{"id":2794,"date":"2025-10-26T07:24:41","date_gmt":"2025-10-26T07:24:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/firearmupgrades.com\/?p=2794"},"modified":"2025-10-26T07:24:41","modified_gmt":"2025-10-26T07:24:41","slug":"labubu-dolls-show-whats-needed-for-chinas-soft-power-success","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/firearmupgrades.com\/?p=2794","title":{"rendered":"Labubu\u00a0Dolls Show What’s Needed for China’s Soft Power Success\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"


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It is just possible that posterity will mark Oct. 13 as\u00a0peak\u00a0Labubu. At a Shanghai exhibition celebrating the 10th anniversary of the plush toy,\u00a0Apple CEO Tim Cook\u00a0posed\u00a0for the cameras with\u00a0a custom doll\u00a0bearing\u00a0his\u00a0signature black turtleneck and glasses.\u00a0\u201cI\u2019m putting it right on my desk,\u201d he\u00a0told China Daily<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The leadership at Pop Mart, the Chinese company that produces the dolls, will have been gratified by resulting spike in its share price. But\u00a0this success seems short-lived.\u00a0On Chinese social media, Cook\u2019s enthusiasm\u00a0was received with wry amusement: His doll was\u00a0dubbed<\/a> \u201cTimbubu\u201d and \u201cLakuku.\u201d\u00a0And in\u00a0the West, the endorsement of an aging tech titan is more likely to be a kiss of death than a spur for sales.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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It is just possible that posterity will mark Oct. 13 as\u00a0peak\u00a0Labubu. At a Shanghai exhibition celebrating the 10th anniversary of the plush toy,\u00a0Apple CEO Tim Cook\u00a0posed\u00a0for the cameras with\u00a0a custom doll\u00a0bearing\u00a0his\u00a0signature black turtleneck and glasses.\u00a0\u201cI\u2019m putting it right on my desk,\u201d he\u00a0told China Daily<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The leadership at Pop Mart, the Chinese company that produces the dolls, will have been gratified by resulting spike in its share price. But\u00a0this success seems short-lived.\u00a0On Chinese social media, Cook\u2019s enthusiasm\u00a0was received with wry amusement: His doll was\u00a0dubbed<\/a> \u201cTimbubu\u201d and \u201cLakuku.\u201d\u00a0And in\u00a0the West, the endorsement of an aging tech titan is more likely to be a kiss of death than a spur for sales.<\/p>\n

Still,\u00a0even if\u00a0Labubu\u00a0goes\u00a0the way of Pet Rock and Tamagotchi,\u00a0it deserves more than a footnote in the history of toy fads. The\u00a0bug-eyed creature\u00a0with the\u00a0somewhat unsettling grin\u00a0has\u00a0accomplished\u00a0what\u00a0China\u2019s leaders have long coveted: genuine, unforced penetration into Western cultural consciousness.\u00a0Labubu\u00a0may be the first true manifestation of Chinese soft power in the modern era.\u00a0Its popularity\u00a0in Europe and the United States, achieved virally and organically rather than through state sponsorship, is\u00a0exactly the kind\u00a0of success\u00a0Chinese\u00a0officials and academics have spent\u00a0decades\u00a0trying\u2014and failing\u2014to\u00a0manufacture.<\/p>\n


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People wait in line to visit a new Pop Mart store at night.<\/figcaption>

People wait in line to visit the new Pop Mart store selling Labubu toys at a shopping mall in Berlin on July 25.Tobias Schwarz\/AFP via Getty Images<\/span> <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

For years,\u00a0China\u2019s think tanks<\/a>\u00a0and academic institutions have treated soft power like a mathematical problem to be solved.\u00a0They\u2019ve\u00a0studied Joseph Nye\u2019s theories, dissected Hollywood\u2019s formulae, and analyzed K-pop\u2019s global dominance.\u00a0The results have been predictably underwhelming. Confucius Institutes, meant to spread Chinese language and culture,\u00a0have\u00a0instead become lightning rods for suspicion about political interference. State-backed films with eight- and nine-figure budgets have flopped in Western markets.\u00a0The country\u2019s\u00a0most successful cultural export\u2014TikTok\u2014succeeds by disguising its origins,\u00a0operating\u00a0at arm\u2019s length from Beijing and avoiding Chinese content in Western feeds.<\/p>\n

The frustration in Chinese policy circles is palpable and well documented. Wang Huning, now a member of the Politburo and widely regarded as\u00a0President Xi Jinping\u2019s\u00a0chief ideologue, was the first to introduce soft power thinking to China\u2019s political establishment. In 1993, just three years after Nye\u2019s seminal essay on soft power in the pages of this magazine, Wang\u00a0published\u00a0\u201cCulture as National\u00a0Strength: Soft Power<\/u>\u201d\u00a0in the\u00a0Fudan Journal.<\/em>\u00a0He\u00a0argued that culture serves as the foundation for soft power and\u00a0has\u00a0the capacity to influence other countries\u00a0and populations. The following year, he warned that\u00a0in the post-Cold War\u00a0era,\u00a0\u201cculture conflict\u201d\u00a0had surpassed military\u00a0pressure\u00a0as the greatest threat to sovereignty, noting that\u00a0\u201cWestern countries are increasingly employing their cultural strength to constrain or influence world affairs.\u201d<\/p>\n

China\u2019s leadership took these warnings to heart. At the 17th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party in 2007, then-President Hu Jintao\u00a0declared<\/a>\u00a0that\u00a0\u201cthe great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation will definitely be accompanied by the thriving of Chinese culture.\u201d\u00a0Beijing, Hu said,\u00a0must \u201cenhance culture as part of the soft power of our country.\u201d\u00a0He\u00a0pledged to\u00a0\u201cfurther publicize the fine traditions of Chinese culture [and] strengthen international cultural exchanges to \u2026 enhance the influence of Chinese culture worldwide.\u201d<\/p>\n


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A visitor poses for a photo with Labubu graffiti<\/figcaption>

A visitor poses for a photo with Labubu graffiti while holding a Labubu toy, in Chengdu, China, on June 23.Chen Yusheng\/VCG via Getty Images<\/span> <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

These\u00a0high-level directives\u00a0set off\u00a0strenuous efforts\u00a0by\u00a0legions of Chinese\u00a0diplomats\u00a0and think-tankers.\u00a0Inevitably, many looked to example of South Korea, which was flexing outsize soft power muscles through\u00a0TV serials and K-Pop.\u00a0The\u00a0author of a 2024 paper,\u00a0Analysis of Korean Pop Music: The Enlightenment for Chinese Pop Music<\/em><\/a>,\u00a0noted that, \u201cAt present, Chinese scholars are conscious of the need to learn from the successful methods of the Korean wave.\u201d<\/p>\n

How\u00a0could it be,\u00a0the\u00a0Chinese academicians wondered,\u00a0that South Korea, with a fraction of China\u2019s resources and population, had\u00a0made K-pop and Korean dramas into global phenomena? How\u00a0could\u00a0a country of\u00a052 million people\u00a0generate more cultural enthusiasm than a civilization of 1.4 billion?<\/p>\n

The\u00a0scholars and officials\u00a0were\u00a0missing\u00a0the essential point: Authentic cultural appeal cannot be manufactured by committee or decreed from above.\u00a0Generating soft power is not simply a matter of finding the right algorithm and\u00a0allocating\u00a0sufficient resources.<\/p>\n

Enter\u00a0Labubu, stage left, looking like something between a nightmare and a cuddle toy.<\/p>\n

The character\u2014created by Hong Kong artist\u00a0Kasing\u00a0Lung\u2014has somehow become the must-have collectible of 2024 and 2025, with celebrity endorsements that read like a fever dream of global pop culture.\u00a0Ironically, it took a K-Pop star to start the trend:\u00a0In April 2024, Blackpink\u2019s Lisa was spotted hugging a large version of the toy, and also with\u00a0Labubu\u00a0keychains dangling from her Louis Vuitton bag.\u00a0This set off a\u00a0celebrity stampede\u00a0in the West: Rihanna,\u00a0Dua Lipa,\u00a0and\u00a0Kim Kardashian flaunted their\u00a0Labubus; David Beckham\u00a0got\u00a0one\u00a0from\u00a0his daughter, Harper; Madonna celebrated\u00a0her 67th birthday with a giant\u00a0Labubu\u00a0cake; Lady Gaga received\u00a0a custom doll and was declared\u00a0\u201cGaBuBu\u201d;\u00a0Lizzo who wrote a song about hers; fashion designer Marc Jacobs\u00a0launched\u00a0a\u00a0Labubu\u00a0AirPods case.<\/p>\n

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A performer in a Labubu costume dances, surrounded by a large crowd of people.<\/figcaption>

A performer in a Labubu costume dances for visitors at the Pop Land theme park in Beijing on July 17.Kevin Frayer\/Getty Images<\/span> <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

To the officials and scholars, this will all\u00a0have seemed mystifying. After all,\u00a0Labubu\u00a0is about as far as you can get from the Beijing officialdom\u2019s idea of a Chinese cultural icon for global consumption. The doll\u2019s\u00a0aesthetic is deliberately off-putting: those enormous vacant eyes, the protruding teeth, the vaguely unsettling proportions that make you uncertain whether you\u2019re looking at something adorable or disturbing. A state-sponsored character would be carefully\u00a0focus-grouped, politically vetted, and\u00a0optimized\u00a0for mass appeal\u2014which is precisely why it would fail.<\/p>\n

Labubu\u00a0succeeds because it\u00a0emerges\u00a0from the messy, organic process of genuine creative culture. It carries no political message, promotes no national agenda, and requires no cultural literacy to appreciate\u2014or,\u00a0perhaps more\u00a0accurately, to puzzle over. Its appeal is in its\u00a0weirdness,\u00a0its defiant refusal to be conventionally cute. In an oversaturated market of calculated charm,\u00a0Labubu\u00a0feels authentic precisely because it seems designed to repel as much as attract.<\/p>\n


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A tall man signs a Labubu sculpture.<\/figcaption>

Toy designer and Labubu creator Kasing Lung signs the Labubu Installation at Hong Kong International Airport on Sept. 22. Li Zhihua\/China News Service\/VCG via Getty Images<\/span> <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

It is no coincidence that its creator is from Hong Kong.\u00a0The city has historically punched far above its weight in cultural export, particularly through martial arts cinema. Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, and John Woo films captured global imaginations not because they were backed by state resources, but because they\u00a0emerged\u00a0from a unique creative ecosystem where East met West, tradition collided with modernity, and artists\u00a0operated\u00a0with relative creative freedom. Hong Kong\u2019s cultural products succeeded internationally because they\u00a0weren\u2019t\u00a0trying to\u00a0represent\u00a0or promote China\u2014they were simply trying to entertain, to innovate, to surprise.<\/p>\n

This points to the fundamental paradox at the heart of Beijing\u2019s soft power dilemma. The more deliberately China tries to generate cultural influence, the more obviously manufactured and politically motivated it appears. Western audiences, having grown sophisticated about propaganda after decades of Cold War conditioning, can smell instrumentalized culture from miles away. When every cultural product seems designed to make China look good, none of them\u00a0actually succeed\u00a0in doing so.<\/p>\n