China’s hard power keeps undermining its soft power

Well, that didn’t take long. At the end of last month, Sanrio announced it was ending a merchandise collaboration with Japanese spy drama “Vivant” after Chinese state media accused the hit series of portraying China negatively.

Days earlier, CCTV and the Communist Party-run Global Times had attacked the show’s second season, in which a fictional Chinese intelligence agency, Xinxi, tortures members of Japan’s secret “Betsuhan” unit. The outlets called the scenes a distortion of history and an example of “China threat” messaging.

Then came the commercial fallout. On Oct. 28, Sanrio’s Chinese subsidiary canceled its Hello Kitty collaboration with the show and all related promotions, citing content inconsistent with the company’s corporate philosophy. Reuters reported that Sanrio also deeply apologized for the concern caused.

This is by no means an isolated case. Last week, French soccer star Kylian Mbappe, asked in a previously recorded interview about his favorite meme of himself, mentioned an image depicting him as a Chinese dictator, apparently Mao Zedong. Soon after, at least three Chinese brands had dropped him, China Media Group had suspended its broadcasts of Spanish La Liga matches and removed his advertising, and Mbappe had apologized in French, Chinese and English. La Liga also expressed regret to Chinese fans.

Last November in Shanghai, Japanese pop star Ayumi Hamasaki arrived for a concert that organizers had canceled a day earlier, citing “force majeure.” She performed the entire set anyway, to an empty hall, then apologized on Instagram to the 14,000 fans she had expected to meet. That same weekend, Maki Otsuki, whose songs feature in “One Piece,” was hustled off a Shanghai stage when the lights and music cut out midperformance.

Both shows fell victim to the diplomatic dispute that followed Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s remarks about the possibility of Japan’s Self-Defense Forces responding to a Taiwan contingency. Organizers cited unavoidable circumstances, and Beijing has not acknowledged ordering the cancellations. But the timing is difficult to ignore.

China undoubtedly has real soft power. Yet its behavior repeatedly undermines it. Political scientist Joseph Nye coined the term to describe the ability to shape what others want through attraction, as opposed to hard power, which relies on coercion or payment. In China’s case, hard power often takes the form of economic coercion: using access to its enormous market as leverage.

People in Tokyo and Paris queue for Labubu, play “Black Myth: Wukong” and fill cinemas for “Ne Zha 2.” In Budapest, where I live, a cosmetics shop clerk told me Chinese beauty products are fashionable among young shoppers. Beijing then squanders that goodwill by reaching for coercive tools against cultural expression. Too often, hard power wins.

The pattern goes back at least a decade. After South Korea agreed to host the THAAD missile defense system in 2016, Korean entertainers were squeezed off Chinese screens and stages. Since Takaichi’s remarks, Japanese concerts across China have been canceled. An anime fair in Kunming barred cosplay and merchandise associated with “Detective Conan,” “Pokemon” and “My Hero Academia.”

Against that record, the focus on “Vivant” looks selective. Chinese television has produced anti-Japanese war dramas on an industrial scale. Sixth Tone counted more than 10 anti-Japanese short dramas released in four months last year. Regulators have occasionally intervened against the more outlandish productions. In 2013, the People’s Daily and CCTV criticized dramas featuring scenes such as a hero blowing Japanese soldiers apart with a cannon from a sofa. Last July, broadcasting authorities moved to tighten reviews of anti-Japanese short dramas.

Films depicting actual wartime atrocities, such as those by Unit 731, belong in a separate category. But a critic who finds “Vivant’s” fictional Xinxi organization objectionable while ignoring China’s invented anti-Japanese genre and the cancellations of Otsuki’s and Hamasaki’s performances is applying a double standard. I call these events — when China’s state-run propaganda machine leads to outrage and threats in the private sector — cancel culture with Chinese characteristics.

But all this raises a more fundamental question: What constitutes propaganda? Scholars Garth Jowett and Victoria O’Donnell define it as a deliberate, systematic effort by a sponsor to shape perceptions and direct behavior toward its own ends. That requires a sponsor, a systematic design and an objective. Nothing so far suggests the Japanese government commissioned “Vivant.”

Beijing’s complaints — that the torture scenes in “Vivant” echo Japanese wartime abuses and glorify the Self-Defense Forces — are interpretations of the content, not evidence of state sponsorship. The series is a commercial production by a private broadcaster. Its first season, in 2023, was set in an imaginary country. This time, the antagonist is Chinese. If every unflattering portrayal of a powerful neighbor constitutes state propaganda, few thrillers could be made.

Filmmakers have long cast their geopolitical rivals as villains. The Hollywood film “Rising Sun” (1993), based on a Michael Crichton novel accused of Japan-bashing, arrived amid intense U.S.-Japan trade friction. Its critics debated the film in reviews and opinion columns. Criticism of “Vivant” is equally legitimate. Viewers can call its Xinxi plot crude or its torture scenes gratuitous. The difference is that one production has provoked a state-media campaign, while China’s long-running anti-Japanese genre continues with regulatory approval.

Japan has its own stakes in the outcome. As this newspaper has reported, the Japanese government considers the “content” industry — including video games and anime — “a new pillar of economic growth,” and has set a target of boosting annual overseas sales from ¥5.8 trillion in 2023 to ¥20 trillion in 2033. Crucially, however, the Japanese government also explicitly pledged not to interfere with the content of creative works, thus protecting freedom of expression.

If pressure from Beijing continues, the commercial consequences around the globe are predictable. Publishers seeking access to the Chinese market or studios pursuing international co-productions may begin watering down or changing their portrayal of foreign villains before a manuscript reaches the printer.

We have seen this before. A 2020 PEN America report, “Made in Hollywood, Censored by Beijing,” documented widespread self-censorship by Hollywood studios seeking to maintain Beijing’s favor, including changes to a Tibetan character in “Doctor Strange.” Sanrio’s retreat may be an early warning. Its Chinese subsidiary withdrew from a Japanese cultural collaboration within days of the controversy. There is no evidence that the show’s script was changed, but the episode raises a larger question: Will the same caution reach writers and publishers before their work is even produced?

What can Japan’s creators, publishers and broadcasters do? They can start by adopting the pledge PEN America urged Hollywood producers to make: Keep any change made at a foreign government’s request to that market’s version only and disclose when such requests are received. When Beijing labels a Japanese work of propaganda, Tokyo should reaffirm its own stated principle: The government does not dictate what creators create — period.

Three tests lie ahead. Will Japanese artists and storytellers remain free to create as they choose? Will the Japanese government provide financial and legal protections for creators facing economic coercion, without dictating their content? And — perhaps most importantly — will open societies stand together against this form of intimidation?

Waka Ikeda is a freelance journalist based in Budapest and Tokyo and a fellow at the Yokosuka Council on Asia-Pacific Studies where she directs the webinar series “Soft Power, Hard Questions.”