Approximately 200 million active overseas users, covering over 200 countries and regions worldwide

Approximately 5000 physical books have been distributed, and nearly 130000 e-books have been distributed

There are 1.3 million overseas local authors and over 2 million overseas local works

The translation and dissemination system is gradually improving, IP globalization is steadily advancing, and overseas platforms and community ecology are becoming increasingly active... In recent years, the international dissemination of Chinese online literature has shown various highlights, breaking through the single content dissemination mode and moving towards a new stage of co creation and exploration of new forms of world culture, gradually becoming a world-class cultural phenomenon.

From September 26th to 29th, the 2025 China International Online Literature Week, jointly hosted by the Chinese Writers Association, Zhejiang Provincial People's Government, and Hangzhou Municipal People's Government, was held in Hangzhou, Zhejiang. Hundreds of guests gathered by the White Horse Lake to engage in in-depth exchanges on the theme of "New Power, New Pattern, and New Form - Global Landscape of Online Literature Empowered by AI".

During the event, the organizer released the "International Communication Report on Chinese Online Literature (2025)" (hereinafter referred to as the "Report"), and held activities such as a tour of the Online Literature Industry Experience Hall, an International Roundtable on Online Literature, an Overseas Negotiation Conference on Online Literature, and the "Beautiful China International Writing Plan" to build a platform for dialogue and communication between the Chinese and foreign industries.

High quality content is the foundation

In recent years, the trend of mainstream and high-quality Chinese online literature has further strengthened, and the value of online literature is being recognized by multiple parties. In China, the 17th "Five One Projects" Award for Spiritual Civilization Construction of the Central Propaganda Department in 2024 will for the first time list online literature and award 10 outstanding works, including "The Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter of Tao Sanyuan", "Binjiang Police Affairs" (Part 1), and "We Live in Nanjing"; In foreign countries, after 16 Chinese online literature works were collected in the British Library in 2022, another 10 works including "We Live in Nanjing" were included in 2024. In addition, many works were collected in European cultural institutions such as the Italian Writers Association and the Channing Pavilion Library in the UK.

The rich and exciting stories, diverse subject types, and massive volume of works provide strong content support for Chinese online literature to go global. According to data from 50 key online literature platforms nationwide, as of the end of 2024, the total number of online literature works exceeded 33 million, with an annual increase of 2 million, a year-on-year increase of 7%. These rich and high-quality online content can meet the needs of readers from different regions, genders, and reading preferences overseas, and evoke emotional resonance across borders.

The internet writer's raging snail started a business in Hangzhou in 2014. Nowadays, his works have been translated into over 10 languages and distributed to countries such as France, Russia, Vietnam, and North America. His comics have also been digitally published on multiple online platforms overseas, and physical comic books have sold hundreds of thousands of copies in France. Why can China's online culture attract a global audience? I believe this is closely related to the high degree of inclusiveness and diversity of online culture, "said the raging snail.

The report shows that currently, there are about 200 million active users of Chinese online literature overseas, covering more than 200 countries and regions worldwide. The total number of readers in Asia accounts for 80% of the world's total, with a market share of over 50%. North America accounts for about 30%, and Europe, Latin America, and other regions are becoming new growth points. In Southeast Asia, where there are more female readers, female works are quite popular; In East Asia, Japanese and Korean readers have rich experience in reading genre literature and prefer novel world settings and complex character settings; In Europe and America, male oriented works account for a large proportion, with cultivation, fantasy, urban, fantasy adventure, and detective suspense works being more popular. Cultivation themes are widely popular in North America.

Most of the internet literature works with outstanding overseas dissemination effects integrate world commonalities and Chinese characteristics. The report mentions that such works have three characteristics: first, they have universal empathy points. Full time Master "interprets a sense of honor and team spirit through the shared online gaming experience of players worldwide, with a cumulative global reading volume exceeding 130 million times. The second is a unique setting system. As "Lord of the Mysteries" pioneered the "role-playing method" and sequence upgrade system, the English version has been read over 60 million times and has received strong feedback in the European and American markets. The third is to highlight the symbols of Chinese culture. The Tian Dao Library, with "respecting teachers and valuing the Way" as its core, combines with academy culture to showcase the unique spiritual essence of Chinese culture. Its translated version has covered more than 10 languages and has been read over 180 million times overseas.

Jointly expand communication channels

Since its launch, our platform Chireads. com has become the largest community of Chinese literature enthusiasts in the French cultural circle. Readers are distributed in France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Morocco, Quebec, Canada, and other places. Everyone has different backgrounds, but they all find resonance and joy in the stories of Chinese online literature. ”At the speech segment of the 2025 China International Online Literature Week, Charles Dewey, co-founder and editor in chief of France's Yuanqi Reading, immediately caught the attention of the audience.

In 2007, Charles Dewey was deeply attracted to Chinese online literature when he first came into contact with it. In 2017, he collaborated with friends to establish Yuanqi Reading, with hundreds of translators involved in translating Chinese online literature. At present, the platform has obtained French translation authorization and digital copyright from multiple Chinese online literature websites, becoming the world's largest French speaking Chinese online translation forum. Under the promotion of Charles Dewey, "The Lord of the Mysteries" was favored by a French publishing house, which planned to release a physical book translation.

The report shows that currently, text translation and dissemination are the main forms of online literature dissemination in China. With the establishment of overseas sites on Chinese online literature platforms such as WebNovel (Qidian International), TapRead, iReader, and Fizzo, large-scale online translation dissemination has been achieved, making "global updates" possible. As of the first half of 2025, approximately 5000 physical books of Chinese online literature have been distributed, and nearly 130000 e-books have been distributed, with more than 20 countries including Thailand, Vietnam, Japan, South Korea, the United States, and Russia as radiation points, covering over 200 countries and regions worldwide. Online translated e-books are the absolute subject of text translation and dissemination.

Empowered by artificial intelligence technology, online literature has broken through the efficiency and scale limitations of the era of human translation. At present, AI translation accounts for over 50% of translation works on most platforms, improving translation efficiency by nearly a hundred times and reducing costs by over 90%. Qidian International's AI translation works have reached 7200, accounting for over 70% of its total Chinese translation volume.

The main way for Chinese online literature texts to go global is to authorize paper publishing overseas, translate domestic platform works based on their own overseas websites, and authorize content on reading platforms independently operated by overseas companies. In addition to text going global, IP adaptations such as film and television dramas, micro dramas, and animations have effectively expanded the overseas dissemination scope of Chinese online literature. C-drama (Chinese online literature adaptation), which is popular overseas, has not only become a visual carrier of Chinese culture, but also a global cultural brand, occupying an important position in the world IP cultural circle.

The aesthetic design of the adapted drama "Long Moon Ashes" incorporates elements of Dunhuang, with the "Twelve Gods" modeled after mural art. It continues to dominate the TrueID platform in Thailand, ranking among the top three globally on Netflix. TikTok related topics have been viewed 4.1 billion times, praised by the French newspaper "Provence" as the "visual epic of Eastern civilization", and selected as an excellent IP promotion project for China Central Television's "CPOP" overseas. During its popularity in China, 'Long Moon Ashes' has driven the development of cultural tourism in Bengbu, Xuancheng, and Dunhuang, and is regarded as a typical case of cultural tourism integration. The drama has also received high praise from audiences overseas, "said Liu Xudong, President of Jinjiang Literature City." Currently, we have reached cooperation agreements with hundreds of partners in more than 20 countries and regions, and the types of cooperation have gradually increased from simple foreign language publishing to foreign electronic reading authorization and direct authorization for overseas films, animations, radio dramas, etc

In the view of Professor Li Wei from Nanjing Normal University, one of the core paths for Chinese online literature IP to go global is to use the core of online literature IP as the radiation origin in the context of multimodal collaboration, and expand parallel to fields such as audio, gaming, film and television, animation, micro dramas, and derivatives, building a "one source, multiple uses" full ecological overseas pattern. For example, "The Legend of Mortal Immortal Cultivation" adopts an IP overseas strategy of "online novel audio animation game adapted drama" linkage. The popularity of anime has driven an increase in the reading volume of original works, while the launch of mobile games has also boosted the playback volume of anime. The mutual flow between different modes and the resonance effect generated by multimodal collaboration are worth paying attention to, "said Li Wei.

Entering a new stage of 'narrative going global'

A major highlight of this report is the proposal to actively explore new forms of world culture in Chinese online literature. The report points out that "Chinese online literature has successfully built a localized creative ecosystem overseas, and through a large number of creative practices, participated in global popular culture interpretation, led popular narrative innovation, and has become an important force in promoting global cultural co creation and exploring new forms of world culture

The experience of Qidian International in building a localized creative ecosystem is worth learning from. As the overseas portal of Yuewen Group, Qidian International operates websites in local languages overseas, following the mature mechanism of Qidian Chinese website, forming a full chain of content payment, author signing, and reader interaction, attracting a large number of overseas creators to join. As of the first half of 2025, 500000 overseas original authors have been cultivated, and a total of 770000 original works have been produced, covering 15 major categories and over 100 sub categories. The addition of local creators means that online literature has achieved local reproduction overseas, and stable content ecology has also promoted online literature to enter the global cultural industry cycle system.

In terms of creation, the mutual influence and turbulence of creative trends have placed Chinese and foreign online literature in a global cyberspace field, and online literature has become a literary form rich in universality. Currently, the cross-cultural dissemination of Chinese online literature creation models is promoting innovative narrative methods in world popular literature. After "works going global" and "mechanisms going global", we have entered a new stage of "narrative going global".

The British author's work "My Vampire System" combines the narrative mode of Chinese online literature "systematic literature" with Western vampire themes, forming a cross-cultural mixed narrative. The audio book of the work has been viewed over 240 million times; The narrative structure and plot development rhythm of the well-known Korean work "I Upgrade Alone" are similar to the "upgrade literature" of Chinese online literature, which has promoted the popularity of related Korean comics in the global market. The relevant cases highlight the influence of the narrative framework of Chinese online literature on world popular culture.

At the same time, the cultural symbols of Chinese online literature are also entering the world's popular cultural system. The American author's work "Cultivation Online" directly names characters in Chinese and writes about the "cycle of heaven and earth"; The Indian writer's work 'Walker of the Worlds' incorporates the concept of' Yin Yang and Five Elements'; Brazilian writers incorporate modern Chinese elements such as high-speed trains and pandas into their fantasy works; British writers juxtapose "Harry Potter" and "Sun Wukong" in their works, combining the concept of "universe" in Chinese fantasy novels with Western science fiction architecture. Through cross-cultural translation and transformation, Chinese cultural elements have entered the world's popular cultural system in the form of online literature, stimulating global cultural innovation and creativity.

Zhang Hongsen, Chairman and Party Secretary of the Chinese Writers Association, stated that online literature has made unique contributions to the construction of a new form of world culture. Its serial and accompanying creative mechanisms, as well as the narrative art that emphasizes imagination and readability, have been widely borrowed by overseas literary creators. The adaptation of online literature IP products constantly breaks down national, language, and cultural barriers, becoming an important component of world popular culture.