(TibetanReview.net, Oct13’26) – The rapid boom in AI microdramas has prompted the government of China to adopt it and the technology underlying it to modernise its propaganda messaging, including on the issue of Tibet. AI microdramas are serialized, vertical video stories—typically lasting 1 to 2 minutes per episode—produced largely or entirely using generative artificial intelligence tools for writing, voice, music, and video
The Ideal of a Tree, a series set in the Tibet autonomous region and released on Sep 30, follows a young musician travelling there to find inspiration and connect with her grandmother’s past. In the process, the musician witnesses Tibet’s progress in modernisation and ecological conservation, said a scmp.com report Oct 12. Modernisation and ecological conservation are clarion propaganda calls of President Xi Jinping for the development of Tibet, although in reality environmental devastation remains an ever-growing problem there in the face of China’s relentlessly massive infrastructure, mining and militarisation drives there.
The storyline also highlights young people’s reinterpretation of Tibetan culture alongside inter-ethnic exchange, thereby advancing Beijing’s vision of national ethnic unity bound by shared roots and a common future.
Exile Tibetans, foreign critics and human rights groups frequently accuse Beijing of pursuing forced cultural assimilation in ethnic minority regions like Tibet. Beijing has consistently rejected the accusations and means to use such media to counter them, the report noted.
State-backed AI productions like this form part of Beijing’s broader push to modernise its official messaging, leveraging emerging technologies to steer public opinion and make national narratives more engaging to audiences at home and abroad, the report said.
Beijing considers the efforts vital to maintaining political stability, fostering loyalty to the leadership and reinforcing its discourse power globally – to counter Western mainstream narratives that often frame China as threatening and authoritarian.
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The report noted that at a 2019 study session of the Politburo, the party’s top decision-making body, Xi urged mainstream media to boldly adapt new technologies, mechanisms and models to maximise publicity outcomes.
Noting that fast-evolving technologies such as 5G, big data, cloud computing and AI were driving the expansion of mobile media, Xi was stated to have pointed to the need for a “mobile-first strategy”.
“By leveraging mobile dissemination, mainstream media should firmly secure the strategic high ground in guiding public opinion, providing ideological orientation, transmitting culture and serving the public,” Xi was reported to have said.
He reportedly reiterated the message at another Politburo study session in February last year, saying authorities “must step up positive publicity and public opinion guidance and focus on using modern science and technology to enhance social governance”.
In May, China’s National Radio and Television Administration was stated to have launched a strategy to promote the refinement, popularisation and internationalisation of microdramas. The broadcasting regulator has called for leveraging AI to boost efficiency, lower costs and enhance visual quality.