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Source: People's Republic of China in Russian – People's Republic of China in Russian –
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Source: People's Republic of China – State Council News
BEIJING, July 21 (Xinhua) — Before 2025, few could have predicted that a quirky plush doll with a toothy smile would capture the hearts of social media users around the world and spark a global buying frenzy. Labubu, created by Chinese toy maker Pop Mart, is becoming a new icon of the “intellectual property economy,” a booming sector in China’s economic landscape.
A buzzword in China, the “IP economy” refers to the process of transforming intangible cultural assets—such as stories, characters, and brands—into a variety of products and services. The sector spans film and television, video games, animation, cultural creations, consumer goods, and many other areas.
As the latest example of the IP economy, Labubu is rapidly evolving from a pop culture phenomenon to a high-yield collectible that is taking over the global market. The planet was recently stunned when a mint-colored Labubu doll sold at an auction in Beijing for over 1 million yuan. Fueled by the high demand for the doll, Pop Mart’s revenue in the first quarter of 2025 soared 165-170 percent year-on-year.
Along with other successful Chinese IP assets such as the animated blockbuster “Ne Zha 2” and the video game “Black Myth: Wukong,” Labubu illustrates a growing trend in China: the transformation of culture and creativity, enhanced by advanced technology, into business opportunities across a wide range of sectors.
TECHNOLOGICALLY DRIVEN CULTURAL REVIVAL
With a history of more than five thousand years, China has a wealth of cultural treasures. However, reviving traditional culture in a modern way that appeals to younger generations, who are becoming the main consumer group, remains a challenge.
With its innovation-driven development strategy and impressive technological achievements, China has paved a new path for cultural revival: transforming cultural classics into IP assets using cutting-edge technology.
According to Wang Linsheng, a senior researcher at the Beijing Academy of Social Sciences, such a transformation cannot be completed by simply copying ideas and concepts or presenting classics in digital form. Rather, it is a process of reinterpreting objects of the classic cultural layer of Chinese civilization to breathe new life into these eternal treasures.
"With the support of digital technology, China combines cultural classics with modern IP management methods, aiming to transform traditional elements into products that meet the latest aesthetic trends and consumer demand," Wang Linsheng said.
His words are supported by the game “Black Myth: Wukong”, inspired by the classic Chinese literary masterpiece “Journey to the West”. Revealing the legendary adventures of Sun Wukong, also known as the Monkey King, the game uses a range of advanced visual technologies to provide realistic scenes and an immersive experience for players of all cultural backgrounds.
With its technological reimagining of a classic Chinese story, the game has transcended cultural boundaries and become a global hit. On the day of its official release, Black Myth: Wukong topped the charts of Steam, the world's largest gaming platform, and has since dominated many other gaming markets around the world.
Commenting on how technology is fueling China's current IP boom, Chen Gang, an analyst at Soochow Securities, noted that advanced technologies such as 5G and cloud rendering are helping the country overcome the time and space limitations of traditional communication methods, thereby allowing Chinese cultural and entertainment products to reach a wider audience.
In recent years, cultural sectors have become a powerful catalyst for China's economic growth. According to the National Bureau of Statistics, China's per capita expenditure on education, culture and entertainment reached 3,189 yuan in 2024, up 9.8 percent from a year earlier and accounting for 11.3 percent of the country's total per capita consumer spending.
Highlighting the role of IP economy in driving economic growth, Wang Linsheng said IP goes beyond just culture or entertainment. The transformation of cultural classics into IP should be based on modern industrial development models, he added, noting that the process also involves various related sectors related to digital media.
EMERGING INDUSTRIAL CHAIN
As China's IP economy continues to unleash its enormous growth potential, it is fostering an industrial chain that involves more and more upstream and downstream enterprises working together to create high-quality products.
The Chinese fantasy animated film “Nezha 2,” which has already become the highest-grossing film in Chinese cinema history, has caused a “chain reaction” in various industries. To date, more than 10 types of related products based on the film have been planned and launched.
Earlier this year, Pop Mart released a series of mystery boxes with a Nezha-themed designer toy on its online store on Tmall, a major Chinese online shopping platform. Just eight days after the series was released, the surprise boxes generated over 10 million yuan in revenue. In addition, other related products such as trading cards and plush toys also gained significant popularity.
By promoting industrial integration based on original IP assets, China is well positioned to build a full industrial chain covering online literature, film and television, games and related products, said Hong Tao, vice chairman of the China Society for Consumer Economy.
“This full industrial chain development model can expand the application scenarios of intellectual property and help build bridges between the virtual world and reality, thereby generating greater commercial value and economic benefits,” Hong Tao added.
To achieve this goal, analysts suggested that the country should promote the harmonization of all links in the industrial chain. This can be achieved through the integration of independent IP objects and their systematic, coordinated development.
“Chinese IP assets can learn from the Marvel universe, which brings together various superheroes in a single narrative structure,” Chen Gang said, adding that the growth model of the American pop culture icon has shown the way to strengthen the interconnectivity and coordination between different IP assets.
Looking ahead, Wei Pengju, a scholar at the Central University of Finance and Economics, said China should welcome global cooperation in developing its original IP assets. “In this way, the country can make full use of its IP resources and build an international IP system that integrates both cultural and economic values,” he added. -0-
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