The actual statistical numbers on Beijing’s “Culture Going Global” implementation may not be readily available. However, we can still gain an understanding of how grandiose and comprehensiveness its effort has been.David Shambaugh, in his article in Foreign Affairs, “China’s Soft-Power Push,” stated, “China’s diplomatic and development schemes form just one part of a much broader agenda aimed at enhancing its soft power in media, publishing, education, the arts, sports, and other domains.
Nobody knows for sure how much China spends on these activities, but analysts estimate that the annual budget for ‘external propaganda’ runs in the neighborhood of $10 billion annually. By contrast, the U.S. Department of State spent $666 million on public diplomacy in fiscal year 2014.”
One of China’s strategies is to place a heavy emphasis on overseas investment in cultural and entertainment industries. According to the American Enterprise Institute’s (AEI’s) “China Global Investment Tracker,” in a seven-year period between 2005 and 2011, China’s overseas investment in the entertainment industry was $1.22 billion. In the following seven-year period between 2012 and 2018, that number increased 40 times to $47.77 billion. According to the “2017 China Performance Market Annual Report,” overseas performances by Chinese performance troupes generated 2.97 billion yuan (US $450 million) in 2017. In 2009, those proceeds were only 77.8 million yuan.
