture of its development and the authentic charm of its culture. "Through online and social media platforms, these accounts reach every corner of the globe... enabling different worlds to witness a new China," Zhang stated. The book's value lies precisely in offering this externally sourced, yet experience-based testimony, creating a crack in the ice of preconception.

If Wang's book represents cool observation, Chinese games have ignited passion overseas. Countless international players log into servers, entering the martial arts open world of popular Chinese games.

The Chinese game Black Myth: Wukong has shattered records for concurrent players and sales across multiple platforms, generating a cultural consumption phenomenon. This success is not merely commercial but the most direct and powerful testament to its inherent cultural appeal. It makes a trend unequivocally clear: When Chinese games insist on constructing worlds using their own cultural logic and aesthetic systems, they cease to be imitators of Western models and become unique narrative providers.

Zhang noted that Black Myth: Wukong "has created a new landscape of Chinese history and culture, entirely derived from indigenous Chinese cultural practice."

The essence of gaming is interaction and experience. The process by which players freely explore, fight and interact with non-player characters constitutes a profound form of cultural immersion. They may not grasp the full philosophical depth of the concept of xia (chivalrous hero), yet they can experience dilemmas of loyalty and righteousness within quests. This is no longer one-way indoctrination but an invitation for the world to step into a self-contained jianghu. Literally, jianghu means rivers and lakes, while metaphorically, it refers to the world of martial artists, of thugs and heroes.

"The online game, a cultural form originating from the West, after undergoing a thorough process of localization and reinvention in China, is now engaged in a powerful counter-flow of communication, carrying entirely new cultural genes," Zhang told the forum.

New voices and ancient melodies 

Chen Yongquan, Vice President of the International Theater Institute, elaborated on the uniqueness of Chinese opera, "Only Chinese opera synthesizes all global theatrical categories... This is both a crystallization of our civilization's wisdom and a bond of national sentiment." The comprehensive artistic nature of Chinese opera makes it a prime embodiment of the nation's aesthetic spirit.

Meanwhile, Chen Lijun represents another path for the preservation and revitalization of tradition in the contemporary era. Speaking about innovation at the forum, the young Yueju Opera star said, "As a relatively young theatrical form, Yueju Opera has vast room for innovation, inheriting the spirit of progress and inclusiveness. This is precisely what keeps this traditional art shining in the new era."

This spirit of innovation and integration has become consensus across the broader cultural and creative industries. Wang Lei, Chairman of Chengdu Sinyecs Cultural Development Co. Ltd., a leading digital entertainment company that builds an integrated ecosystem around top-tier intellectual properties (IPs) for animation and gaming, known for works like the Shrouding the Heavens animation, told the forum, "We firmly believe that within the next five to 10 years, top-tier Chinese IPs will stand on the world stage... The key lies in how to let foreigners see the essence of Chinese culture."

On platforms like TikTok, intangible cultural heritage promoter Liu Yu digitally revives traditions for a global audience. Invoking "father of China's space technology" Qian Xuesen's vision that "reaching the moon is not the end, but a new starting point," he said during the forum that each new technology is not an end for tradition, but a launchpad for its future.

During the forum, the 2025 Report on the International Communication of Chinese Culture was also released, providing analysis and insights into current trends and future pathways. Its selection of eight hotspot cases—from AI company DeepSeek empowering communication with AI prowess, to overseas influencer trips to China building cross-cultural trust, to the global emotional resonance sparked by the Spring Festival's UNESCO listing and the success of blockbuster Ne Zha 2—collectively sketch a picture: China is using both words and actions, employing contemporary and ancient means, to knock on the world's door.

When the world meets China's true, complex and innovative spirit with an equal gaze, the door to dialogue between civilizations begins to open. BR

Printed edition title：Knock, Echo, Open 

Copyedited by Elsbeth van Paridon 

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