TITLE:
The Significance and Challenges of International Dissemination of Chinese Culture under the Belt and Road Initiative
AUTHORS:
Jiaojiao Li
KEYWORDS:
Chinese Cultural Dissemination, Belt and Road Initiative, International Exchange, Cultural Identity, Digital Media
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Social Sciences,
Vol.13 No.10,
October
24,
2025
ABSTRACT: The Silk Road historically served as a vital corridor for economic trade and cultural exchange between Eastern and Western civilizations. In 2013, Chinese President Xi Jinping proposed the strategic vision of jointly building the “Silk Road Economic Belt” and the “21st Century Maritime Silk Road”, charting a course for global economic development. After several years of progress, the Belt and Road Initiative has evolved into one of the world’s most significant regional economic cooperation mechanisms, with China gradually emerging as a key participant in global governance. From May 14 to 15, 2017, the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation was held in Beijing. This high-level forum, convened on the fifth anniversary of the initiative’s proposal, attracted representatives from over 130 countries, including 39 foreign leaders. It advanced cooperation goals in policy coordination, infrastructure connectivity, unimpeded trade, financial integration, and people-to-people bonds, yielding a series of outcomes. The Belt and Road Initiative presents favorable opportunities for the international dissemination of Chinese culture, yet it also faces new challenges. Against this backdrop, this paper adopts cultural soft power theory as its guiding framework and employs cultural communication theory as its analytical tool. Specifically, it draws upon Stuart Hall’s encoding-decoding model to analyze meaning loss in information transmission and integrates Joseph Nye’s concept of cultural soft power to evaluate communication effectiveness and influence. Building upon this foundation, the study examines the international dissemination of Chinese culture under the Belt and Road Initiative to explore how to advance its global outreach in this new context. The paper first assesses the current state of Chinese cultural dissemination, analyzing its strengths and weaknesses while highlighting the opportunities presented by the Belt and Road Initiative. It then discusses the challenges confronting the international transmission of Chinese culture. It then elucidates the essence of Chinese cultural dissemination and analyzes its significance within the Belt and Road Initiative. Building on the preceding discussion, the paper proposes effective pathways to enhance the international dissemination of Chinese culture, including: telling compelling Chinese stories, enhancing media outreach, establishing online dissemination platforms, strengthening the internationalization of the Chinese language, implementing brand strategies, and advancing cultural outreach. Finally, the author reflects on and summarizes this topic based on personal experience.