"Making China Great Again" One Web-Novel At A Time

Summary

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On the Media: “Making China Great Again” One Web-Novel At A Time

Date: June 10, 2026
Hosts: Brooke Gladstone, Micah Loewinger, (Guest Host: Michael Ohinger)
Guest: Rong Bin Han, Professor of International Affairs, University of Georgia

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Episode Overview

This episode delves into the world of Chinese web novels—particularly a genre dedicated to “making China great again”—and explores how these digital stories reflect, shape, and sometimes negotiate China’s national narrative. Professor Rong Bin Han joins On the Media to discuss his research on the phenomenon, revealing fascinating intersections between grassroots imagination, collective memory, state ideology, and the rise of China on the global stage.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Setting the Scene: National Narratives and Global Tensions

• The episode opens with the context of rising tensions between the U.S. and China, referencing a meeting between President Trump and President Xi Jinping.
• Xi invokes the “Thucydides Trap”—the historical idea that rising and established powers are destined for conflict.
• Quote:

  “Xi’s tone that day seemed to be one of both warning and conciliation… [he said] achieving the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation and making America great again can totally go hand in hand...”
  (Michael Ohinger, 01:23)

2. What Are Chinese Web Novels?

• Web novels have become a massive cultural force in China; about half of over a billion internet users are readers, and adaptations into film, television, and games count for millions in revenue yearly.
• Quote:

  “Originally it was a hobby. Now many of those web novels have been adapted to TV dramas, movies, games, comics.”
  (Rong Bin Han, 02:45)

• In 2019, 42 out of the top 100 TV dramas in China were based on web novels. (02:45)

3. “Make China Great Again” Fiction: Fixing the Past

• Han’s research focused on a subgenre where protagonists—usually men—travel back through time to right historical wrongs and “save” China in pivotal eras.
• Typical novels are extremely long—averaging nearly 3 million Chinese characters, comparable to the entire Harry Potter series.
• Quote:

  “They typically involve time traveling back into history and try to save China from various crises or glorify ancient China in one way or the other.”
  (Rong Bin Han, 03:17)

Why Fix the Past?

• The urge to repair historical moments is linked directly to the sense that China is now on the rise and that past losses are the only blemish on national pride.
• Quote:

  “The collective national revival drives people to look into the past and try to make up historical sorrows…Right now is good, future is bright, and the only dark side is in the history.”
  (Rong Bin Han, 04:28)

Popular Target Eras

• The Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) is the most common backdrop due to its status as the last Han Chinese dynasty before foreign rule, and its symbolic association with lost opportunity for modernization.
• Quote:

  “About 52 out of the 200 titles focus on Ming Dynasty… Ming Dynasty, according to the Chinese popular perception, is a critical historical juncture when China started lagging behind, the Western powers started exploring the world.”
  (Rong Bin Han, 05:59)

4. Collective Authorship & Massive Scope

• Highlighted is the novel “Morning Star of Lingao,” written collectively by hundreds online, now exceeding 9 million characters (more than double “War and Peace”).
  • The story: 500 time-travelers arrive in Ming Dynasty China with modern tech and attempt to spark industrialization.
• Quote:

  “It was a collective brainchild of a now expired forum…they started to develop this into a fiction…collective mode of production.”
  (Rong Bin Han, 07:11)
  “It takes a shipload of equipment… and 500 people and takes such a long time for them to occupy a small part of China because they go into details about how their arrival will transform the society.”
  (Rong Bin Han, 08:38)

5. Contrasting Titles & Ideological Innovation

• “F Qing” (meaning “F--- the Qing”) is a novel with an even more aggressive and nationalistic vibe, focused on replacing the Qing dynasty and establishing a new, modern China inspired by Han and Tang eras.
• Many novels propose commercial economies or “capitalist-like” systems, challenging Confucian structures often present in historical China.
• Quote:

  “The majority of them are going to establish, if not capitalist, it’s going to be a commercial economy.”
  (Rong Bin Han, 10:43)

6. Relationship with State Ideology

• The nationalist revival theme aligns with President Xi Jinping’s “Chinese Dream” campaign—but predates it.
• The party did not invent this dream but is riding a pre-existing grassroots wave, sometimes co-opting, sometimes negotiating with these ideas.
• Quote:

  “It’s not something new. Chinese Dream is not something that the party or President Xi invents and then try to impose on Chinese people. Rather…they’re smart enough to really ride with this trend.”
  (Rong Bin Han, 11:17)

• There is room for diversity of thought within these narratives, and authors are rarely punished even when diverging from official lines.
• Quote:

  “The party doesn’t have the capacity to effectively control everything… It’s not even in their best interest… it would benefit the regime in different ways because the party can never produce so many different stories of the Chinese dream.”
  (Rong Bin Han, 12:34)

Why Not Just Use Propaganda?

• State propaganda is generally not effective; people easily spot and tune out government messaging.
• Allowing people to shape the narrative fosters genuine buy-in, or ‘cultural hegemony’ (after Gramsci).
• Quote:

  “If you allow people to actually help construct the ruling ideology and they automatically buy into this ideology…you will be meeting with much less resistance because you helped produce everything.”
  (Rong Bin Han, 14:33)

7. What Do These Novels Reveal?

• Novels often envision radical reforms—commercial economies, banking, intellectual property, sometimes even parliamentary politics or democracy, though these democratic experiments remain limited or ambiguous.
• Quote:

  “Overwhelming majority of those titles would topple economic reforms. They would introduce commercial economy and ultimately most of them, capitalism, echoing China’s economic reform.”
  (Rong Bin Han, 16:08)

8. Why Should the West Care?

• These web novels represent the hopes, dreams, and anxieties of Chinese citizens in a pivotal period of global realignment.
• Understanding these movements gives insight into China’s likely domestic stability and potential global influence.
• Quote:

  “If my findings are correct, I would bet [the political system will be stable in the long run]… All those will bear implications for people in the West.”
  (Rong Bin Han, 17:58)

9. Soft Power & The Global Model

• China’s state must first convince its own people of legitimacy before projecting soft power abroad.
• The novels, by helping citizens imagine an “ideal China,” are part of working out what the Chinese model should be before attempting to export it.
• Quote:

  “The Chinese party state has to come to terms with its people first before it can ever actually project itself as a global power…This is the first step towards the Chinese state and Chinese citizens come to terms and understand what an ideal China looks like.”
  (Rong Bin Han, 19:11)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the power of the Ming Dynasty mythos:

  “If you have a nudge in history, it will change the course of China’s development completely and no more humiliation.”
  (Interviewer & Rong Bin Han, 06:56–07:00)

• On state-sponsored propaganda vs. grassroots storytelling:

  “State propaganda is not that effective and people, honestly speaking, are very aware of state propaganda. Research suggests that when people discern there is a connect to the government, they instantly start questioning and don’t trust that source.”
  (Rong Bin Han, 13:21)

• On the nature of governing and ideology:

  “You can rule without coercion. Right? If people buy your ideas and willingly follow your ideals.”
  (Rong Bin Han, 14:33)

• On Western relevance:

  “We’re living in an age of China rise where China’s heading is going to have impact not just on Chinese but [the] global audience.”
  (Rong Bin Han, 17:58)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 01:23 — Xi’s invocation of the Thucydides Trap and the context set
• 02:45 — Scale and popularity of Chinese web novels
• 03:17 — Introduction to “Make China Great Again” web fiction
• 05:59 — Focus on the Ming Dynasty and why it matters
• 07:11 — Introduction to “Morning Star of Lingao” and collective storytelling
• 09:34 — Description of “F Qing” and the aggressive rewriting of history
• 10:43 — Commercial/capitalist society themes in the novels
• 11:17 — Relationship of fiction to the Chinese Dream and state agenda
• 12:34 — State strategy in moderating, not suppressing, popular narratives
• 14:33 — Gramsci, cultural hegemony, and buy-in
• 16:08 — Visions of economic and limited political reform in fiction
• 17:58 — Significance for Western audiences and global impact
• 19:11 — Soft power, legitimacy, and the process of “finding the model”

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Conclusion

The rise of “Make China Great Again” web novels is more than escapist fiction; it’s a venue where millions of Chinese negotiate their past and envision their future—a process with implications for state ideology, political stability, and China’s global role. Rong Bin Han’s research reveals a nuanced, sometimes subversive, sometimes cooperative dance between popular imagination and government narrative—a dynamic crucial for anyone seeking to understand China’s next move, at home or abroad.

Transcript

[Sponsor/Announcer]

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[Michael Ohinger]

you're listening to the on the Media Midweek podcast. I'm Michael Ohinger. Last month, President Trump and President Xi Jinping met in Beijing amid growing tensions around both Taiwan and the war in Iran. During Xi's opening remarks, however, he brought up a third, much older war.

[Sponsor/Announcer]

The Chinese president Xi Jinping reached deep

[Rong Bin Han]

into history to frame the future of U S China ties. As he met his US Counterpart, Donald Trump. Yesterday, President Xi warned against what's known as the Thucydides Trap, the idea that conflict can erupt when a rising power challenges an established one. The name refers to the ancient Greek historian Thucydides, who suggested that war between Athens and Sparta was inevitable because a rising Athens seriously threatened to displace the ruling power of Sparta.

[Michael Ohinger]

So in this case, Athens is China and Sparta is the United States. The term Thucydides Trap was coined in 2012 by Harvard professor Graham Allison, who looked at 16 similar rivalries in history and found that 12 ended in conflict. Xi's tone that day seemed to be one of both warning and conciliation. At a state banquet that evening, he said, achieving the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation and making America great again can totally go hand in hand and and advance the well being of the whole world. The key idea that Xi kept repeating was this inevitable rejuvenation of China. To better understand how not just Xi but the Chinese people are understanding and imagining the rise of China on a very global stage, one researcher turned to a very specific yet booming corner of the Internet.

[Rong Bin Han]

Today, China's Internet has over 1 billion users, and about half of them are Internet literature readers.

[Michael Ohinger]

Rong Bin Han is a professor of international affairs at the University of Georgia and an expert in Chinese cyber politics. Brooks spoke to Rong Bin about his new book titled Make China Great Again Online Alt History, Fiction and Popular Authoritarianism

[Rong Bin Han]

Internet Literature in China Originally it was a hobby. Now many of those web novels have been adapted to TV dramas, movies, games, comics. It involves millions of dollars every year 2019. Around that time, there was a report. Out of the top 100 most popular TV dramas, 42 of them were adapted from a web novel.

[Interviewer (Brooks)]

But what first got you into Chinese web novels?

[Rong Bin Han]

I was reading a lot and I noticed some of those fiction titles, what I call Make China Great Again fiction. They typically involve time traveling back into history and try to save China from various crises or glorify ancient China in one way or the other.

[Interviewer (Brooks)]

Tell me a little bit about your research. You said you've read 70 of these novels, almost always involving a man traveling back in time to save China from various crises, and that these books are very long.

[Rong Bin Han]

The average length of those 200 books is 2.88 million characters. It's close to the Harry Potter series translated into Chinese. The whole series, about 3 million characters.

[Interviewer (Brooks)]

Wow. You've noted that dominant theme of making China Great Again. It looks to fixing the past. What is the impulse to fix the past?

[Rong Bin Han]

A bigger context of that is China rise.

[Interviewer (Brooks)]

The rise of China in the world.

[Rong Bin Han]

Yes. The primary purpose of this research is I truly want to understand what are Chinese people thinking. The collective national revival drives people to look into the past and try to make up historical sorrows. Right now is good, future is bright, and the only dark side is in the history. Let's go back and remedy that. That's my understanding of why there's not one title, not two titles. There are thousands of such titles.

[Interviewer (Brooks)]

I'm still not clear what people get out of fixing the past, especially if the country they're living in is on the way up.

[Rong Bin Han]

So it's precisely because the country is on the way up. That's why it's connected to mega in a way. In the past few decades, we experienced globalization. And Chinese people generally see globalization as helping China rise. A lot of people in the west argue that we kind of lose from globalization. Jobs move to China, industries move to China. In China, it's like, hey, we benefited from this process and future is great for us. Now we are becoming a power again. So let's go back and fix history. That's the only part that doesn't look good, Right?

[Interviewer (Brooks)]

Were there particular periods that people went back in time to?

[Rong Bin Han]

Most often about 52 out of the 200 titles focus on Ming Dynasty.

[Interviewer (Brooks)]

This was about a 300 year period between the middle of the 1300s and the middle of the 1600s.

[Rong Bin Han]

That's right. That's because Ming Dynasty is the last Han Chinese dynasty. Before that it was the Mongol Yuan Dynasty. After that it was the Manchu Qing Dynasty. Another crucial Aspect was because Ming Dynasty, according to the Chinese popular perception, is a critical historical juncture. When China started lagging behind, the Western powers started exploring the world and then later industrialization. But a lot of people believe that the Ming Dynasty had the capacity. And if you have a nudge in history, it will change the course of

[Interviewer (Brooks)]

China's development completely and no more humiliation.

[Rong Bin Han]

Exactly.

[Interviewer (Brooks)]

There's a particular work called the Morning Star of Ling Gao. It was written collectively by hundreds of writers.

[Rong Bin Han]

So that fiction was a collective brainchild of a now expired forum. One day somebody posted a thread saying what if actually we can time travel back to Ming Dynasty and do something? What are you going to do? And then there are a lot of people responding to that thread. And then they started to develop this into a fiction. So that has become the foundation of this what I call collective mode of production. The fiction is published on one of the most popular literature portals, so somebody has to take charge. But a lot of other people are participating in the process, contributing to stories.

[Interviewer (Brooks)]

So that's a new phenomenon. Group writing of these novels.

[Rong Bin Han]

Yes, it's still being updated now.

[Interviewer (Brooks)]

The novel itself, yes, it is over

[Rong Bin Han]

9 million characters now. I've read up to 8 million characters. I haven't read the latest developments. A Morning Star of Lingao involves a collect of time travel. 500 people bringing a ship of equipment,

[Interviewer (Brooks)]

books, weapons through a wormhole to the late Ming Dynasty.

[Rong Bin Han]

Exactly.

[Interviewer (Brooks)]

You noted that it took 2,600 installments just to occupy one particular part of the region. But what does this book represent?

[Rong Bin Han]

There are different schools of thoughts on Chinese Internet. And a lot of people believe that industrialization is the only way to save China. Why? It takes a shipload of equipment, machines and guns and books and everything, and 500 people and take such a long time for them only to occupy a small part of China because they go into details about how their arrival will transform the society, how gradually industrialization may take place, how political organization and everything would gradually evolve. People see that as a representative work of industrial party.

[Interviewer (Brooks)]

There's another novel called For Broadcast. I'll say there's another novel called Four Letter Word that begins with F Qing, which is much more aggressive in tone.

[Rong Bin Han]

It's about time traveling to early Qing time period. They try to overthrow the Qing dynasty and then fast forward modernizing China. The early Qing period typically is considered as a good time because there wasn't really any major external or internal crisis to China. But a lot of those writers and readers are pretty nationalistic and they don't like the Qing Dynasty. So that's why so many of them actually would flood to Ming Dynasty, especially late Ming Dynasty, preventing Qing from takeover.

[Interviewer (Brooks)]

And so this author goes back to the early Qing to expel the barbarians, revive China, to resurrect the nation like the Han and the Tang dynasties, to surpass all European and Asian nations. The interesting part to me is you've noted that the author builds an ideological construct close to capitalism to replace Confucianism,

[Rong Bin Han]

a common feature of many of those titles. The majority of them are going to establish, if not capitalist, it's going to be a commercial economy.

[Interviewer (Brooks)]

And the current leadership of China has nothing against this. You wrote in your book that at the core of the genre is the nationalist quest for a Chinese revival, a theme that directly interacts with with a state notion of the Chinese Dream, which is President Xi's official slogan.

[Rong Bin Han]

President Xi Jinping coined the term Chinese Dream almost as soon as he came into power. That was 2013. Now one thing I think worth highlighting is that the Make China Great Again fiction titles, they emerged long before President Xi Jinping came into power. So it's not something new. Chinese Dream is not something that the party or President Xi invents and then try to impose on Chinese people. Rather, I think it's the Chinese parties and also President Xi Jinping. They're smart enough to really ride with this trend.

[Interviewer (Brooks)]

You suggest that they're co opting this trend. This is what you've called a negotiation, a kind of dance between the the public and the government. To imagine the future of China right through these web novels.

[Rong Bin Han]

There are so many different ways they are trying to reform China. Sometimes contradictory, sometimes actually they echo the Chinese national dream, the official ideology.

[Interviewer (Brooks)]

They're not generally punished for contradicting it.

[Rong Bin Han]

That's why I call it it a negotiation. The party doesn't have the capacity to effectively control everything. It's not even in their best interest to do so by allowing people to participate in the process of negotiating what Chinese Dream is. Even though at times would be contesting the official ideology, it would benefit the regime in different ways because the Party can never produce so many different stories of Chinese Dream that are actually read by millions of readers.

[Interviewer (Brooks)]

Right. And you've observed also that the party was never good at producing propaganda. It tended to be of low quality and people didn't really like it.

[Rong Bin Han]

State propaganda is not that effective and people, honestly speaking, are very aware of state propaganda. Research suggests that when people discern there is a connect to the government, they instantly start questioning and don't trust that Source Chinese Dream is about national revival. That's dry. There's nothing interesting in that. Honestly speaking, as an average citizen, why should I learn about it? Each of those Make China Great Again titles is about how to revive China. And for the party to actually recruit people, they have to allow some diversity of ideas.

[Interviewer (Brooks)]

You've been highlighting the active role of regular citizens in shaping this vision of an ideal China. In this case, by reading and writing these novels. You also observe, and this is crucial, how the ruling class can rule without coercion, allowing the ruled to gradually adopt the norms and values of the ruling class willingly.

[Rong Bin Han]

I borrowed that idea from Gramsci, Antonio Gramsci, the very idea of cultural hegemony. So the idea of hegemony is that you can rule without coercion. Right, if people buy your ideas and willingly following your ideals. Typically, when we look at a communist system, we envision an imposing state trying to indoctrinate people, change people's mind. And we see that doesn't work very well, especially in the long run, because people aware that somebody is trying to impose something on them and they're going to try to fight. If you allow people to actually help construct the ruling ideology and they automatically buy into this ideology, in the process, you will be meeting with much less resistance because you helped produce everything. You're part of this now, of course, from the party's perspective, you have to keep the bottom line.

[Interviewer (Brooks)]

Yeah, you don't want it to spiral out of control, but you can allow diversity to a degree within. I just wonder what, if anything, do these stories tell us? What do they reveal about the hopes and dreams of the Chinese people for their country? And what do these stories reveal about what the government wants? And is there space between them?

[Rong Bin Han]

Really a fantastic question. And honestly speaking, that personally read like 70 plus titles from kind of COVID to cover. Maybe cover to cover isn't the proper way to describe it since it's online, but anyways, each of them is different. One of the things worth highlighting is that overwhelming majority of those titles would topple economic reforms. They would introduce commercial economy and ultimately most of them, capitalism, echoing China's economic reform in one way or the other. They would actually talk about intellectual property rights, banking, trade, and all sorts of things like that. Some of those fiction titles talk about some sort of democracy. One fiction talk about introducing parliamentary politics to the Song dynasty, which is fascinating, right? But of course it was confined, not really Popular Election, but it's parliament. And another title actually tried Popular Election, but that story is interesting because the main character, Time Traveled twice. He was an official of the Song dynasty. Somehow he got knocked out in a battle and then traveled to modern time, joined the Communist party in fighting the Japanese invasion and then he traveled back and carried with him the knowledge he learned in the process. So he conducted land reform, but he also conducted popular election because interesting enough, the Communist Party did that before taking over the entire China. But it's overall pretty limited.

[Interviewer (Brooks)]

Why should we all the way over here care about these Chinese alt history web novels?

[Rong Bin Han]

I think it is important to the Western audience because we're living in an age of China rise where China's heading is going to have impact on not just Chinese but global audience. And I'm trying to understand what Chinese people are thinking. I think it's related to whether the Chinese political system will be stable in the long run. And if my findings are correct, I would bet so. All those will bear implications for people on the West.

[Interviewer (Brooks)]

Finally, one point you've made is that China seems to be intentionally expanding its soft power. And you note that recent surveys suggest that China is viewed more favorably compared to the US but research also suggests that Chinese ideologies are not appealing. And you say that the importance of this work, these novels, is to help China figure out what its model is before trying to export it.

[Rong Bin Han]

Yep. The Chinese party state has to come to terms with its people first before it can ever actually project itself as a global power. You have to convince your domestic citizens that you are a legitimate power before you can actually convince the international audience. And to a certain extent, I think there is something that's working and there's something not working. Something that's working is that China has actually convinced its domestic audience that the party can deliver economic growth and improved governance. Now a lot of people are questioning it because of slowdown of economy and everything. Right. But overall, in the reform era, the Chinese party state has been doing a relatively good job there. Infrastructure, clean streets, efficiency. That's what the Chinese state has been delivering to its own citizens. And the Chinese citizens were first convinced, now the international audience, now the bad part, ideology, communist ideology, is not appealing to international audience. This is the first step towards the Chinese state and Chinese citizens come to terms and understand what an ideal China looks like. And from there they might be able to kind of, you know, convince international audience.

[Interviewer (Brooks)]

Thank you very much.

[Rong Bin Han]

Thank you.

[Interviewer (Brooks)]

Rang Bin Hann is a professor of international affairs at the University of Georgia where he specializes in Chinese cyber politics.

[Michael Ohinger]

Thanks for listening to the midweek podcast. Don't forget to listen to the big show on Friday. But in the meantime, follow us on instagram and TikTok and check out our subreddit r onthemedia. We'd love to see you there. I'm michael ohinger.

[Rong Bin Han]

Sam.