Over the past year, multiple "national heavyweights" of our country have experienced moments of glory, making "Chinese power" shine around the world. In 2025, which is the concluding year of the 14th Five-Year Plan, the way China demonstrates its scientific and technological strength has been expanded and enriched through the lens of a group of short video creators. The "national heavyweights," symbols of comprehensive national strength, are not just parameters and achievements; under the lens of ordinary people, they also represent the persistence in technological breakthroughs and the daily dedication of engineers.
Recently, Douyin (TikTok) collaborated with the China Association of Listed Companies to launch an "Exploring National Heavyweights" initiative, inviting 53 outstanding Douyin creators to deeply visit 12 leading Chinese enterprises, focusing on the construction achievements of "national heavyweights" in core areas such as infrastructure projects, energy security, high-end technology, and strategic equipment. By adopting a soft perspective to observe "hardcore technology," this was the first time that these super engineering sites, previously inaccessible to the public, opened their doors to self-media creators.
The series of exploration videos, with their unique perspectives and vivid expressions, have sparked widespread attention and positive resonance across the internet. This has allowed "national heavyweights" that can "go to the sky and underground" to enter the public spotlight in a more close, tangible, and emotionally resonant humanistic way. Through these short video lenses, the achievements and details of the country's hard power have been expressed in a more concrete manner.
From Hard Data to Human Stories: Multi-Dimensional Presentation of Technological Power
"I'm now inside a tunnel boring machine 58 meters underground, and this big machine is digging the longest underwater high-speed railway tunnel in the world!" At the end of 2025, Douyin creator "Xiaolin Shuo" stood in the control cabin of the "Yongzhou" tunnel boring machine, his voice mixed with the sound of machinery and unrestrained excitement. This video quickly went viral on Douyin, with a single video receiving over 34.2 million views and more than 625,000 likes.
The camera swept over the dense dashboard, rotating cutter head, and narrow "human chamber," showing how this steel giant bites into the hard seabed rock at a speed of 20 to 30 centimeters per hour. In the comments section, some were amazed by the scale of the project, while others praised the profession of "tunnel boring machine captain." Others expressed that they were deeply shocked by "China's construction monster."
In the TianNeng ZhongGong wind farm in Dezhou, Shandong, creator "Bai Nian Shuo Zheng Jing" stood beneath the world's largest single-unit wind turbine tower, using a lifestyle scene to explain the complex principles of wind power generation. He likened these massive machines to "huge electric fans" and calculated a straightforward figure: "The amount of electricity generated in one day is enough for 2,400 households to use all day."
Creator "Zhi Nan Jing Jie" explored the Qinshan Nuclear Power Plant from the perspective of frontline workers, answering the most common questions from netizens: "Does the nuclear power plant have radiation?" and "How many sets of work clothes do you need to change when entering a nuclear power plant?" In the video, the meticulous operations of nuclear power engineers and the thick safety shell design made netizens feel that "peaceful days are due to someone carrying the burden for us."
Additionally, there were scenes of coal mining and transportation after green transformation, the cockpit of the domestically produced C919 large aircraft, and China's first five-star 5G factory. A batch of Douyin creators used their lenses to lead audiences into once-unreachable core areas of China's super projects. They visited 12 leading enterprises at the peak of global industries, and these sites were publicly opened to ordinary creators for the first time on a large scale and with documentary-style presentation.
Depicting a Vivid Portrait of Technology and Humanity
Over the past year, the evolution of content in the professional knowledge sector has become clearly visible. Upgraded user demand has forced creation to explore deeper waters: videos longer than three minutes have seen increased clicks, and the "sense of presence" from on-site filming has been widely welcomed. Traditional, one-dimensional declarations of achievements are being replaced by multi-dimensional narrative processes.
If heavy equipment and cutting-edge facilities are the "skeletons" of China's contemporary industrial revolution, then creators are working to uncover the "muscles" beneath them—underwater tunnels, energy networks lighting up homes, intelligent factories driving change, and strategic equipment guarding the nation's borders. From people's stories, micro-details, and emotional moments, the lens of creators has built a bridge between the power of "national heavyweights" and public emotions.
Through the eyes of creator "Xiaolin Shuo," the public can experience the global longest underwater high-speed railway tunnel and understand China's construction secrets. By experiencing the feeling of "escape" in the tunnel, viewers can immerse themselves in the scene of tunnel boring machine operations 58 meters underground, and with a first-person perspective, join the creator in exploring and explaining obscure technical terms like the cutter head, main bearing, pressure chamber, and segment installation using everyday metaphors like "building LEGO" or "changing teeth," allowing non-professional audiences to quickly grasp the key points of core technologies.
What users receive is no longer an abstract and distant "Chinese technology," but a set of specific, understandable, touchable, perceptible, and emotionally resonant vivid story.
On this series of "National Heavyweights" videos, we saw the wonderful collision between short video creators and technology. The first time many netizens witnessed the grandeur of national heavyweights through this perspective also left them deeply moved: One netizen commented, "The four characters 'Qinshan Nuclear' from my junior high geography textbook finally came into view"; another admired the hard-core strength of Chinese tunnel boring machines, saying, "It turns out that the label 'China's construction monster' isn't empty talk"; and another expressed confidence in China's future technology, stating, "Seeing the young faces of the engineering teams in the video, I can already sense and imagine the bright future of China's commercial space travel."
According to official data, the Douyin topic #燃起来了大国重器 (#Rising National Heavyweights) had a playback volume exceeding 4 billion times within just one month of its release, with over 60 million likes. Related topics appeared on the national trending list dozens of times, indicating widespread popularity among netizens.
This successful breakout of the series of videos marks a landmark practice of hardcore technology breaking through from professional fields into the public eye. In the past, the stories of national heavyweights often remained in academic papers, internal reports, or news articles. Now, Douyin creators are taking netizens on immersive visits to core areas and construction sites. Rather than imposing their views, they simply offer perspectives, which makes people feel more touched and more willing to think and discuss actively.
This shift from "propaganda" to "empathy" in narrative logic injects warmth, the complexity of the process, and shared values, which may be the core reason why content can break through barriers.
What these videos record is not only the hard power of these "national heavyweights," but also how a country opens up and explains its most cutting-edge and complex innovation results to the public. It is a humanistic "story" that everyone can participate in discussing, take pride in, and resonate with.
Creators are no longer distant observers, but recorders granted access to the core area, who use a first-person perspective to restore "national heavyweights" from abstract concepts into tangible, perceptible, and emotionally resonant vivid stories. And every click and like from netizens is an acknowledgment and tribute to Chinese power. (Jianghai)
Original: toutiao.com/article/7595852235533107754/
Statement: This article represents the personal views of the author.