An inflatable Labubu in Victoria Harbour on October 25, 2025, in Hong Kong. | Hou Yu/China News Service/VCG via Getty Images

To say that China had a successful 2025 would be an understatement.

According to President Donald Trump’s campaign agenda and early months of his second administration, the United States was going to be tough on China. Trump went heavy on tariffs, limited chip exports, and tried to assert dominance over the country.

A year later, you’d have trouble finding evidence of it.

Instead, China has prospered by exercising hard economic power over the US — by wielding its newfound soft power. If you didn’t catch the blockbuster Chinese movie Nhe Zha 2 or play Black Myth: Wukong, you likely caught wind of a Labubu.

But why did these cultural exports finally leave China now? And how might it impact China’s growing hard power over the US?

To find out, Today, Explained senior producer and reporter Miles Bryan spoke with Don Weinland, a China business and finance editor for The Economist based in Shanghai.

Below is an excerpt of their conversation, edited for length and clarity. There’s much more in the full podcast, so listen to Today, Explained wherever you get podcasts, including Apple Podcasts, Pandora, and Spotify.

How would you define [China’s] soft power?

The first thing to say is that China massively underpunches on its cultural exports. This is the world’s second biggest economy, an incredible manufacturing power unparalleled elsewhere. And yet on cultural exports, it is really not doing very well on that front.

This is something........

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