Chapter Dive
A Baby for Sale, a Mother Chained Up – How Chinese Netizens Are Pushing Specific Social Issues to the Forefront
The stories of Liu Xuezhou and the Xuzhou mother both developed in real-time while netizens pushed them to the front page, making them too big for state media to ignore.
This is the “WE…WEI…WHAT?” column by Manya Koetse, original publication in German by Goethe Institut China, visit Yi Magazin: WE…WEI…WHAT? Manya Koetse erklärt das chinesische Internet.
It was December 6th of 2021 when a teenage boy posted a short video on Chinese social media. With a straight back, clear voice, and serious face, he looked directly into the camera and said:
“Hello everyone, I am Liu Xuezhou and I am looking for my biological parents. I was born in between 2004 and 2006 and around the age of three months old, I was bought by my parents, my adoptive parents, in Datong in Shanxi. I am healthy. I don’t have any congenital physical defects or diseases; I don’t have any obvious birthmarks or scars. At the age of four, my adoptive parents passed away due to an accident. I am now living in Nangong, Xingtai, in Hebei Province. I study in Shijiazhuang. I wish I’d found my biological parents sooner, to make up for what I missed. I hope you can help me spread my message so that those who suspect they might be my parents can see it.“
This video would be the start of a story followed by millions of Chinese netizens. It is the story of Liu Xuezhou (刘学州). The search for his parents and his death became one of the biggest topics on China’s social media of the past months.
Why did the tragic story of one teenage boy capture the entire nation? There are multiple reasons. By posting his call for help in finding his biological parents, Liu involved Chinese netizens in his journey from the start, allowing them to follow his story in real-time through his social media and news reports. Another aspect of Liu’s story is the resilience he showed despite his tough life, something that many admired about him.
But more importantly, Liu’s story is part of a recent broader interest in the stories behind the widespread problem of trafficking in women and children in China, with more people raising awareness on the tragedies caused by these practices and demanding justice for the victims.
Besides Liu’s story, the story of a Xuzhou mother-of-eight being tied up and living in abominable conditions in a shed also dominated online discussions for weeks on end.
Liu’s Story: Sold, Orphaned, Abandoned
After Liu Xuezhou posted the aforementioned video on Douyin, the Chinese version of the popular TikTok short video platform, it soon went viral and various Chinese news sites started reporting on Liu’s search for his biological family.
Liu’s resilience was impressive. In interviews, he said that his story did not define him and that he was determined to make something of his life. Since 2018, the young Liu was working to earn money while also going to school. His plan was to be admitted to university.
Liu Xuezhou, picture posted on his Weibo account.
After his adoptive parents died in a firework explosion, Liu was raised by his grandparents and was sent to boarding school. Liu’s childhood was not a happy one. Being so young without parents, he was a target of school bullies and had to change schools at least four times until, by grade six, he had finally found a school where he could thrive.
Many people supported Liu and wanted to help the teenage boy, who was thought to have been kidnapped as a baby and then bought by his adoptive parents through an intermediary at a Datong hotel for 30,000 yuan ($4735).
Although Liu’s birth certificate said he was born in September of 2005, nobody was sure how old Liu actually was, and his grandparents did not remember the details surrounding his adoption. By late 2021, as a 16-something-year-old, Liu felt it was time to get some answers and find his biological parents. How did he end up being adopted? Was he abducted? Were his parents still out there searching for him?
Through his own efforts – sped up by finding his vaccination records – and with some help of the police, Liu was able to trace down his biological parents. On the evening of December 15, Liu sent a message to a journalist reporting on the case: “I found my mum and dad.”
His parents’ story, however, was not what Liu had expected at all. After DNA tests confirmed that they were in fact his biological parents, Liu was ready to meet them. But what was supposed to be a happy reunion turned out to be a bitter disappointment.
Liu’s biological parents, who were living in Datong, were not together anymore. Liu soon learned that he had not been abducted as a child, but that he had been sold on purpose by his father. His parents were unmarried when they had him, and Liu’s father turned out to have used the money they earned by selling their baby to marry Liu’s birth mother. They married and had another son, but then ended up divorcing. Both remarried again, and Liu’s father even got divorced two more times after that.
Although some of the unhappy circumstances surrounding Liu’s reunion with his parents came out through his posts on social media throughout January of this year, most of the details surrounding his situation only became clear when Liu posted a farewell letter on his Weibo account on January 24th, just a few minutes past midnight.
Liu Xuezhou’s last Weibo post including a farewell letter.
Titled “Born with little, return with nothing,” Liu posted a lengthy letter explaining his situation.
In this letter, Liu said that besides being sold as a child and becoming an orphan at the age of four, he was also severely bullied by classmates and molested by a teacher at school. His aunt, whom he loved as a mother, also left him behind after she moved away due to a broken marriage.
As he spiraled into depression, Liu felt a spark of hope when he saw the news about Sun Zhuo (孙卓), whose story became one of the major trending news stories of 2021. In 2007, when Sun was only four, he was stolen off the street by a human trafficker. His biological parents never gave up hope they would find their son again and sacrificed everything to be able to fund their search efforts. The Chinese film Dearest (亲爱的) was partly based on their story.
After a years-long search, Sun was found in 2021 due to the help of authorities and face recognition technology that helped trace the person suspected of abducting him. In an unexpected twist, Sun stated that he would prefer to stay with his adoptive parents, who had raised him for a decade. The story triggered many online discussions and raised more awareness on the issue of the trafficking of children in China in times of the country’s one-child policy. Sun’s biological father spoke to the media saying: “For 2022, my biggest wish is that all the abducted children can finally be found.”
Image of the reunion of Sun Zhuo with his parents, who never stopped searching for him (image via Sohu).
It was Sun Zhuo’s story that inspired Liu to search for his own parents, and it was also Sun Zhuo’s story that brought more attention for Liu’s initial video, which struck a chord with many who hoped that he could also be reunited with his parents and actually stay with them.
Liu described how his biological father did not seem happy when Liu first contacted him, and seemed reluctant to meet. His biological father eventually did come to see him, but their communication afterward was not smooth. When his father told Liu that he was sold as a baby so that he could pay for the bride price to marry Liu’s mother, Liu was heartbroken and could not sleep for several days: he was not kidnapped, and his parents never searched for him.
Liu and his biological father on December 26, 2021.
His mother also was not elated that her biological son had found his way back to her. Liu felt unwanted, again, and was also searching for a home to live and was not sure who to turn to anymore. After he asked his biological father for help in buying or renting a place to live, he was blocked on WeChat. Liu then decided to take his parents to court.
Sharing screenshots on social media of the developments between him and his parents, Liu was condemned and bullied by netizens, who accused him of only wanting to find his biological parents for financial gains.
It was all too much for the teenage boy. In his farewell letter, he expressed the hope that the traffickers and biological parents would be punished for their deeds. Liu was later found to have committed suicide at a beach in the city of Sanya, and could no longer be rescued. Liu passed away within a month after meeting his biological parents at the age of just 15 years old.
By now, Liu’s farewell letter has been shared approximately 174,000 times on Weibo, it was ‘liked’ over 2,4 million times and has received thousands of comments.
The topic of Liu’s death exploded on social media and led to national outrage. Many people sympathized with the boy and were angry at all who failed him: “Poor child, abandoned and sold off by his parents, bullied and humiliated by his schoolmates, molested and discriminated by his teacher, cyberbullied by keyboard warriors. Now he’s dead!”
The injustice of Liu’s situation – starting with how he was sold as a child – is what angered people most. China Digital Times recently described how on the Weibo page of Dr. Li Wenliang, one of the doctors who raised the alarm about the coronavirus outbreak, many people also mention Liu Xuezhou. Dr. Li Wenliang was one of the eight so-called ‘whistleblowers’ who tried to warn his colleagues about the Wuhan virus outbreak in late 2019, but was censored and reprimanded by local police for making “false comments.” He later became infected with the virus himself while working at the Wuhan Central Hospital and passed away on February 7th of 2020, sparking a wave of anger and sadness on social media.
Illustration that went viral on social media at the time of Dr. Li’s death (read more here).
Over the past two years, Dr. Li’s Weibo page has become a digital Wailing Wall where people send little messages to remember Dr. Li, tell about their own anxieties and worries, but also address social injustices. As recorded by China Digital Times, one among thousands of comments said:
“Two years ago today, I had a sleepless night because of you, and my Weibo account once got shut down because I posted something about you. Over the past two years, I’ve often wondered: will this world become a better place? But between the Liu Xuezhou incident and the woman in Xuzhou with eight kids, I’ve been disappointed time and time again. If you happen to see Liu Xuezhou, please be good to him.“
Looking at Dr. Li’s Weibo account today, it is not just Liu Xuezhou who is brought up by commenters; ‘the woman in Xuzhou’ is also mentioned by dozens of people as someone experiencing injustice. But who is she?
The Chained-Up Mother in Xuzhou
In late January of 2022, right around the same time when Liu Xuezhou was one of the biggest topics on Chinese social media, a TikTok video showing a woman chained up in a shed went viral online and triggered massive outrage with thousands of people demanding answers about the woman’s circumstances.
The video, filmed by a local vlogger in the village of Huankou in Xuzhou, showed how the woman was kept in a dirty hut without a door in the freezing cold. She did not even wear a coat, and she seemed confused and unable to express herself.
To give the full story, here is the original video that caused the social media storm, which is still ongoing today (tw distressing content, not sure why the lock is blurred, as if that is the most shocking thing about this video..) pic.twitter.com/UOA5zrfeQ4
— Manya Koetse (@manyapan) January 30, 2022
Other TikTok videos that came out around the same time showed how the woman’s husband, a man by the name of Dong Zhimin (董志民), was playing and talking with their eight children in the family home right next to the hut where the mother was confined.
The video caused a storm on social media. Many netizens worried about the woman’s circumstances. Why was she chained up? Was she a victim of human trafficking? Was she being abused? How could she have had eight babies? Was she forced to have so many children? While netizens were speculating about the case and venting their anger, Weibo shut down some of the hashtags dedicated to this topic, but the topic soon popped up everywhere, and people started making artworks and writing essays in light of the case.
Following public demands, local authorities started looking into the case. An initial statement by Feng County, where the village of Huankou is located, was issued on January 28 and it said that the woman, named Yang (杨), married her husband in 1998 and that there was no indication that she was a victim of human trafficking.
The woman was dealing with mental problems and would display sudden violent outbursts, beating children and older people. The family allegedly thought it was best to separate her from the family home during these episodes, letting her stay chained up in a small hut next to the house.
The first statement raised more questions than it answered and more people, including influential Weibo bloggers and media insiders, started investigating the case. Meanwhile, it became clear that husband Dong Zhimin was giving interviews to other vloggers flocking to Huankou. Besides talking about his eight children (seven sons, one daughter) as future providers for the family, he also used his newly-acquired ‘fame’ to make money through social media. This only led to more online anger about Dong exploiting his wife and children.
Screenshots from the original Douyin (TikTok) video.
As the social media storm intensified, more official statements ensued. On January 30, Feng County local officials responded to the controversy in a second statement, in which the Xuzhou mother was identified as Yang *Xia (杨某侠) who allegedly once was “a beggar on the streets” in the summer of 1998 when she was taken in by Dong family and ended up marrying their 30-something son Dong Zhimin.
Local officials did not properly check and verify Yang’s identity information when registering the marriage certificate and the local family planning department also made errors in implementing birth control measures and following up with the family. The statement said that Yang had been diagnosed with schizophrenia and was now receiving treatment.
A third, fourth, and even fifth statement issued by authorities on February 7th, 10th, and 23rd confirmed what many on Weibo had suspected all along, namely that Yang had indeed been a victim of human trafficking. Xuzhou authorities said their investigation had brought them to the village of Yagu in Yunnan, a place that was mentioned on Yang’s marriage certificate.
Yang was identified as Xiaohuamei (小花梅), born and raised in Yagu. Yang’s DNA had been compared to that of the family of Xiaohuamei, and the DNA match confirmed that Yang was indeed Xiaohuamei. According to the statements, Xiaohuamei married and moved to another city in 1994, but she divorced and returned to her village two years later, which is when she allegedly also showed signs of mental illness.
Her parents, now deceased, then allegedly ordered a female fellow villager to take their daughter to Jiangsu to get married there. According to the woman, she took Xiaohuamei with her on a train from Yunnan to Jiangsu’s Donghai, but she allegedly ‘went missing’ shortly after arrival. The woman never reported her as missing to the police and she never notified the family.
That woman, along with another man and Dong Zhimin, are now held criminally responsible for illegal detainment and human trafficking. Xiaohuamei was reportedly sold to a man in Donghai for 5,000 yuan ($790) in 1998. Though Xiaohuamei managed to escape, she was sold twice again, eventually ending up with the Dong family.
One of the many images shared on Chinese social media to raise awareness of the case of the Xuzhou mother and other women like her.
While details surrounding the case of the ‘chained Xuzhou mother of eight’ are still being discussed on Chinese social media, it has become clear that by now, ‘Yang’ has come to represent many more women like her. Over the past few weeks, the stories of other women who also might be a victim of human trafficking have surfaced, and the public outcry demanding justice for trafficked women is ongoing.
One Social Media Spark Starting a Wildfire
Both in the case of Liu Xuezhou and the Xuzhou mother, it should be noted that their stories initially did not catch the public’s attention because official news media reported them, but because of first-hand videos being posted on TikTok (Douyin) and then being picked up and shared by bigger accounts.
Both Liu’s video and the short video featuring the mother of eight were posted on accounts that were not necessarily very popular: starting as a small spark in an online environment with over 900 million social media users, they were shared, commented on, and then spread like wildfire.
Both stories developed in real-time while netizens were following the case, both stories eventually became too big for Chinese state media to ignore, and both Liu and Yang highlighted bigger social issues in contemporary China, mainly those relating to human trafficking.
Since these cases went viral, there has been a heightened focus on the problem of human trafficking, which mostly occurs in China’s poorer areas with weak governance. The trafficking of especially women and children has various purposes, including forced marriage and illegal adoption in areas where there is a shortage of women (along with a preference for baby boys).
China Daily recently reported that lawmakers and advisers are now pushing for heavier punishment for human trafficking crimes, suggesting that the current penalties imposed on the buyers of women and children are too weak; the maximum prison sentence for those who purchase abducted women and children is three years.
In the case of the Xuzhou mother, there has been online censorship but the ongoing intense public outrage eventually did lead to higher-level research into the case. The mother was rescued from her terrible situation, the human traffickers involved are being held responsible, and so are 17 officials, who will be punished by authorities for their wrongdoings in the case.
As for Liu Xuezhou, his adoptive family members have recently filed a request at the Sanya Public Security Bureau to launch another investigation into his case. Their request was accepted on February 23rd, with multiple people being suspected of criminal offenses, eventually leading to his death. On Weibo, many people are now demanding punishment for Liu’s biological parents.
In late January of this year, following the tragic ending to Liu’s story, Chinese state media1 emphasized how the widespread attention for these kinds of stories in the social media era is also changing how government agencies should interact with the public.
According to Dr. Liu Leming, associate professor at East China University’s Political Science faculty, government agencies need to follow up and respond more quickly to social incidents like these in the internet era: “When public issues emerge, people who are involved in social problems or incidents want to know, more than anything, whether their requests have been seen and who will handle their concerns.”
In light of these recent stories, the public is happy that actions have been taken, but they are not satisfied with how these cases were handled. Many argue that authorities have failed in being transparent, that local governments have not done enough to prevent these cases from happening, and that China should do more to put an end to human trafficking.
And so, they are still posting the stories of children like Liu and women like Xiaohuamei to keep raising awareness and to keep pressuring local authorities and lawmakers to take more action to eradicate these practices.
As Liu is no longer alive and Xiaohuamei, still hospitalized, cannot defend herself, Chinese netizens keep raising their voices for them. In doing so, they have not just impacted how authorities dealt with these specific cases, but they are also changing how cases such as these will be handled in the future.
One Weibo user discussing Liu and the Xuzhou mother wrote: “We need to get to the bottom of these kinds of stories: who is to blame, who made mistakes, and where do we go from here?”
In the meantime, online posts, videos, and artworks honor both Liu and Xiaohuamei, so that their stories will not be forgotten. “Dear little one, springtime has come,” one among thousands of messages still flooding Liu Xuezhou’s Weibo page says: “You have endured too many things that you should have never experienced. It should have been us, the adults, taking care of these things for you. You please go and rest now, we will finish the rest for you.”
By Manya Koetse
Follow @whatsonweibo
For information and support on mental health and suicide, international helplines can be found at www.befrienders.org.
1 Cao Yin and Li Yang. 2022. “Policymakers, Lawmakers Respond to Opinion Voiced Online.” China Daily Hong Kong, January 28, Page 1-2.
Featured image by Ama for Yi Magazin.
This text was written for Goethe-Institut China under a CC-BY-NC-ND-4.0-DE license (Creative Commons) as part of a monthly column in collaboration with What’s On Weibo.
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China Digital
How Chinese AI Videos Turned Foreigners into Villains
How viral AI videos turn racialized outsiders into threats and violent Chinese heroes into defenders of social order, China’s first nationally broadcast AI drama, and why a newspaper is being sold for 50 times its original price.
Over the past few weeks, a noteworthy amount of AI-related news has been trending on Chinese social media, which is reflected in this week’s edition.
Now that AI has entered every corner of media consumption and online life, related discussions seem to be reaching a new peak. While well-produced AI dramas are receiving more praise, low-effort AI slop is flooding video feeds and increasingly being used to stir controversy and generate clicks, fueling prejudice, hate, and cyber-nationalism. More about that further down in this newsletter.
🗞️ QUICK SCROLLS
🎬 A new AI-generated micro-drama has become all the rage on Chinese social media. While earlier AI dramas were criticized for being sloppy and repetitive, Laid-Off Girl (被裁掉的女孩) is praised for its quality and appealing protagonist, Fang Taozi (方桃子), a small-town woman pursuing her dream of becoming a model in Paris. She is so believable that viewers almost forget they are not watching a live-action production. This marks a real step up in quality for the industry, raising the bar for others. (If you want to get a taste of what it looks like, here’s a YouTube link).
Stills from the popular micro AI drama Laid-Off Girl (被裁掉的女孩).
📺 China’s national TV has now also aired its very first AI drama. While AI dramas mostly belonged to the realm of unofficial short-form online productions, the phenomenon has now made the leap to longer productions broadcast on national satellite television. Anhui TV is airing the Ming-dynasty drama The Tale of Peach Blossom Pool (桃花潭记), promoted as China’s first fully AI-produced medium-length drama centered on cultural heritage.
📱 China’s cheap & easy SIM-card era has ended. There was a time when you could get a SIM at any street corner in a Chinese city. That changed over a decade ago when real-name registration became strictly enforced. Now, as of 1 August, China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom will sell cards online only through their own apps and websites, cutting off all third-party internet sellers who have been the go-to source for cheap data plans. The move is meant to curb third-party SIM cards ending up in grey-market chains, being used for bulk account registration and telecom fraud. But most people just fear that plans are becoming less affordable.
🚇 “Half an hour queuing for a ten-minute ride” was a common complaint after Shenzhen Metro tightened its security checks on July 20. Much to the dismay of commuters, the stricter checks led to long lines, as all carry-on items must now pass through an X-ray machine, while every passenger is also subject to a handheld body scan. Some wondered why, in an era of AI-powered image screening, security couldn’t be handled more efficiently. Shenzhen is hosting the APEC Economic Leaders’ Meeting later this year, in November.
☀️ Summer childcare worries have been trending, as even dual-income families are reportedly struggling to arrange childcare during the school holidays. Summer programs often last only a month and still require pick-ups during hot afternoons, while private tutors sometimes charge around 200 yuan per hour ($30). More Chinese parents have therefore turned to hiring university students, offering 3,500 to 4,000 yuan per month ($520–$590) to look after their children during the summer break.
👁️ EXPLAINER
How Chinese AI Videos Turn Foreigners Into Villains
“I’m American! You can’t do anything to me!” says a young white man, moments before a strong Chinese man kicks him and throws him to the ground in a single move. A crowd of Chinese aunties standing nearby applauds as the foreigner hits the ground. “Don’t think we’re still the Chinese people of the past,” the Chinese man says. “You don’t want to mess with the Chinese people of today.”
This is just one example among hundreds of similar short videos flooding Chinese social media these days. Featuring various kinds of anti-foreign and racist content, they depict foreigners as threats to China’s social, moral, and national order. Strong, confident Chinese people confront, violently beat, and humiliate them in defense of their country.
Stills from AI videos showing Chinese men beating up misbehaving foreigners.
These videos, which often last between ten seconds and half a minute, are posted by online creators across platforms such as WeChat, Kuaishou, and Douyin. Many of these creators run content-farming accounts devoted entirely to this type of content, which attracts many likes and reactions: the videos are short, visually striking, emotionally powerful, and play into existing prejudices and racialized thinking.
Racist and anti-foreign content is nothing new on Chinese social media and dates back to the earliest days of China’s online video platforms. But the age of AI has brought new dynamics to such content. Last fall, Joshua Dummer reported in Foreign Policy on the growing popularity of AI-generated anti-Black videos presented as cautionary tales about Chinese women becoming involved with African men.
This time, it’s different.
The latest wave of anti-foreign content goes beyond gender dynamics and focuses more broadly on the negative influence foreigners supposedly have on Chinese people and society. Foreigners disrupt orderly Chinese public spaces or threaten the safety of Chinese women, security personnel, or lower-status workers, after which a morally upright Chinese person restores order through violence.
Four Types of Videos
In the dozens of AI videos I’ve analyzed, roughly four categories can be discerned, with different groups of foreigners performing different “narrative jobs.”
(See examples of these videos on my X here, or find them on Bluesky)
1️⃣ The Uncivilized Outsider
Roughly 40% of the videos show foreigners engaging in “uncivilized” behavior and disrupting China’s cleanliness, etiquette, and public order. In these scenes, foreigners are portrayed as dirty, smelly, and disorderly.
One example shows an entire plane of Chinese passengers holding handkerchiefs over their noses because of the smell from an Indian man’s bare feet. He refuses to comply with the flight attendant’s instructions, after which a strong Chinese man approaches and slaps him in the face.
AI video: An Indian passenger disrupts a Chinese flight with smelly feet.
Other examples include foreigners attempting to urinate in the street, occupying multiple seats on public transport, putting their bare feet up on a high-speed train, or otherwise disregarding public etiquette.
These videos predominantly feature Indian characters, but to a lesser extent also white/Western and Filipino characters.
2️⃣ The Entitled Foreign Bully
Roughly 30% of the videos depict foreigners as arrogant, entitled, and aggressive bullies who believe their nationality places them above Chinese rules.
Examples include foreign men and women skipping queues by invoking their foreign status or showing disrespect toward China’s vulnerable elderly or lower-status workers, until a Chinese person teaches them to “respect China’s rules.”
AI video: A Western woman is hit by a shop owner for using her foreign status as a reason to cut the line.
These videos mostly feature white people, but sometimes also Black, Indian, or Japanese characters.
AI video: entitled Indian man gets curry thrown in the face by waiter.
One scene shows an Indian man demanding that the Chinese waiter serving him curry kneel before him, after which the waiter scolds him and throws the curry in his face.
3️⃣ The Sexual and Demographic Threat
Roughly 20% of the videos fall into the category described in Foreign Policy last October, in which foreign men are portrayed as sexual and demographic intruders.
These videos often show Chinese women following foreign partners to Africa or India, only to end up living a nightmare of poverty, abuse, or infidelity. Some explicitly warn Chinese women not to marry foreigners.
AI video: A Chinese woman is first shown in a happy relationship with her African partner, and then shown in a state of desperation after she moved to Africa with him.
There are also many videos showing Chinese men as heroic protectors of women being harassed by foreign men. One recurring scenario shows a Black man harassing a Chinese woman in a shopping street before being beaten by a Chinese man who comes to her defense.
AI video: Chinese man saves Chinese woman from getting harassed by a foreigner.
Although these videos mainly feature Black African men, with Africa portrayed as a kind of dystopia, some also include white or Indian men.
4️⃣ The Undesirable/Dangerous Migrant
About 10% of the videos take place at airport immigration or border control, showing foreigners arriving without money, carrying drugs, or seeking to exploit Chinese hospitality.
One example shows Indian men arriving at the Chinese border and claiming that they want to “enjoy Chinese women.” They are refused entry after an official questions them about their finances.
AI video: Indians denied at the border.
The endgame is always the same: they are denied entry and sent back to their country. These stories predominantly feature Indian characters.
💡 To get a rough idea of which racialized groups appear most often, I analyzed a sample of 35 videos collected from my timeline: approximately 39% featured Indian characters, 28% White/Western characters, 24% Black/African characters, 6% Filipino characters, and 3% Japanese characters.
Reversed Humiliation
The xenophobic AI slop that we’re seeing is about more than just “foreigners behaving badly.” Besides the videos showing Chinese women moving to Africa, the basic formula running through most of them is:
Foreigners cross moral or social boundaries and violate rules → they victimize Chinese people or otherwise bring humiliation or inconvenience to others → forceful intervention by a morally upright Chinese person → punishment and restored order.
These videos do two things.
➡️ One important effect is that they produce a sense of “Chineseness” by constructing a threatening “Other” that is never Chinese (even though the foreigners all look different, they are never ethnically Chinese). In doing so, Chinese national identity is defined through contrast with how bad the Other is.
The foreign villain is deceptive, uncivilized, backward, and disruptive—a threat to women, public order, and social stability—whereas the Chinese characters are morally superior, embodying loyalty, civility, modernity, collective responsibility, and the protection of social and historical continuity. The foreigner therefore does more than play the villain: his imagined identity helps define who the Chinese are and what contemporary China is.
➡️ Another effect is that these videos offer a form of catharsis in China’s “new era.” They coincide with increasingly prominent narratives about China’s exceptional rise, its emerging superpower status, and the “decline of the West.” At the same time, they evoke the painful history of 19th China and the “century of humiliation”—a period portrayed in contemporary education as one in which foreign powers aggressively and violently imposed their rules on a weak China.
These AI fantasies symbolically reverse that history. The videos show that Chinese people are no longer passive victims, but strong and assertive defenders who fight back against foreigners who disrespect them or exploit Chinese hospitality. Through violence presented as morally justified, historical humiliation is transformed into national victory: China is no longer subjected to rules imposed by outsiders, but has become the country that sets the rules and possesses the strength to enforce them.
The Many Faces of Chinese Digital Nationalism
This recent trend shows that digital nationalism in China has many faces, and that this one in particular is not actively boosted by state media nor supported by official voices.
The timing of these videos does not just mark a new era of Chinese digital nationalism; it also coincides with a new wave of China tourism and a travel boom, with trips to China by foreign nationals rising sharply since the Covid era amid more lenient visa policies. This includes an increase in visas issued to Indians at a time when Indian and Chinese authorities have been working to normalize bilateral relations.
Earlier in July, Chinese newspaper The Paper published an article pushing back against growing online hostility toward Indians in China, arguing that individual misconduct should be addressed without stereotyping an entire nationality or turning it into xenophobic outrage. In a noteworthy move, the full article was republished on the website of the Chinese embassy in New Delhi—showing Chinese authorities pushing back against these trends and defending Indians to Chinese netizens.
At the same time, this is perhaps also a case of lead by example. An AI-animated video released by state media outlet China Daily which depicted the Philippines as a “ragged monkey” has also made international headlines recently, with the imagery called racist and unacceptable.
Even though the authorities might not be happy about the flood of racist or xenophobic AI videos at a time when state media are promoting just how welcoming China is to foreigners, official videos such as these can also fan the flames and provide examples for grassroots creators to draw on.
🔗 SEEN ELSEWHERE
🔹 Fresh “feet juice,” anyone? Chinese female cosplayers recently caused a stir at an anime convention in Guangzhou by selling cups of lemon water from the tubs in which they were soaking their feet. Read via SCMP.
🔹 China saw a new series of cyber crackdowns in July, including one targeting so-called companion bots—AI characters created to offer consumers emotional support as virtual friends. Having to bid farewell to these companions in light of the new ban has been really tough for users, with some even trying to “rescue” their virtual friends by downloading them. Read via Ginger River Review.
🔹 Earlier this year, Amsterdam-based cybersecurity researcher and journalist Marc Hofer came across a futuristic-looking dashboard that turned out to be an unsecured Zhangjiakou police dashboard, offering a rare window into how Chinese local authorities track foreigners by collecting and aggregating vast amounts of private data. Read via The New York Times.
🔹 People in China can now get paid US$15 to US$700 to license their faces for AI-generated entertainment productions. As the AI boom drives demand for an ever-wider range of human faces, Chinese companies have found a solution: buying the legal rights to people’s faces. Read via Rest of World.
🀄 ONLINE PHRASE OF THE WEEK
洛阳纸贵 Luòyáng zhǐ guì
Lit.:Paper has become expensive in Luoyang
Meaning:Flying off the shelves / selling like hotcakes
Who thought print media could still go viral in this digital age?
Just a few months ago, Chinese mathematician Wang Hong (王虹, b. 1991) from Guangxi became the first woman to win the top prize at China’s most prestigious math congress for her work on the three-dimensional Kakeya conjecture. On July 23, she was awarded the Fields Medal, also dubbed the “Nobel Prize of mathematics,” one of the highest and most prestigious international honors a mathematician can receive.
Together with fellow math talent Deng Yu (邓煜), she became one of the first two Chinese citizens to be awarded the Fields Medal and is only the third woman ever to win the prize.
After her win on July 23, the provincial Party newspaper Guangxi Daily (广西日报) featured her on its front page with a long article about her story and the headline “Wang’s Conjecture” (王的猜想, Wáng de Cāixiǎng). The article was praised for its “great title,” as it literally refers to her research but can also be read as “the conjecture of the king” (王 Wáng also means king), hinting at Wang’s ascension to the throne of mathematics.
Because of its unusual headline and prominent coverage—and because the Fields Medal wins were seen as confirmation of China’s status as a “strong mathematics country” (数学强国, shùxué qiángguó), especially since both mathematicians were educated in China until adulthood—the article went viral, turning that issue of Guangxi Daily into a must-have item.
This popular demand for physical copies created what Chinese commentators called a case of 洛阳纸贵 (luòyáng zhǐ guì), “paper has become expensive in Luoyang”—a classical idiom for a text so popular that it drives up the price of paper.
The idiom originated during the Western Jin dynasty (265–316 CE), when a work by writer Zuo Si (左思) became so popular that people across Luoyang rushed to make handwritten copies of it. The work’s popularity supposedly drove up the price of paper, giving rise to the expression 洛阳纸贵. It’s now an idiom used for written work that is in high demand.
Although a single copy of Guangxi Daily costs 1.35 yuan (about $0.19), the print edition’s resale price on e-commerce platforms initially jumped to 65 yuan ($9.60), with the going price now around 38 yuan ($5.60).
On apps like Xiaohongshu, showing off your own copy of the “Wang’s Conjecture” Guangxi Daily newspaper became a way for users to “check in” and show their support for Wang, Guangxi, and China’s mathematical talent. In doing so, Wang’s win unexpectedly also created one of the most viral moments in Chinese print media in a long time.
That’s a wrap! Thanks to Miranda Barnes, who contributed to topics discussed in this edition. Also thanks to Ed Sander for sending in some of the videos that have helped me in my research of the main topic.
Eye on Digital China, by Manya Koetse, is co-published on Substack and What’s on Weibo. Both feature the same new content — so you can read and subscribe wherever you prefer. Substack offers community features, while What’s on Weibo provides full archive access.
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Chapter Dive
China’s CITIC Tower Crash: The Story That Never Trended
How information surrounding the CITIC Tower crash was managed, from a five-day media blackout to a sixth-day official narrative.
My premium newsletter covering the stories, memes, debates, and viral moments shaping online conversations in China. Subscribe here to receive future editions.
The story that never went trending was undoubtedly the biggest story of the week. On June 26, an incident at the Beijing landmark CITIC Tower (aka China Zun 中国尊) in the Chaoyang central business district sparked disbelief online. At 5:55 pm local time, a small plane, a Sunward SA60L Aurora, crashed into the tower, after which wreckage from the small aircraft fell to the street below (video).
For those who immediately responded to the incident on social media, it seemed unimaginable that this had happened in the capital. Beijing is one of the most heavily defended airspace zones in China. Since May of this year, recreational drones are also banned in Beijing, with outdoor flights requiring prior approval from authorities.
“A small plane hit CITIC Tower??? How could something like this happen? What happened to the air defense capabilities in our core restricted zone???“ one Weibo commenter wrote on Friday night.
After videos and images of the incident spread, online discussions were swiftly and thoroughly censored. That same day, while media outlets around the world began reporting on the crash, it did not appear among the top 50 trending topics on Chinese platforms—in fact, it wasn’t reported anywhere at all. As related keywords and hashtags were taken offline, it quickly became clear that this was the “6.26 Incident That Shall Not Be Mentioned.”
Even the next day, when Chaoyang authorities issued a brief official notice, republished by state media, the name of the tower was never mentioned, just that “a single-engine, two-seat light sport aircraft collided with a high-rise building during flight,” and that an investigation was underway. The one person on board, the pilot, died in the crash. Thirteen others were injured.
Later, flight tracking data revealed that the aircraft had taken off from Shifosi Airport, northeast of Beijing, and had come close to a Hainan Airlines passenger jet, forcing at least two commercial flights to abort their landings.
For the five days following the incident, little to no official information was available on the highly unusual incident. Meanwhile, Chinese authorities reportedly ordered a nationwide suspension of most general aviation activities, including recreational flying.
Why the CITIC Tower Incident Triggered an Information Blackout
But why has the censorship surrounding this incident been so intense, leading online censors to scrub all footage and discussion of it from the internet?
This has to do with the nature of the incident.
It is not uncommon for major incidents to be heavily censored, especially when the details surrounding them are still unfolding. But this kind of information “blackout” generally occurs only when incidents are considered particularly sensitive, and the regular toolkits used to manage and control information are no longer deemed sufficient.
Some examples include:
▪️The 2011 Wenzhou Train Crash, which happened at a time when the prestige and reliability of China’s high-speed rail system was celebrated as a flagship national project.
▪️The 2013 Tiananmen SUV ‘Suicide Attack’, which happened in a tightly guarded, already politically sensitive public space and the symbolic heart of the state.
▪️The 2022 Anti-Party Protest Banner at Sitong Bridge, which happened just before the opening of the 20th Party Congress that confirmed Xi Jinping’s unprecedented third term.
▪️The 2024 Beishan Park Stabbings of American Tourists, which happened just as China’s inbound tourism was beginning to recover in the post-COVID era and “China is safe” narratives were playing an increasingly important role in official messaging.
All of these incidents are different in nature, but what they have in common is not just that they are examples of bad news being suppressed, but that they reflect a specific pattern in which news that is bad for the Party-state is suppressed. In their own ways, these incidents—and the discussions and speculation surrounding them—challenge one or more foundational narratives about the competence of China’s leadership, its modernization, its security, its stability, and its capacity to maintain social order.
📌 The 6.26 CITIC Tower incident is particularly sensitive because it touches on several of these core narratives. It immediately opened the door to a flood of politically sensitive questions: How could this happen in the capital? Were the authorities really in control? Were the security systems adequate? Was it a deliberate attack? This all directly contradicts the logic of “Safe China” (平安中国), a grand strategy for governance in the Xi era that seeks to project an image of a closely monitored society in which risks are anticipated and prevented through the integration of efficient public security, surveillance, and Party leadership (see Trevaskes & Lin 2024)1. A small aircraft striking Beijing’s tallest building—located in one of the country’s most tightly controlled airspaces—challenges precisely this claimed capacity to maintain order, guarantee security, and keep China safe.
📌 Another reason why incidents like the 6.26 one are censored so heavily is that they have the potential to snowball or even trigger copycat behavior. What begins as an isolated accident can quickly evolve into broader discussions about political dissatisfaction, which might spiral into social unrest – and protecting domestic stability is central to the Party-state’s legitimacy and maintenance of power.
📌 A third factor is the symbolic significance of the location. Unlike an ordinary office building, the CITIC Tower is a symbol of Beijing’s cosmopolitan skyline and of China’s economic rise and state-led modernization. Situated in the heart of the capital’s central business district, next to CCTV headquarters and visible across much of the city, it is one of Beijing’s most recognizable landmarks. An incident involving such a building inevitably carries far greater symbolic weight than one occurring in a less prominent location.
⮕ Taken together, these factors make the 6.26 incident unusually sensitive in political, social, and symbolic terms. It is not just a random aviation accident; it touches upon national security, state competence, political control, social stability, and the protection of one of the country’s most symbolic urban spaces. Rather than threatening a single Party narrative, as some of the other aforementioned incidents did, it threatens several at once. This helps explain why it was treated not as an ordinary censored event, but as one requiring an almost complete information blackout.
A Familiar Censorship Playbook
Although these top-censored news incidents are all unique, they follow a similar whack-a-mole-style playbook in suppressing discussion of these events, even though they had only just happened.2
The main playbook is always more or less the same: Sensitive incident occurs → News disappears from front pages and trending search lists → Popular videos and images are taken offline → Incident-specific keywords and hashtags are scrubbed → Censorship expands to generic category-level terms (such as “Beijing,” “Chaoyang District,” or “small plane”) that could lead users back to the incident) → State media remain silent while shifting attention to other news.
(This week, the distraction might have been an otherwise arguably uninteresting controversy involving Chinese singer Han Hong.)3
Offline, the same pattern often plays out through physical scene control: bystanders are asked to delete their footage, journalists are kept away from the scene, or even entire street signs are removed (as happened after the protests on Wulumiqi Road and following the Sitong Bridge protest).
Meanwhile, selected commentary from permitted voices is sometimes allowed to appear online—for example, from former Global Times editor Hu Xijin—although even those posts are not immune from later deletion, as happened following the Beishan Park stabbings. This is often the first step in shaping the official narrative.
A brief authoritative news report may then be released, often ending with a statement that “the incident is under investigation,” which also buys time. Sometimes, however, no meaningful official explanation ever follows. After the 2022 China Eastern MU5735 crash, for example, authorities never released a full public investigation report, even though reports emerging in 2026 claimed the crash, which killed all 132 people on board, was deliberate.
Nevertheless, an official narrative and investigation outcome do usually follow. The 2013 Tiananmen attack, for example, was officially labeled a premeditated terrorist attack orchestrated by the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), with Chinese authorities presenting it as evidence that Xinjiang-linked militancy had become part of a broader international terrorist threat. In doing so, the incident was reframed from a local security failure into part of a global fight against terrorism.
Finally, arrests often follow, and people are held accountable. At the same time, those accused of “spreading rumors” online may also face consequences, while foreign media are often criticized for biased reporting or double standards. These counterattacks further reinforce the official narrative while simultaneously shifting attention away from the original incident.
How AI Chatbots Are Part of the Censorship Ecosystem
For the 6.26 incident, the main narrative for the first five days after it happened was that nothing really happened. Even Hu Xijin posted nothing about the incident.
On Weibo, the hashtag “The Story Behind the CITIC Tower Crash Incident” (#中信集团大厦被撞事件始末#) was taken offline, along with many others.
Five days after the crash, Weibo’s Qwen-3 chatbot (powered by Alibaba) claimed it knew nothing about any incident involving CITIC Tower.
The Weibo chatbot responds to a question about the CITIC Tower incident, saying it knows nothing (July 1st).
Six days after the incident, on July 2nd, DeepSeek’s chatbot went a step further. Rather than simply claiming no information was available, it described reports about the crash as fake news, stating that there were no official records or media coverage and that such rumors originated on “overseas social media platforms.” Kimi refused to answer questions about the incident altogether, while Baidu’s ERNIE Bot said it had no information about the incident and warned users not to believe or spread unverified rumors.
The 6.26 CITIC Tower incident illustrates a broader development in China’s online information ecosystem. A great deal has changed since the 2011 Wenzhou train crash. Social media control has become far more sophisticated—not only through better automated filtering, but also through platform regulation, agenda-setting, distraction strategies, and increasingly coordinated narrative management.
Now, AI chatbots have become part of that ecosystem.
Integrated AI assistants (LLM-powered chatbots embedded in platforms such as Weibo, Douyin, and other Chinese apps since 2025) are not merely additional tools subject to censorship. They have become an integral part of the online information environment and increasingly play a role in the handling of sensitive incidents.
Unlike Grok on X, these AI assistants are deeply integrated into the user experience and actively encourage people to ask questions, search for information, and receive summaries of ongoing events and controversies. What makes them particularly powerful from the perspective of propaganda and information control is that they can centralize official narratives at the platform level. Previously, that role was distributed across state media, government accounts, and other official actors.
Because these chatbots do not present themselves as state media or government authorities, they can appear more neutral and objective. Users may perceive them simply as AI-generated summaries with less media bias and greater factual accuracy.4 In the case of the 6.26 incident, they effectively conveyed a state-ordered message to social media users: that really, nothing happened, and that if something happened, it must be fake news.
“A Public Security Incident Caused by Personal Factors”
On July 2nd, Beijing Chaoyang’s verified official account issued a second short statement via its WeChat channel. This time, providing more details about what had happened on June 26.
According to the statement, the pilot was 66-year-old Mr. Liu (刘), a Beijing resident who was self-employed and lived alone. He obtained a sport pilot license in 2021 and a private pilot license in 2024.
Authorities said Liu deliberately deviated from his flight route, subsequently lost contact with the airport, and then intentionally crashed into the building, killing himself. They added that he had suffered from depression in recent years and that his diary contained multiple references to wanting to “end his life.” The incident was officially described as “a public security incident caused by personal factors” (个人原因造成的危害公共安全案件).
It is noteworthy that such a short statement includes details about the pilot’s age, marital status, pilot licenses, mental health, and even diary entries, yet provides virtually no information about the building itself, the security response, or the broader circumstances of the incident. The statement never mentions the CITIC Tower by name, referring only to “a high-rise building near the East Third Ring Road.” It likewise omits any mention of the aircraft entering restricted airspace, the reported disruption to commercial air traffic, or the obvious questions the incident raises about security failures.
On Weibo, the statement was widely shared, but comment sections beneath those posts remained either hidden or only contained a selection of replies.
And so, six days after the incident, there is a slight opening in the media blackout—just enough to establish the official narrative. This framing reduces a wide range of sensitive questions to the story of one troubled individual. It is not about broader questions of public safety or governance, but about a lonely man’s suicide; it is not about the Party-state, but about personal circumstances; it minimizes a news event that received maximum attention and turns a possible mass attack into an isolated incident. And so the message subtly shifts from “nothing happened” to “it’s time to move on.” The playbook is complete. It’s almost as if nothing really happened.
By Manya Koetse
With contributions by Miranda Barnes
- See: Susan Trevaskes and Delia Lin, “Integrating Stability Maintenance into Comprehensive Governance: The Burgeoning ‘Safe China’ Behemoth,” Modern China 50, no. 6 (2024): 671–701. https://doi.org/10.1177/00977004241254709.
- Some might say the 2015 Tianjin explosions also belong here, but that disaster was so large and witnessed by so many people that, while the official narrative was tightly controlled, it did not receive the same near-total information blackout.
- This controversy involved Han Hong (韩红), a popular Chinese singer and philanthropist, who recently urged Beijing audiences in the local dialect to show up at the box office for the underperforming latest Feng Xiaogang film Catch the Spy (《抓特务》), for which she is the music producer. She used the colloquial expression zǒu ge miànr (走个面儿, roughly “show your face”), and was accused of inappropriately putting moral pressure on people to buy tickets, which also led to criticism of her charity work. She made the remarks at a June 17 premiere, and it didn’t become a dominant story until eleven days later.
- See also: Yan Li, “The Impact of Automated Journalism on Media Bias, Accuracy, and Public Trust: Evidence from Young Chinese News Consumers,” Humanities and Social Sciences Communications 13 (2026): 688. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-026-06612-6.
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