China Builds Global Infrastructure for Cultural Industries, Impact on Indonesia?

China is increasingly shifting its strategy in overseas cultural industries from exporting finished content to exporting the underlying infrastructure. Online literature, games, and micro-dramas, dubbed the "New Three," are becoming key pillars of China's cultural exports due to their ease of translation, localization, and distribution via digital platforms. The Lingang New Area in Shanghai has launched an AI-powered overseas service station for micro-dramas, establishing service points in Saudi Arabia, Singapore, the United Kingdom, and Switzerland. This initiative aims to help Chinese companies navigate foreign regulations, localize content, and build distribution networks, offering integrated support from content development to distribution. Rather than simply helping companies sell finished dramas abroad, it integrates several stages of the export process into one system. Furthermore, Guangxi Publishing & Media Group's AI platform, FLYTOTO, connects Chinese production teams with audiovisual institutions in Southeast Asia, providing script analysis, automated video production, multilingual translation, and distribution support. This aims to foster co-creation of micro-dramas between China and ASEAN countries, as evidenced by the accompanying China-ASEAN Micro-Drama Competition. This infrastructure export strategy goes beyond merely delivering Chinese stories abroad. It also involves the potential exercise of "platform soft power," where platforms themselves shape what audiences see through recommendation systems, data, monetization, and user engagement. Increasingly, content may be produced by creators outside China, blurring the lines between exporting Chinese culture and producing culture for foreign markets. A Chinese company can operate the platform and provide the infrastructure while the content itself is increasingly created by writers and producers outside China. This trend could lead to enhanced capabilities for Chinese companies in producing and distributing cultural content within Southeast Asian markets, including Indonesia, potentially deepening collaboration with local creators and media industries. However, the impact is likely to be multifaceted, as content provided through Chinese platforms and technology may not always directly reflect China. Companies have strong commercial reasons to build production and distribution networks abroad, and adapting content to local audiences can make its Chinese origins less visible. But it does change what Chinese companies are capable of doing in foreign markets, as they gain infrastructure and local connections that allow them to produce and distribute cultural content across borders.