Li Ziqi’s return to the digital sphere after her hiatus has reignited public fascination with her tranquil depictions of rural Chinese life. As a widely followed influencer, her aestheticized storytelling has resonated both domestically and internationally, making her a prominent figure in China’s cultural soft power landscape. Building on her renewed presence, Li’s performance at the 2025 Spring Festival Gala signaled a shift – not just in her status as an influencer, but in the evolving ways China presents its cultural heritage.
At the Gala, Li donned a garment painstakingly crafted using 13 distinct “intangible cultural heritage” techniques – from Chengdu lacquer art to Yangzhou velvet flowers – bringing together diverse traditions in a single, tangible form. This combination of previously dispersed cultural elements into one visible artifact underscored a broader effort to present China’s heritage in a more cohesive format, hinting at the potential of fashion to serve as a powerful vehicle for cultural diplomacy.
The dual moments – Li Ziqi’s personal return and her public elevation at the Gala, China most widely-watched television program – offer a lens through which to consider China’s evolving approach to cultural representation. Is China experimenting with a new path for soft power by integrating fashion, digital influencers, and lifestyle branding? More critically, can such a strategy transcend its domestic and diaspora audiences to build genuine international influence?
China’s Soft Power Play: Why Fashion and Influencers?
Hanfu’s debut at the 2024 Spring Festival Gala, where celebrities wore traditional Han Chinese garments from different dynasties, might set a crucial backdrop for understanding the cultural shifts that Li Ziqi’s 2025 appearance further highlighted. That state-endorsed showcase ignited a broader trend, aligning with a decades-long grassroots Hanfu revival that had previously remained on the fringes.
While Hanfu remained present in 2025’s performances, it did not command the center stage in the same way. Hanfu’s association with Han-centric symbolism and imperial legacies has long triggered debates about its inclusivity and legitimacy as a soft power instrument. Li’s garment sidestepped politically charged debates by presenting a more neutral and inclusive cultural symbol. This shift may reflect an evolving effort to refine China’s global image – one that is less anchored in ethnic identity and more focused on a harmonized aesthetic of heritage and craftsmanship.
However, this shift has not been without tensions. Some within China’s Hanfu community criticized the reduced emphasis on Hanfu, viewing it as a sidelining of a movement that has long sought cultural legitimacy. This underscores an ongoing struggle over cultural representation: who defines Chinese tradition, and whose vision of heritage prevails in the global spotlight?
The Rise of Digital Mediation in Fashioning Soft Power
Amid these shifts, digital platforms have emerged as critical intermediaries in cultural outreach. Li’s reemergence exemplifies China’s increasing integration of digital influencers into state messaging. Her participation in the 2025 Spring Festival Gala illustrates a pattern of using popular digital figures to amplify state-curated narratives, extending even to international influencers like Evan Kail, who became known for exposing Imperial Japanese war crimes before appearing at the Gala.
What is highlighted in this transformation is the role of “living labor” in cultural production. Traditionally, Marx’s concept of living labor refers to the human creativity, time, and skill embedded in cultural goods – often exploited in capitalist systems. In the digital age, living labor is not just about the act of production but about its mediation and recontextualization.
Following her return, Li incorporated the intangible cultural heritage techniques she learned during her hiatus into her content, not only showcasing traditional craftsmanship but also amplifying the visibility of such artisans. Through her highly aestheticized videos, she translates these traditions into widely accessible, emotionally resonant digital narratives.
This process is not just individual but systemic. Local governments are also collaborating with digital influencers to amplify cultural branding efforts. For instance, the Zhejiang Hangzhou Tourism Bureau has been collaborating with lifestyle influencer Chen Xiyue, who specializes in Hanfu and traditional aesthetics, to promote Hangzhou’s image through traditional crafts and cultural storytelling. By leveraging influencers, these efforts enhance the appeal of symbolic representations, grounding them in tangible human work rather than abstract state narratives. They also move beyond mere heritage preservation, fostering broader cultural participation.
Limits to China’s Algorithmic Soft Power
Yet, embedding soft power in digital infrastructures is fraught with inherent contradictions. Expressions of intangible cultural heritage, long critiqued for commercialization, are now increasingly repackaged as trendy, aspirational products. While digital platforms like Douyin, Xiaohongshu, and Bilibili expand visibility and accessibility, algorithmic logic prioritizes highly visual, bite-sized content that distills complex traditions into easily consumable aesthetics. What begins as an organic portrayal of craftsmanship risks being reduced to surface-level symbols, stripped of deeper meaning and refashioned for mass consumption.
At the same time, the effectiveness of digital soft power hinges on user engagement. Without everyday users actively sharing, liking, and remixing content, even the most carefully curated influencer campaigns struggle to gain traction. Algorithmic curation creates feedback loops, where user interactions reinforce state-aligned narratives – sometimes unintentionally.
This dual process of algorithmic curation and user participation reveals a fundamental tension at the intersection of soft power and platform capitalism. As influencers operate within platform ecosystems and platforms operate within the country’s regulations, the line between organic engagement and state-driven influence is blurred. This ambiguity complicates how Chinese fashion soft power is perceived. Is this a genuine cultural trend, or a carefully managed projection of national branding? If the latter perception dominates, it risks reducing international engagement to mere spectacle rather than sustainable influence.
Compounding these issues are geopolitical constraints. The growing global presence of Chinese platforms like Xiaohongshu or RedNote – especially amid the U.S. TikTok ban threat – demonstrates the intersections between digital capitalism, platform governance, and national image-making. Ongoing anxieties about data privacy, ideological influence, and state control may then limit the ability of China’s fashion-driven soft power to achieve widespread international influence.
Conclusion
Li Ziqi’s journey from individual influencer to state-backed cultural ambassador encapsulates the delicate interplay of fashion, digital mediation, and cultural aesthetics in China’s evolving soft power strategy. State agendas, local government initiatives, and platform dynamics all have a role in shaping these trends.
Whether this model can extend beyond domestic and diaspora audiences will be a key test of China’s ability to wield fashion and lifestyle aesthetics as sustainable tools of global influence. Its success may depend on navigating tensions – balancing authenticity with marketability, grassroots creativity with state narratives, and digital engagement with geopolitical constraints.
Ultimately, if successful, China could redefine soft power through influencer-led diplomacy. If not, it may expose the contradictions of state-aligned, platform-mediated cultural branding – where global influence is limited not by cultural richness, but by the structures through which it is disseminated.
