Daniel A. BellandWang Pei

Opinion | How a cute baby elephant sheds light on China’s quest for soft power

Xi Jinping has called on officials to promote the image of a ‘lovable’ China, a word that in Chinese literally means ‘cute’

And cuteness – with its power to evoke empathy – does have universal reach, as cat lovers and Western media outlets following the adventures of 15 Chinese elephants can attest to

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Daniel A. BellandWang Pei

Published: 8:30am, 24 Jun 2021Updated: 8:30am, 24 Jun 2021

In a bid to shape international public opinion about China, President Xi Jinping told senior officials that the country needed to present a more “credible, lovable, and respectable” image of China. This surprising formulation is more than a call to tame the “Wolf Warrior” rhetoric. The key word here is ke ai, translated by the official media as “lovable”. But ke ai literally means “cute”.

The idea of cuteness as soft power may seem odd on the face of it. But the rapid spread of what we can term a culture of cuteness – the public affirmation of the cute animals, robots and emojis that inform everyday social interaction – is one of the most fascinating social developments in contemporary China.

The trend for all things adorable started in Japan in the 1970s, when the country was largely ruled by a meritocratic bureaucracy. It was led by teenage girls and eventually filtered through society.

Over the past decade or so, the culture of cuteness has spread to China almost like wildfire. The streets of Chinese cities are populated by ridiculously cute dogs and cats, and the use of emojis has become the norm on social media, even in official settings such as exchanges between university administrators.

In Shanghai’s not-so-cold winters, it has become almost compulsory to dress small dogs in colourful jackets, to the point that it is jarring to spot a naked dog in the streets.

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It’s worth asking why the culture of cuteness has taken root so quickly and deeply in China. We discuss possibilities in our book Just Hierarchy. One explanation is cultural. Cute emojis may be more widespread in East Asian countries that prioritise politeness and indirect talk because online communication cannot be softened by facial expressions of deference or rituals such as bowing.