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This is a relatively recent thing, for sure. For most of human history, powerful nations exercised their influence mostly via military power and trade, not through soft power such as promoting a better quality of living (middle class itself is pretty recent, a product of industrial revolutions).

I think its disingenuous to dismiss the very real progress that China has made in industry and military as inessential just because they haven't had the same cultural impact as the US. Prosperity, strong and healthy middle class and political stability are what is necessary for the development of a strong, lasting culture.

There is also the often overlooked fact that the US, being an English speaking country, got to ride the cultural train for free since the British Empire had already established English as the lingua franca of the world. I'm sure there is a lot of stuff going on in Chinese culture which we aren't aware of since its mostly in Chinese.

[soundwave106]

As a side note, my impression is that cultural exports from Hong Kong have declined a fair bit since China took over the island. (Japan and (especially) South Korea seem to dominate Asian cultural exports at the moment).

I think a big issue regarding China and culture is that, with their need for "great firewalls" and the like, they've effectively removed a huge channel for people to communicate their ideas and culture outside the nation. I'm sure there is a lot of stuff going on in Chinese culture that we don't know about; the problem is, with many Western social media channels blocked inside the country, it is probably much more difficult for Chinese to obtain a non-Chinese audience online even if they wanted to.