China's online literature expands overseas readership in cultural export push
HONG KONG, June 17 (Reuters) - China counted over a half billion consumers of online literature last year - a record - according to an official report, while the number of overseas users also jumped as authorities promoted the industry as a cultural export and soft power tool.
China's online literature, which includes web novels in a variety of genres accessible via smart phones, tablets and e-readers, has seen a boom over the past decade with the number of authors and readers soaring.
A report by the Chinese Literature Institute, under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said on Sunday that the growth was driven by younger consumers.
Readers aged 26 to 45 accounted for half the total readership, the report said.
The number of online literature consumers in China grew 10.6% year on year in 2024 to 575 million, or nearly half of all citizens.
The number of overseas users, meanwhile, reached 352 million, including readers from more than 200 countries, with the market growing 16.5% year on year to a value of 5.07 billion yuan ($706.12 million).
The report called online literature a new channel for "telling Chinese stories well and deepening exchanges and mutual learning among civilisations", adding that it had improved the "country's cultural soft power." Science fiction in particular was developing rapidly, it added.
With a growth rate of 180%, Japan was the fastest developing foreign market. Britain, Greece, Spain, Brazil, France and Germany also showed strong growth, it said.
Chinese online literature has the largest readership in Asia, which accounts for about 80% of all readers globally and over 50% of global market share by value, the report said.
China Literature Ltd (0772.HK), opens new tab, a leading Chinese online literary reading and writing platform owned by Tencent (0700.HK), opens new tab, has turned many of its online literature works into television and web series, movies and games. Its Hong Kong-listed shares have climbed 23% so far this year.
($1 = 7.1801 Chinese yuan renminbi)
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"I've been warned not to talk about it," the woman wrote, before revealing snippets of the day she says she was arrested for publishing gay erotica."I'll never forget it - being escorted to the car in full view, enduring the humiliation of stripping naked for examination in front of strangers, putting on a vest for photos, sitting in the chair, shaking with fear, my heart pounding."The handle, Pingping Anan Yongfu, is among at least eight in recent months which have shared accounts on Chinese social media platform Weibo of being arrested for publishing gay erotic fiction. As authors recounted their experiences, dozens of lawyers offered pro bono least 30 writers, nearly all of them women in their 20s, have been arrested across the country since February, a lawyer defending one told the BBC. Many are out on bail or awaiting trial, but some are still in custody. 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Although authors of heterosexual erotica have been jailed in China, observers say the genre is subjected to far less censorship. Gay erotica, which is more subversive, seems to bother authorities more. Volunteers in a support group for the Haitang writers told the BBC police even questioned some who reported being arrested declined to be interviewed, fearing repercussions. Police in the northwestern city of Lanzhou, who are accused of driving this crackdown, have not responded to the the crackdown has unleashed a debate - and a rarer pushback against the law."Is sex really something to be ashamed of?" a Weibo user asked, arguing that China's anti-obscenity laws are out of touch. Another wrote that women never get to decide what is obscene because they don't control the narrative. Even legal scholars have expressed concern that just 5,000 views for anything deemed "obscene" qualifies as criminal "distribution", lowering the bar to arrest made Beijing uneasy enough that discussions have been vanishing: #HaitangAuthorsArrested drew more than 30 million views on Weibo before it was censored. Posts offering legal advice are gone. A prominent Chinese news site's story has been taken down. Writers' accounts, and some of the handles, are also Pingping Anan Yongfu's post went viral, she deleted it and wrote another, thanking supporters and admitting her writing had violated the law. She then deleted her that last post, she had written: "I was always the good girl in my parents' eyes. But that day, I brought them nothing but shame. They'll never hold their heads up again." Danmei: The uncrowned royal of pop culture These women have long worked in the shadows in China, where homosexuality and eroticism are stigmatised. Now outed by police investigations, they face social consequences that are as brutal as the legal ones. "In that moment, all I felt was shame," posted a writer whose Weibo handle translates to "the world is a huge psychiatric hospital". She said the police pulled her out of class in college - and her classmates watched as they followed her to search her dorm."I earned my money word by word at a keyboard. But once it went south, it was as if none of that mattered. People treated me like I'd made money without ever working for it."Another wrote the police had been kind, advising her to speak to a lawyer and return her "illegal earnings" to reduce her sentence. "I'm only 20. So young, and I've already ruined my life so early."A third said: "I never imagined a day would come when every word I once wrote would come back to haunt me."One author who has been writing danmei novels for 20 years was not questioned but she says the crackdown won't stop her. "This is how I find happiness. And I can't let go of the connections I have made with the community."Inspired by Japanese boys' love manga, danmei emerged as a sub-genre online in the 1990s. It has become hugely successful, with some of the novels appearing on international bestseller lists. In 2021, 60 of them were optioned for film and TV adaptations. The most expensive IP reportedly sold for 40 million yuan ($5.6 million; £4.1 million). Some of China's biggest stars, such as Xiao Zhan and Wang Yibo, began their careers on streaming shows based on danmei novels. In short, it's the rebellious royal of pop culture - too popular to ignore, too controversial to it is a signature offering on Haitang, which, in Mandarin, is a flower that blooms in every shade of Haitang and danmei have flourished as uniquely female spaces, although they centre male protagonists. In a culture where female sexual desire is routinely policed, danmei beceme a coded, creative outlet - a space where women can write about female desire for other is exactly what makes danmei so "subversive", says Dr Liang Ge, who teaches digital sociology at University College London. It allows women to "detach from gendered realities", which they often associate with marriage and instance, in danmei stories, men can get pregnant and are at ease with being vulnerable – a stark contrast from the often unequal relationships many Chinese women struggle with in real life."Danmei frees me from thinking about all those potential dangers in relationships in traditional heterosexual romance," explains one writer who has been active in the danmei world for a novels are not without their critics, because some do contain extreme and violent scenes. "As a parent, how many of us can accept our children reading novels like this, let alone writing them?" asked one Weibo age of authors has also been a concern: a handful of those the BBC spoke to said they all started reading and writing gay erotica before they turned 18, some as young as 11. It's a problem the community should acknowledge and address, said Ma, a danmei writer who only shared her surname, adding that this is a problem for all adult content because China does not restrict content by danmei in particular has increasingly come under attack in the last decade as Beijing launched a series of campaigns to "clean up" the internet. In 2018 a danmei author was jailed for 10 years for selling 7,000 copies of her book titled Occupy. 'My earnings were evidence of my crime' As marriage and birth rates plummet, and China's leader Xi Jinping encourages a national rejuvenation, so state scrutiny of danmei has ratcheted up, Dr Ge says."The Chinese government wants to promote traditional family values and liking danmei novels is seen as a factor in making women less willing to have children," Dr Ge is the second wave of mass arrests in less than a year - late last year, some 50 Haitang writers were prosecuted. A famous author who earned about 1.85 million yuan was jailed for nearly five two crackdowns are similar, according to a lawyer who had represented some of the defendants last year, "but this time, even those with minor involvement weren't spared".A lawyer offering free legal advice said more than 150 people requested consultations in just two days. Many of those contacting her had not been charged yet - they were terrified about the possibility though."This is classic offshore fishing," says a lawyer who authored a "practical guide" to assist Haitang writers. The term refers to overreach by local police - those in Lanzhou summoned writers in various places, arguably beyond their reported paying out of pocket to fly to Lanzhou. One posted that the 2,000 yuan earned from two books on Haitang paid for the year too all the arrests were by police in Jixi County in eastern China. Indebted local governments have done this before to earn revenue through fines, sometimes forcing a warning from the central government. Cyber crimes are particularly prone to this "as long as they claim a local reader was corrupted", the lawyer says. Danmei writers know tolerance can be fickle. It's why they skirt censorship with metaphors. "Making dinner" means sex; "kitchen tool" is code for male the recent crackdown stunned them. "A phone call shattered my dreams," is how one writer described the call from accused police of searching their phone without a warrant. They said their crime was assessed by adding up the views for each chapter - a method they argued was misleading, as it likely exaggerated the danmei author posted: "I wrote on Haitang for years, with only a handful of readers. Then, those overlooked stories accumulated over 300,000 clicks, and the 4,000 yuan in royalties sitting in my account became evidence of my crime."It's hard to know if this spells the end of their careers on Haitang."If I could go back, I'd still choose to write. And I will keep writing," wrote the handle Sijin de Sijin."Right now, I can only hope the law will see beyond the words on the page - and see the girl who skipped meals to save money, the girl who sold her hair to buy a pen, the girl who believed her mind could carve a way through fate. I hope it gives all of us a fair chance."Additional reporting by Grace Tsoi in Hong Kong
