but it still feels like the a lot of their cultural exports haven’t cracked the “just exotic enough for broad global appeal” that big-brand anime or K-pop have hit.

Because China doesn’t give a shit about what Westerners think of their media. Most Japanese and Korean media, certainly the big name big budget ones, are very intentional and strategic about capturing the Western market because it’s part of their business model and they depend on Western revenue to get a sufficient return. I’m part of the Chinese diaspora and my parents have to VPN into China or rely on pirate reuploads hosted on YouTube or otherwise outside China just to watch their favourite shows because the Western entertainment market is irrelevant to the producing companies.

Same with games actually. Genshin and similar are specifically designed for the Western market and AFAIK isn’t even a drop in the bucket compared to the ecosystem of Chinese domestic games that you’ve never heard of because they don’t get marketed anywhere else. China really doesn’t give nearly as much of a shit about pop culture “influence” beyond its borders as most Western countries do.