It's not a new thing tagging someone as the Shakespeare of Whatever.

Chuck Berry was the Shakespeare of Rock and Roll.

Evelyn Waugh was the Shakespeare of the semicolon.

Vince Scully was the Shakespeare of the broadcast booth.

But when someone's tagged this way by the leader of the Chinese Communist Party,

right outside Shakespeare's birthplace,

and it's someone who pretty much no one's felt this way about before.

When that happens, it's likely to make you think, wait, what?

From the Folger Shakespeare Library, this is Shakespeare Unlimited.

I'm Michael Whitmore, the Folgers director.

The person we're talking about is a 17th century Chinese playwright named Tong Sinsu.

In 2015, on a state visit to Great Britain, Chinese premier Xi Jinping called Tong the Shakespeare of the East. And ever since, the Ministry of Culture for the People's Republic has made a concerted push to elevate Tang to the status of Shakespeare.

Now, 2015 was, of course, the year before the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death and a worldwide celebration

of his work. It was also the 400th anniversary of Tong's death. Tong's promotion to Shakespeare of China

could be viewed as a marketing decision by the Chinese government in an attempt to exert China's

soft power in the world. We decided it was worth taking the time to explore

just who Tang Shinshu was, and more broadly, to look at what role Shakespeare plays in modern

day China. We brought together two guests who study the intersection of China in Shakespeare.

Wei Feng teaches English and Shakespeare at the School of Foreign Languages and Literature at Shandong University in Northeastern China.

He's joined by Alexa Alice Jubang,

Professor of English at George Washington University, where she teaches globalization and Asian European cultural exchange.

Alexa is director of GW's Dean's Scholars in Shakespeare, which is Globalization and Asian European Cultural Exchange.

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