China Arts & Entertainment
‘American Factory’ Sparks Debate on Weibo: Pro-China Views and Critical Perspectives
‘American Factory’ stirs online discussions in China.
By Anna Wang and Eduardo Baptista
Even as China posts its lowest industrial output growth since 2002, Weibo’s ongoing reaction to Netflix documentary American Factory is rife with declarations of the Chinese manufacturing sector’s impending victory over its US rival. This, however, is not the full story.
The first documentary distributed by Higher Ground Productions, owned by former US President and First Lady, Barack and Michelle Obama, American Factory painted a damning picture of Trump’s protectionist policies.
US manufacturing cannot keep up with the brute efficiency of its Chinese competitors. The story of a shuttering American factory revived by Chinese investment and an influx of Chinese workers, opening up a Pandora’s Box of cultural clashes, paints a telling, but pessimistic, picture of the current strategic conflict between the two superpowers, from the ground-up.
Image via Netflix.
Despite the Great Firewall, Chinese netizens found ways to watch the documentary, that was made by Ohio filmmakers Steve Bognar and Julia Reichert. Temporary links to streaming and subtitle services litter the Chinese Internet, making any accurate count of total mainland viewership nigh-impossible. However, one indication of the film’s popularity among mainlanders was the 259,000 views for a trailer posted on Bilibili.
One likely reason for netizens’ interest is that it neatly plays into Chinese state media rhetoric on the US-China trade war.
The inevitability of China’s rise up the global supply chain (and a corresponding decline on the US side) is a recurring theme in opinion pieces penned by the likes of Xinhua and Global Times, but also an increasingly louder cacophony of bloggers.
“American Factory shows that the US will probably lose out to China in manufacturing.”
One Chinese company (Wind资讯) posted on Weibo that “what Obama means in this film, in a very oblique way, is that anti-globalization will produce a lose-lose scenario.”
The official Weibo account of Zhisland, a Chinese networking platform for entrepreneurs around the world (@正和岛标准) posted a review of the Netflix film titled: “Behind the Popularity of American Factory: Time Might Not Be on America’s Side” (“《美国工厂》走红背后：时间，或许真的不在美国那边了“).
It warns the audience right off the bat to “not assume that this film will promote cooperation between China and the United States. In contrast, it will surely stir up mixed feelings among both audiences.”
“American Factory shows that the US will probably lose out to China in manufacturing,” Zhisland writes. The article argues that China will win out due to its lower labor costs, lack of trade unions, and more disciplined managerial styles. “It’s an uneven playing field,” the author continues: “Time may not be on America’s side.”
Toward the end, the author claims: “We are about to enter a new era in which China will gradually become the most dominant player in the global marketplace.”
The fact that many on Weibo shared these kinds of pieces as a reaction to the documentary suggests there is confirmation bias at work here. As is common on Weibo and other social media, comments on the pieces like the above simply rattle unsubstantiated claims, frequently descending into ad hominems.
Another Weibo user (@用户Mr.立早) adds comments when sharing the above article: “The American workers repeat Trump’s mantra, but won’t act on it. They’ve been idling for almost a century. They’re hopeless.”
“American Factory tells you: separate the US economy from China, and the US will go bankrupt.”
Chinese state media also chimed in on how American Factory proved their most important talking points on the ongoing US-China trade conflict.
Xinmin Evening News, an official newspaper run by the Communist Party’s Shanghai Committee, published an article by Wu Jian called “American Factory Tells You: Separate the US Economy from China, and the US Will Go Bankrupt” (“《美国工厂》告诉你：将美国经济从中国分离，美国会破产“).
In this piece, Jian claims that “in the age of globalization, ties between China and the US cannot be cut. Using high tariffs to force U. S. manufacturing return to the States… is simply not realistic. Separate the US economy from China, and the U.S. will go bankrupt.”
The article was also shared widely on Weibo. Thepaper.cn, an online news site affiliated with Shanghai United Media Group, published a review titled “American Factory: The Things that Are Spelled Out and the Things that are Implied” (“《美国工厂》：那些说出来的，和没有说的“).
The author, Xu Le, writes: “What struck me most about the film was the look on the faces of the American workers. All of them … had the same burnt-out expression… Their faces reminded me of photos of people in the late Qing Dynasty. That dull expression reflects a civilization in decline.”
“We’re a family at Fuyao” American workers listen to a rosy speech from their new bosses.
In the film, When American foremen visit a factory run by glass manufacturer Fuyao in China, they are alarmed to see Chinese workers picking up glass shards without safety glasses or cut-resistant gloves.
A Chinese worker picks up glass shards with minimal safety equipment, shocking his American co-workers.
Xu comments: “Why is it that Chinese workers are able to put up with even more drudgery while being paid far less than their American counterparts? This is something we Chinese are very familiar with.”
“Are you the glory, or are you the cost of the glory?”
Qin Hui, professor of history at Tsinghua University, once argued that China’s economic growth isn’t because of economic liberalism or government oversight, but because of China’s refusal to guarantee certain basic human rights.
In Maoist China, the state stripped the underprivileged of all political power in the name of the greater good dictated by socialist dogma. Post-Mao China continues to exploit the underprivileged, but now for monetary gain. He called it China’s “advantage” of “low human rights.”
Despite the nationalism sentiment fanned by American Factory, it has also provoked reflection on China’s advantage of low human rights summarized by Qin Hui.
Weibo user ‘Zhi21’ (@ZHI2i), a recent college graduate, writes on Weibo: “I just finished an internship at a factory. I worked 12 hours a day. More than 11 hours of every shift was spent on my feet without stopping, just to keep up with the assembly line. It didn’t make sense to me. After watching American Factory, I feel like American workers are lucky to only work 8 hours a day. That’s why the production costs are higher in the States. They pay too much attention to whether or not workers are comfortable.”
Another Weibo blogger (@GhostSaDNesS) notes that “in American Factory, Fuyao employees believe that to work is to live. They defend the interests of capitalists while they are actively exploited. Unions in the West chose human rights, Chinese capitalists chose profit, and Chinese workers have no choice at all.”
Some of these posts were apparently censored; threads that displayed as having over 200 comments only showed 12, and users complained that their posts were being deleted or made invisible to other users by Weibo censors. “They didn’t give any explanation,” one blogger wrote: ” I only expressed that I felt sorry for the people at the bottom. I didn’t question the system. I didn’t ask to change society.”
Views like that of @Crimmy_Excelsior (“I was confused. Which country is the capitalist one and which country is the socialist one?“) are apparently sensitive enough to be taken offline – they touch upon the tension between the CCP’s espousal of Marxist-Leninism and the plight faced by hundreds of millions of Chinese that have their working conditions driven down by capitalist markets.
Many users don’t buy into nationalist interpretations of the film, and argue that economic gain achieved at the expense of human rights is shameful. @陈生大王 raises a poignant question: “This is a glorious time for China, but I hope this film inspires you to think about who you really are as an individual. Are you the glory, or are you the cost of the glory?”
“The cost of the glory” is derived from a quip popular on China’s internet. The Chinese government often urges its citizens to rally together, using the rhetoric, “We must win this trade war at all cost.” Some netizens then twisted the phrase, saying, “We must win this trade war at all cost, and we later find out that we are the cost.”
“China’s prosperity did not just happen overnight – Chinese people worked hard to make it happen.”
Even among those in favor of China’s controversial work ethics, there have been concerns over the status quo. Earlier this year, engineers in the tech industry publicly aired their grievances about their “996” lifestyle. The term refers to a high-pressure work schedule of 9am to 9pm, six days a week. This is the kind of life workers in Fuyao are living, with no hope of improvement – they are that the company would find a replacement in no time, making any form of complaining moot.
Recent events in mainland China only increase the credibility of this representation. Factory workers at Jasic, a maker of welding machinery in Shenzhen, attempted to start a union last year. All those involved were fired. A number of college students and activists who actively supported the workers were detained and persecuted.
According to the “China Labor Movement Report (2015-2017)” by China Labor Bulletin (a NGO based in Hong Kong that promotes and defends workers’ rights in the People’s Republic of China) “intensification of social conflicts, including labor-capital conflicts, has crossed a tipping point, and directly threatens the legitimacy of the regime.”
More conspicuously, there are netizens that don’t buy the narrative that Chinese workers are innately “tougher” than their American counterparts. As user @胡尕峰 observes: “(In the film), a new Chinese CEO explains to his fellow Chinese that Americans have been encouraged too much growing up, and can’t take criticism. Chinese born after 2000 have been raised the same way! In my circle of friends, some mothers nearly faint when their babies are finally able to poop. Is China going to end up the same as America?”
American Factory’s objective portrayal of cultural shocks between American and Chinese workforces clearly generated thoughtful reflections and incisive criticism from a sizeable number of netizens, while also being another reason for Chinese state media to highlight the rise of China in the global market.
The chairman of Fuyao Group, Cao Dewang, made headlines this week with the quote: “China’s prosperity did not just happen overnight – Chinese people worked hard to make it happen.” “We indeed worked hard for it,” some commenters agreed: “That’s definitely true.”
By Anna Wang and Eduardo Baptista
Follow @whatsonweibo
Edited by Eduardo Baptista
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Chapter Dive
The Power of Ugly: Why Niu Lai Became China’s Unlikeliest Box-Office Hit
How the two-person animated film Niu Lai turned its “ugly” visuals, dreamcore nostalgia, and remarkable cinema journey into a nationwide participatory meme.
🗞️ QUICK SCROLLS
📈 Is China’s AI price war over? After a period of offering as much as possible to users at relatively low prices, Chinese AI (LLM) companies are now raising their prices. Last week, DeepSeek – known as the cheapest LLM model around – announced a raise in its API prices, showing that LLM models in China, like food delivery platforms, follow a clear strategy of first attracting users and subsidizing growth, then monetizing once users are locked in.
🐸 “Antibiotic bullfrogs” are a new cause for concern. Bullfrogs sold through e-commerce channels, popularly used in various dishes (like bullfrog hotpot), have been found to contain excessive antibiotic residues after being tested by an independent Shanghai investigation team. Antibiotics are widely used in bullfrog farming.
🌾 A 67-year-old farmer from Anhui ruined 25 acres of crops after following a chatbot’s advice on which pesticides to use. The AI tool recommended a strategy including fomesafen, which killed the farmer’s entire sesame plant crop. Chinese state media highlighted the story as a warning to the growing number of senior citizens who are relying on AI a bit too much.
👁️ A Chinese ad campaign for contact lenses has been taken offline because it starred an AI actress who doesn’t actually have eyes. Last week, I reported on the success of this AI actress, Fang Taozi (方桃子), in the AI micro drama “Laid-Off Girl” (被裁掉的女孩). After a Chinese cosmetic contact-lens brand paid a large sum to feature the actress in its commercial, regulators flagged it because the virtual actress claimed the contact lenses were “comfortable.” Because she doesn’t physically have eyes, this suggests false advertising, and the company could face an additional fine.
🎭 The famous Chinese actor Qin Yan (秦焰) has passed away at the age of 72. The veteran actor was a familiar face on Chinese TV since 1991 and was known for his many roles in TV series like Ruyi’s Royal Love in the Palace, The Knockout, and Joy of Life 2. While fans and colleagues are posting tributes online, the actor’s Baidu (Baike) page has turned black-and-white to mourn his death. The actor suffered from an illness that hasn’t been specified.
Images via Weibo, showing Qin Yan’s press photo on the left and on the right him portraying the role of Eunuch Dai, the corrupt director of the vegetable and food supply department in the popular historical drama series Joy of Life Season 2 (2024).
🏆 China’s animated film Ne Zha 2 was the biggest winner at the 38th Hundred Flower Awards, China’s most prestigious film awards. The movie grossed 15.9 billion yuan ($2.35 billion) and currently ranks as the world’s fifth highest-grossing film, right in between Titanic and Star Wars. Notably, director Jiaozi (real name Yang Yu 杨宇, b. 1980) was absent from the ceremony, as he always is. The director has a strong dislike for pointless socializing. 😂
🕯️ Remembered as a “Communist Warrior” (共产主义战士), the passing of former Chinese Premier and electrical engineer Zhu Rongji (朱镕基) became a top trending topic on Wednesday after an official obituary announced his death. Zhu is mostly remembered for his efforts to help transition from a planned economy to a socialist market economy, including his tax reform implementations, restructuring of state-owned enterprises, and creation of the mass home-ownership market. Zhu died of an illness in Beijing. He was 98 years old.
👁️ ZOOMING IN
1. Typhoon Baihaitun Brings Record Rainfall to Shanghai
Image via Weibo user @粗茶大白饭
Typhoon Baihaitun (白海豚 “White Dolphin”) has been one of the biggest keywords dominating Chinese social media this week as severe weather affected eastern China.
In Shanghai and surrounding areas, the typhoon caused major disruptions on August 9–10 due to strong winds and extreme rainfall. In Xujiahui, nearly 316 mm of rain fell within 24 hours, the highest amount recorded in Shanghai since observations began over 150 years ago. (The highest total was recorded at Lantian Station in Linhai, Taizhou, where rainfall surpassed a staggering 630 mm; that’s like buckets of water simply being poured down from the sky.)
Many roads, homes, and entire parking lots were completely flooded (video on X / Bluesky). Thousands of people were evacuated, flights were canceled, and metro lines were suspended. In some neighborhoods, residents reported that the water had reached all the way up the stairs.
The typhoon coincided with the Monday morning rush. Despite official guidance encouraging working from home, online complaints made it clear that many companies still expected their employees to show up at the office.
Shanghai Disneyland also remained open despite the severe weather. Videos show park visitors riding attractions in the pouring rain, and cast members in costumes needing help to navigate the rain and wind. The happiest place on earth has never looked so sad (see various videos in my thread here on X / Bluesky).
The impact of the typhoon is expected to last until at least Sunday.
2. Streisand Effect: Huawei Gets Bugged by Bamboo Cicada Toy
If the past week had one soundbite, it would be the rasping, buzzing cicada-like sound you get by spinning the traditional handmade “bamboo cicada” (竹知了 zhúzhīliǎo) wooden toy.
It became a viral sensation after netizens used its sounds to accompany videos of a Huawei event where Chairman Richard Yu (余承东) announced a new car. He described the AITO M9 as “the best SUV under 10 million yuan” (一千万以内最好，没有之一), prompting “wawaa” sounds and cheers from the audience. Soon, a meme was born in which social media users mixed the footage with the toy’s sound – not just because of the audience, but also because of Yu’s distinctive way of speaking.
That cicada toy meme would never have become as big if Huawei’s legal department hadn’t intervened. The company submitted complaints to social media platforms, and videos were removed. But this triggered a chain reaction – when people found the sound was being censored, it blew up in popularity. By now, not only is the sound used everywhere, but the toy itself has become a summer must-have (even though its origins are contested – some say it’s traditionally Japanese and not Chinese at all).
The American term “Streisand Effect” (in Chinese: 史翠珊效应 Shǐcuìshān xiàoyìng) has been used online to describe how Huawei’s reaction backfired.
The response by Huawei – or, more precisely, HIMA, the company’s smart-vehicle alliance brand – was criticized not only by netizens but also by official voices. The official account of Zhejiang Province was among many posting critiques, saying that “the stronger a company is, the greater its capacity to accept discussion” – in other words, calling Huawei weak for its reaction.
This makes it one of those rare moments when, especially when it’s about censorship, official and grassroots voices seem to agree, for once, on the limits of the kind of content that should and should not be controlled. In this way, the cicada sound has come to represent something much more than mocking Huawei, with netizens protecting their rights to criticize & ridicule China’s most powerful business players.
3. Japanese K-Pop Fan’s Death Shows Dark Side of Fan Culture
Miki Chan on the right, posing together with ENHYPEN group member NI-KI. Image via Weibo.
A tragic suicide livestreamed on TikTok became a trending topic across Chinese platforms over the past week, sparking discussions about toxic fan cultures and online bullying.
The 26-year-old Japanese K-pop influencer Mina Chan experienced an acute mental health crisis while livestreaming from her home in Seoul on August 5. This happened after she suffered weeks of severe online bullying stemming from an incident at the US concert of her favorite pop group, the boy band ENHYPEN.
During the concert, Mina tried to give sunflowers to her favorite singer, Nishimura Riki, better known as NI-KI, by throwing them onto the stage. When another group member picked them up instead, she appeared upset. When NI-KI later criticized fans for seeking personal attention rather than enjoying the concert, many fans felt he was referring to Mina.
In the following weeks, Mina received so much online harassment, doxxing, and hate that she first apologized on X and withdrew from the fan club before eventually broadcasting her final livestream, in which she died by hanging. Mean comments continued throughout the livestream.
Online discussions in China have largely framed the incident in terms of online aggression (网暴, wǎngbào) and problematic fan circles (饭圈, fànquān). Although Mina was a Japanese fan of a South Korean band, K-pop fandom is also enormous in China.
Both online aggression and toxic fan culture have been repeatedly targeted by Chinese cyberspace authorities in recent years, undoubtedly contributing to greater public awareness of these problems. Against this backdrop, Mina’s death has prompted widespread calls to end online bullying, while thousands of Chinese netizens have expressed their sorrow over the young woman’s death.
Notably, just one day before Mina’s livestream, American celebrity blogger Perez Hilton became a global trending topic after self-harming during a TikTok livestream that remained online for approximately fifteen minutes, allowing a large audience to watch the disturbing events unfold – similar to what happened with Mina’s livestream. In the United States, the incident sparked further discussion about platform moderation and TikTok’s failure to end livestreams quickly when signs of self-harm or an acute mental health crisis emerge.
📱ON MY FEED
This post reads:
“China Southern, what on earth are you doing? I gulped it all down, only to realize it wasn’t grape juice, it was prune juice!!! This is the first time I’ve seen such a long, never-ending line of people waiting to use the restroom on a plane; the prize pool just kept growing.
Do you have any idea how much I suffered? #InFlightMeal #ChinaSouthern #PruneJuice”
After passengers on a China Southern Airlines flight from Wuhan to Urumqi were served prune juice with their meal, the queues for the plane’s only two toilets kept growing as dozens of passengers felt the high urge to go.
One other review said:
“What were you thinking, serving prune juice? China Southern, please answer me. You nearly made me shit myself.”
🔗 SEEN ELSEWHERE
🔹 “Grandma Economy” (“姥姥经济”) fills a void for urban Chinese Gen Z and millennial consumers who are increasingly projecting their nostalgia for the warmth of grandmothers onto the brands they buy, the content they consume, and the creators they follow. Read at Baiguan / by Amber Zhang.
🔹 Toddler twins are at the center of a very messy custody case involving a surrogate mother from Florida and a Chinese father who might never be allowed to enter the US. Born in November 2024, the twins are biologically not connected to the surrogate mother, but after the Chinese legal father never came to collect them, she and her husband want to adopt them. A new Florida law has now placed the case at the center of conservative outrage over Chinese parents allegedly exploiting the state’s lax surrogacy rules. Read at Wall Street Journal / by Katherine Long.
🔹 A Chinese state media correspondent has been accused of being a spy by the Czech Security Information Service, which identified Yang as an operative of China’s Ministry of State Security, alleging he used his cover as a journalist to collect compromising information on Czech politicians, particularly those supportive of closer ties with Taiwan. Read at Reporters Without Borders.
🔹 “What I feared to be my lifelong search has unexpectedly come to an end. Yesterday, I got a message from my family searcher in China on WeChat that I have a positive DNA match with my biological parents.” In late 2024, I wrote about how the Dutch adoptee Fengli Bottema had come to China in search of her biological family after she was left in front of an Anhui police station as a baby back in 2001. There’s now an update to her story, which echoes that of thousands of Chinese girls adopted abroad. Her search has finally come to an end. Read Fengli’s Instagram post here.
Thanks to Miranda Barnes for helping me curate topics for this edition.
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Why Japan Has So Many Surnames, China’s Back-to-School Shifts & Taiwan Pavilion Trouble
Blame Games & Bad Signs: Nepal–Tibet Floods, Huawei’s Toilet Trouble, “Screwed” Graduates
The Power of Ugly: Why Niu Lai Became China’s Unlikeliest Box-Office Hit
AI Actress Ad Pulled, Baihaitun Disrupts Shanghai and Cicada Meme Bugs Huawei
How Chinese AI Videos Turned Foreigners into Villains
China’s CITIC Tower Crash: The Story That Never Trended
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“Even Pigs Have AC”: The European Heatwave Through Chinese Eyes
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