New Delhi, Oct. 7 -- Li Dazhi paced back and forth on a set resembling a chief executive's office as he rehearsed lines in Zhengzhou, a city in central China that has become a hub for microdramas. The serialised minute-long shows have taken over phone screens across the country; one in two people watch them. In 2025 microdramas grew into a 100bn yuan ($15bn) business, having created some 700,000 jobs and perhaps 1.3m indirect ones-a rare bright spot of dynamism in China's sputtering economy.

The booming industry had given Mr Li, a 32-year-old former traffic cop, a chance to try something new. He had been busy studying eight to 15 fantastical scripts each month. Then in February, ByteDance, a tech giant, launched Seedance 2.0, an artifici...