Hong Kong The majority of people in China and the United States mostly learn about each other’s nations from the media and their governments. At least for the time being, they are now learning directly from one another.
Following a surge of American users creating accounts in recent days, there is a noticeable buzz on the Chinese social media site RedNote, also known as Xiaohongshu (Little Red Book) in Chinese. As the short-form video app faces a U.S. ban due to worries about ties between Beijing-based ByteDance, the company that owns TikTok, and the Chinese government, the self-described refugees are looking for a substitute.
According to NBC News, TikTok says it will shut down when the ban goes into force on Sunday unless it gets clear guarantees from the Biden administration, which has been looking into ways to keep the service accessible.
As they attempt to use the Chinese-language software, TikTok users have joined Shanghai-based RedNote in protest of the impending ban, propelling it to the top of Apple’s software Store and making fun of American security fears.
While the border restrictions and tensions between the world’s two largest economies have hindered academic and other interactions in recent years, their arrival has brought instantaneous online connections between Americans and Chinese.
Eric Wang, a 28-year-old graphic designer from China’s Shandong region, said, “I am really moved to see all of the kind Americans coming here and to see that we are getting to know and learning from each other.” It gives me the impression that we are never truly separated.
RedNote allows Chinese and American users to communicate in ways that are generally not possible on Western social media sites like Facebook, Instagram, and X, which are all unavailable in China without a virtual private network (VPN). Although there is a version of TikTok called Douyin in China, it is not accessible there either.
Jia Yuxuan, a research associate at the Center for China and Globalization, a think tank in Beijing, said it’s extremely touching to watch people who have never met and who may have previously had false information about one another now interacting on equal terms and eager to learn more about one another.
According to her, the trust being built through these relationships has already sparked a surge of fact-checking that hasn’t been possible in years with traditional diplomacy.
Americans on RedNote, for instance, have been questioning whether Chinese people actually live under a social credit system that assigns scores to people based on their behavior and blacklists them if those scores are too low.
This is not accurate, Jia stated, and the Chinese internet users in the comments area are only shocked.
According to data from analytics firm Similarweb, the number of iPhone users in the United States on RedNote climbed from roughly 400,000 to 1.8 million in a single day this week, and it has since continued to rise. That still represents a very small percentage of the 300 million users on Xiaohongshu and the 170 million users on TikTok in the United States.
The app, like other Chinese social media platforms, is heavily regulated by government censors and is ill-equipped to police English-language content, so the new American users could cause issues. Comparisons have been made to the Clubhouse app, which China stopped in 2021 after Chinese users openly discussed politically sensitive subjects in its chat rooms for a short time.
Regarding the surge of new users, Xiaohongshu has refrained from making any public remarks. A request for response from the corporation was not answered.
Meanwhile, China’s online censorship may make Americans uncomfortable.
The American user base is incredibly naive and doesn’t get any of this. “They’re just upset that TikTok is going to be banned,” said Christine Lu, 48, a Taiwanese American who spent ten years in China and now lives in Los Angeles.
Lu’s RedNote account was suspended five hours after she signed up on Tuesday for intentionally posting images and hashtags about subjects that are considered sensitive in China. According to her, she started testing the app after some American users complained that their posts—which included images of cleavage or the flags of Tibet and Taiwan—were being censored.
According to her, they are posts that are typically discussed in free societies.
The influx of Americans into their online community has not pleased all Chinese users. Some who rely on RedNote for revenue claim that their American competitors, whose TikTok videos are significantly shorter than those of the Chinese app, may unfairly compete with them.
According to Beijing-based lifestyle vlogger Becca Wang, it just takes around two seconds, and they receive hundreds, thousands, and even tens of thousands of likes.
Others argue that new American users should respect the culture of the app’s current users and learn to play by its rules, which include adopting the app’s Chinese name, Xiaohongshu.
One reply stated, “They should learn if they can’t pronounce it.”
It was unknown how the app would respond to the surge of American users, according to Yolanda Ma, a journalism instructor at the University of Hong Kong. For instance, live broadcasts must be in Chinese; English and other languages are deemed unsuitable and will be warned about.
A separate app for overseas users would be the best course of action if the company chose to increase its user base, she stated in an email. This would help to keep the new users on the site after the early days of enthusiasm and ensuring that the content on the platform is under control.
What they ate for breakfast, how they make their morning coffee, how their front yards look, and how they earn a living are the topics of conversation between Chinese and American users on RedNote. Jia witnessed an American fisherman inquire as to whether Chinese fishermen exist.
“Everyone is sharing their catch and fishing gear in the comment section,” she stated.
In order to evaluate how well they are living under China’s socialist system and America’s capitalist system, users are now getting more detailed and questioning one another about incomes, debt, and health care systems.
According to Jia, the conclusion is that regular employees are essentially the same. Both of them are fighting for their lives and hoping for a better one.
According to Diego Obando, a new RedNote user from Pasadena, California, the app is more user-friendly than TikTok and boasts a more pleasant community. The 19-year-old Obando stated that he doesn’t really care about security because there is always someone eavesdropping on you through each program you use.
The thought of Americans on RedNote has so far seemed to be acceptable to Beijing.
We think social media use is a personal decision, the Chinese Foreign Ministry stated on Wednesday.
At a routine briefing in Beijing, spokesperson Guo Jiakun stated that China has always supported and encouraged the development of people-to-people ties and the strengthening of people-to-people exchanges with all nations as a matter of principle.
Positive attention has also come from Chinese state media.
According to a People’s Daily article published on Wednesday, switching to RedNote can be interpreted as a show of defiance against the American government’s claim that Chinese apps pose security risks. Users are challenging the notion that Chinese platforms are intrinsically harmful by adopting RedNote.
As the economy battles to recover from the pandemic, Jia said Beijing’s efforts to attract more overseas tourists are in keeping with its openness to the new RedNote users. China has been allowing people from all over the world—but not from the US—to enter the country without a visa since 2023.
Others expressed further skepticism, arguing that the Chinese government will inevitably intervene.
Wang, the lifestyle blogger, stated, “I don’t think this is going to last forever.” It will not be long.
Larissa Gao reported from London, Janis Mackey Frayer from Beijing, and Jennifer Jett and Mithil Aggarwal from Hong Kong.