WHILE many Filipinos online were charmed by Zhang Yingfei – the Chinese actress behind the character of Linda Walker in the Chinese drama, “The Heiress who Won With Brain” – during her visit to the Philippines two weeks ago, certain circles quickly cautioned about her visit as part of the broader “charm offensive” strategy of China to the Philippines.
Such a claim is understandable. Major powers have relied on soft power promotion and public diplomacy strategies to achieve certain diplomatic objectives and interests. Soft power, a concept introduced by the American political scientist Joseph Nye, refers to the capabilities of global actors, particularly states, to achieve certain goals without the use of coercion but through persuasion and attraction strategies. Exercised through various public diplomacy strategies, the currency of soft power promotion relies on several sources, such as values, foreign policy positions, and culture. In this regard, since the end of the Second World War, popular culture has proved to be a potent soft power resource used by states to improve international reputation and standing among foreign publics.
The popularity of Linda Walker’s character, portrayed by Zhang Yingfei, among the Filipino audience tells us about the evolution of China’s soft power promotion, especially in the Philippines. For years, China has struggled to find an audience and markets to export its popular culture abroad. However, these limitations found opportunity with the 2025 social media trend among Gen Z content creators, especially in Western societies, referred to as “Becoming Chinese” or “Chinamaxxxing”. These trends have showcased travel vlogs in various parts of China and social media content showcasing cuisine, fashion, and cultural customs rooted in traditional Chinese culture.
While such a trend is global, the popularity of Chinese culture in Philippine society in 2025 entered via popular culture on social media. Through dance challenges and dubsmash content, many Filipinos on TikTok danced and swayed to the beat of songs by the Chinese rapper Skai Isyourgod. His popularity was followed by the aggressive promotion of Chinese dramas through social media advertisements, which paved the way for the rise in popularity of the fictional character from a Chinese drama with the Anglicized name of Linda Walker during the first half of 2026.
The Filipino-Chinese Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Inc. (FFCCCII) is quick to sense the opportunity behind the popularity of Zhang Yingfei’s character among Filipinos. With the support of the Chinese embassy, the FFCCCII has successfully secured Zhang Yingfei’s schedule for a week-long visit to the Philippines to position herself as an ambassador of education for Filipino students. Her visit was also timely as Manila and Beijing celebrated the 51st anniversary of Philippine-China diplomatic relations last week.
With the warm welcome given to Zhang Yingfei not only by the Filipino public but also by various government officials, I cannot help but ask about the trajectory of Chinese soft power promotion to the Filipino public. This is also in light of the existing efforts of the Chinese embassy in Manila to arrange the visit of another Chinese actor named Zhang Linghe, who also enjoys a significant chunk of Filipino following.
If this trend continues, the support and assistance of the Chinese embassy in Manila now qualify these efforts of Chinese drama (C-Drama) promotion as a form of nation branding. While popular culture is a resource of soft power, East Asian states have grappled with whether their governments should provide support and assistance for popular culture promotion. For instance, existing scholarship on soft power and East Asian popular culture contrasts the experience of Japan and South Korea.
Per existing studies, the stark difference between the popularity of Japanese and South Korean popular culture across the globe lies in the late acknowledgment of the Japanese government to provide government and policy support to its media industry, which is later referred to as “creative industries,” as compared to the proactive support of the South Korean government to the Hallyu Wave. Based on these findings, government support to industries engaged in the production and export of pop culture is crucial for successful soft power promotion.
Despite support from the Chinese embassy, the renewed interest of the Filipino public in modern-day C-Dramas, such as the series where Zhang Yingfei emerged as a star, is a venture facing various challenges and competition. For instance, while C-Dramas are enjoying current public attention, Chinese drama producers need to compete with other established competitors as popular culture consumption of the Filipino public is already occupied by the existing popularity of American, Japanese, South Korean, and Thai series readily available on online streaming sites.
Aside from competition, another obstacle to address refers to the contradiction between the Chinese central government in Beijing and the existing efforts by the Chinese embassy in Manila. While the Chinese embassy supports and assists in securing the commitment of Chinese actors and actresses to visit the Philippines, it is a matter of time for these efforts to encounter friction with the recent directive of China’s National Radio and Television Administration (NRTA) to clampdown on the production of microdramas with sensationalist and wealth-flaunting content – a genre or trope which found success both within the Mainland Chinese and overseas audience, such as the Philippines.
This aspect is important because the popularity of Zhang Yingfei is premised on a trope where her character, Linda Walker, was a victim of a baby switch, which forced her to be raised in a poor province and experience poverty itself until her real family, who owns a conglomerate and is based in the capital city, discovered the anomaly and redeemed her from her former abject situation.
Despite the identified hurdles, the increasing popularity of Cdramas among Filipinos suggests that China’s soft power promotion in the Philippines might be entering a new phase; however, its effects might take time and require consistency from various stakeholders behind these promotion efforts, especially as existing surveys consistently show that Filipinos still opt for the United States over China.
However, the rise of Linda Walker shows an opportunity for the future of people-to-people relations between Filipinos and Chinese. As the Department of Foreign Affairs has consistently maintained, Philippine-China diplomatic relations remain multi-faceted, and it is important to sustain and cultivate other facets of relations despite ongoing political tensions brought by contesting territorial and maritime conflicts between the two nations.
In this regard, the trajectory of Philippine-China relations should not be left alone to diplomats and policymakers. It is important to recognize that these unpopular aspects of Philippine-China bilateral relations are now increasingly, but indirectly, shaped by creative industries stakeholders ranging from scriptwriters, actors, cameramen, streaming platforms, and millions of ordinary viewers scrolling through TikTok and Facebook. Whether this moment develops into a lasting source of Chinese soft power or merely becomes another passing social media trend will ultimately depend on the coherence of maximizing Chinese dramas as a resource of soft power promotion targeting the Filipino public.
Brian Doce is a lecturer in the Department of International Studies of De La Salle University. Since 2017, he has been teaching courses on politics, development studies, and international relations to Filipino undergraduate students. He obtained his master’s degree in International Relations from Jilin University, China, and is currently finishing his PhD in Politics and Global Studies from Murdoch University in Australia.
