For the first time since the pandemic, China has crossed a threshold: 35 million foreign visitors in 2025, drawn not by ancient monuments alone but by a deliberate and sophisticated campaign to make the country legible, desirable, and modern to outside eyes. Beijing's visa liberalizations and government-funded social media offensives on platforms it bans at home have converged with a broader cultural moment — declining American soft power, rising global curiosity about Chinese urban life — to produce genuine momentum. Yet the deeper question is whether a nation can sustain a tourism renaissanc