Chapter Dive
From Weibo to RedNote: The Ultimate Short Guide to China’s Top 10 Social Media Platforms
Weibo, Wechat, Douyin, or Xiaohongshu? Understanding China’s top 10 social media platforms.
WHAT’S ON WEIBO CHAPTER: 15 YEARS OF WEIBO
These are complicated times for social media, as users around the world are jumping between different services while holding different views on what platforms should stand for, how they should be managed, and what their role should be.
In 2025, international media are more focused on Chinese social media apps than ever before, especially after January’s “Tiktok refugee” hype in which waves of US TikTok users migrated to to China’s Xiaohongshu app.
This foreign focus on China’s online landscape also highlights lingering misconceptions, with major media outlets still trying to label Chinese apps as “the Chinese Instagram,” “the Chinese Facebook,” and so on.
Some of these labels made sense around 2010, when Chinese companies were indeed creating domestic equivalents of Twitter or Pinterest. But those apps have since evolved into something much bigger.
Over the past month, we’ve been focusing on ‘15 years of Weibo‘ for our What’s on Weibo Chapters (check out our deep dive here and the expert insight here). The story of Weibo is an example of how China’s online landscape is constantly changing, even though some major social apps are already 15, 20, even 25 (!) years old. Their secret? It’s not copying Western apps—it’s avoiding a cookie-cutter approach and embracing change. As Xiaohongshu’s Charlwin Mao (毛文超) puts it: “We don’t ask ourselves if we’re a social or commerce company—we ask, what does the consumer want?”
Xiaohongshu is no Chinese Instagram. It also wasn’t a shopping site that added reviews—it was a review site that added shopping, completely flipping traditional e-commerce models on its head. One of China’s top livestreaming apps, Kuaishou, didn’t even start as a livestreaming platform. It began as a GIF-making tool, built its user base through other platforms, then evolved into a short-video app before taking off during the livestreaming boom. Today, the company is a major player in generative AI—its Sora competitor, Kling, was born from this adaptability.
These Chinese apps have become superapps by thinking outside the box, refusing to be confined by labels, and evolving like chameleons—adapting their functions to user needs.
In these rapidly changing social media times, I thought it was high time for a short “China Social Media for Dummies” guide. This short guide breaks down the top 10 Chinese social media platforms, what they stand for, and their core features.
For this article, I have selected ten platforms or apps that are generally the most well-known in China and have the highest number of monthly active users. While the first eight social media platforms are undoubtedly the biggest eight, the ranking becomes less clear beyond that. China has a diverse range of social apps across various categories, including dating, gaming, and livestreaming. In this case, I’ve chosen the apps that are the most widely recognized in the mainstream digital landscape.
Content:
1. WeChat (微信) ⎮ “It’s a Way of Life”
2. Douyin (抖音) ⎮ “Record a Beautiful Life”
3. Weibo (微博) ⎮ “Discover New Things, Anytime, Anywhere”
4. Tencent’s QQ (腾讯QQ) ⎮ “Relax and Be Yourself”
5. Kuaishou (快手) ⎮ “Embracing Every Way of Life”
6. Bilibili (B站) ⎮ “( ゜- ゜)つロ Cheers~”
7. Xiaohongshu (小红书) ⎮ “Your Guide to Life”
8. Zhihu (知乎) ⎮ “When There’s a Question, There’s an Answer”
9. Douban (豆瓣) ⎮ “Record Your Book, Film & Music Life”
10. Baidu Post Bar (百度贴吧) ⎮ “Discuss Your Interests, Join Tieba”
1. WeChat (微信)
🚀 Launched: January 2011 by Tencent
🀄 Chinese name: 微信 Wēixìn, literally meaning “micro message.”
💬 Tagline：”微信，是一个生活方式”
“WeChat, it’s a way of life”
🔍 WeChat at a Glance:
WeChat is one of the most famous Chinese apps and is the national multifunctional ‘superapp.’ It was developed by Tencent, a social-focused tech giant that has proven its ability to understand what Chinese internet users want. Tencent has been successful in the social networking and online gaming markets since the early 2000s, and WeChat is a product of strategies it developed between the late 1990s and early 2010s. WeChat (Weixin) was an instant hit. Within a year of its launch, it already had 100 million users. By January 2013, the number had reached 300 million. Today, WeChat has over 1.38 billion monthly active users, making it the most popular app in China.
More than just a social media platform, WeChat has become a digital key to navigating daily life in China. It is hard to label this app as anything other than a ‘superapp,’ as through the years it has added so many functions that it has become one of China’s most versatile platforms. It serves as a business card, payment method, news reader, and marketing platform. For personal users, WeChat is the go-to tool for staying in touch with friends and family. For brands and businesses, it is an essential tool for building and maintaining relationships with consumers.
🔑 Some Key Features of WeChat:
● Messaging (消息): Text and voice messaging, voice and video calls, group chats (up to 500 people), file transfers (videos/documents/images), gift-giving, sending red envelopes, built-in translation, and extensive use of emojis and stickers.
● Moments (朋友圈): WeChat’s social feed, where users can share photos, videos, and updates with friends—like a private social network.
● WeChat Pay (微信支付): Digital wallet for mobile payments in both online and offline purchases. WeChat is also expanding its palmprint payment services, allowing users to pay through palm recognition scannning technology for their cashless transactions.
● WeChat Official Accounts (公众号): Allows users to follow brands, news, and services for updates, acting as a hub for business and content distribution.
● Mini Programs (小程序): Embedded lightweight apps within WeChat, offering services like food delivery, ride-hailing, shopping, and games, eliminating the need for separate app downloads.
● WeChat Channels (视频号): A short-video and livestreaming feature within WeChat, allowing users to create, share, and discover video content.
🌍 Global Influence:
WeChat is one of the most popular messaging apps in the world (although it is banned in India). WeChat and Weixin are not just different names for the same app—they have distinct functionalities. WeChat serves the international market, while Weixin is designed for the Chinese market. The two versions are distinguished by mobile numbers and operate on separate servers. One key difference is official accounts: Weixin users may not be able to search for or subscribe to official WeChat accounts available to overseas users.
📌 Important to know:
WeChat launched its QR code payments (二维码支付) in 2012, a year after Alipay. With the rise of smartphones, QR code payments made digital transactions accessible to everyone, from store owners to street vendors. WeChat’s popularity played a key role in transforming China from a predominantly cash-based society in the early 2000s to a cashless society by the late 2010s (Ghose 2024).
2. Douyin (抖音)
🚀 Launched: September 2016 by Bytedance
🀄 Chinese name: 抖音 Dǒuyīn, literally meaning “shaking sound.”
💬 Tagline: 记录美好生活
“Record a Beautiful Life”
🔍 Douyin at a Glance:
Douyin is the Chinese mainland version of the globally popular app TikTok and the country’s most popular short-video platform. From the beginning, its parent company, ByteDance (字节跳动), founded in 2012 by Zhang Yiming (张一鸣), focused on two core elements: building innovative apps and using the power of AI for content personalization. Before launching Douyin, ByteDance had already found success with Toutiao (今日头条), a highly popular news aggregator app also relying on AI-powered content personalization. Although Douyin’s focus on music, influencer culture, and short, creative videos is quite different from Toutiao’s, its success has been largely built on the recommendation systems and operational expertise ByteDance had developed through Toutiao. Before building Toutiao, Zhang Yiming worked at Microsoft, among other companies, and co-founded the real estate search engine 99fang.com.
kuaishou
Beyond ByteDance’s expertise, Douyin thrived thanks to China’s advanced 4G/5G infrastructure and a booming e-commerce industry. While Douyin initially focused on user-generated entertainment content, it has gradually evolved into a powerful multi-functional platform where users also consume and discuss the latest news and current events.
Today, Douyin and Weibo are among the most influential social platforms in China for following and discussing breaking news. Douyin is more influential in terms of active users: there are more than 760 million active monthly users (Brennan 2020; Su 2024).
🔑 Some Key Features of Douyin:
● Follow (关注): Similar to Weibo and Xiaohongshu, Douyin operates on a follower-followee network model, where users can follow others without requiring mutual follow-backs. Not every Douyin user creates videos; many are solely viewers.
● Short Video Creation (快拍): Douyin’s primary function is short video creation, either by filming directly in the app or uploading pre-recorded content from the phone’s gallery.
● AI Templates and Filters (AI创作): Douyin offers a vast range of AR filters, stickers, and special effects to make videos more attractive, fun, or engaging.
● Live Streaming (直播): Users can host live streams, interact with viewers in real time, and receive virtual gifts that can be converted into real-world earnings.
● Front Page (首页): The endlessly scrollable front page features personalized content recommended by AI algorithms based on the user’s profile, location, preferences, and interactions.
● Friends (朋友): Users can import contacts from WeChat or QQ and see their videos directly within the app.
● Private Messaging (消息): Douyin supports private direct messaging with group chat options for private conversations and social interactions.
● Douyin Trending Lists (抖音热搜): Users can explore trending topics and hot searches. These lists are segmented into categories such as live streaming, films, brands, and music, offering insights into what’s currently popular.
● Douyin Mall (抖音商城): Douyin’s in-app e-commerce platform, which delivers a personalized shopping experience by recommending products based on user data and preferences.
🌍 Global Influence:
It is clear that ByteDance has significant international ambitions—and with great success. No other Chinese digital product has conquered the global market in the same way as TikTok, the international version of Douyin. In 2017, ByteDance acquired the app Musical.ly, which was already popular in the U.S. and Europe, in a strategic move to rapidly integrate TikTok into the Western market. Today, TikTok boasts over 1.5 billion users worldwide. However, the app’s global influence is not without controversy. TikTok has been banned in India, and since 2020, plans to ban it in the United States have repeatedly surfaced. TikTok sits at the center of geopolitical tensions between the U.S. and China, symbolizing broader concerns about China’s growing technological power and influence.
📌 Important to know:
TikTok and Douyin are similar in many ways, but they are two separate apps. Douyin is not available in foreign app stores like Google Play or the international Apple Store, while TikTok is not available in Chinese app stores. The apps feature different content and different popular creators. Content moderation on the two platforms also differs significantly. Internationally, TikTok’s moderation follows practices similar to other global platforms, with rules on hate speech, harassment, nudity, and other forms of inappropriate content. In contrast, Douyin adheres to strict Chinese internet regulations and censorship laws, enforcing different and much broader rules on what can be posted. These differences, along with varying cultural norms and regulatory environments, have transformed Douyin and TikTok into two distinct platforms in terms of content and user experience.
3. Weibo (微博)
🚀 Launched: August 2009 by Sina
🀄 Chinese name: 微博 Wēibó, literally meaning “micro blog.”
💬 Tagline: 随时随地发现新鲜事
“Discover new things anytime, anywhere”
🔍 Weibo at a Glance:
Weibo launched in 2009 as a Chinese equivalent of Twitter but quickly evolved into much more—a uniquely Chinese, versatile, and dynamic platform where users follow celebrities, media influencers, and stay up to date on the latest news. Over the past fifteen years, Weibo has become China’s primary digital space for public discourse on unfolding events. Even today, despite a more decentralized social media landscape in China, Weibo remains China’s online ‘living room’ where people follow and discuss news and entertainment, and the platform still has about 580 million monthly active users. To learn all about Weibo’s journey, check out our detailed report here.
🔑 Some Key Features of Weibo:
● Follow (关注): Unlike friend-based systems like Facebook or WeChat Moments, Weibo operates on a follower-followee model: users can follow others without requiring mutual follow-backs. This also means that some celebrities, such as Xie Na (谢娜), have accumulated over 120 million followers throughout the years.
● Microblogging (发微博): The core feature of Weibo is posting short messages, which can include videos and images. Initially limited to 140 characters, users can now post up to 5,000 Chinese characters. If longer than that, users can change a post into a separate blog article.
● Hot Topics (微博热搜): Weibo provides trending topic lists, hashtags, and rankings of popular influencers across different categories—from general hot lists and headlines to more niche areas such as entertainment, gaming, movies, sports, and more. This feature helps users stay up to date with the latest trends in their fields of interest.
● Video (视频): A video-only feed curates hot videos based on algorithms, comparable to YouTube Shorts or TikTok.
● Super Topics (超级话题): These are niche communities dedicated to specific interests, similar to subreddits. (Read more here.)
● Private Messaging (消息): Weibo supports private direct messaging with group chat options.
🌍 Global Influence:
Weibo is not very international. Although the platform allows international users to register, only a limited number of countries can do so based on their phone numbers. Eligible countries include Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Thailand, India, the UK, USA, Spain, Italy, Germany, and a few others. Meanwhile, many countries are excluded—such as nearly all Northern European and African nations, along with most countries in South America. Despite these restrictions, Weibo remains a key platform for foreign entities engaged in China-focused marketing or diplomacy. As a result, most foreign embassies in China maintain official Weibo accounts, as do tourism bureaus, international brands, and major global celebrities, including actors, athletes, and DJs.
📌 Important to know:
Although trending topics on Weibo are often related to entertainment, society, and news events, Weibo is also highly Weibo-focused. Many of its trending topics originate on the platform itself—such as viral comments, new features or guidelines, celebrities’ posts, or Weibo-related events and contests (Weibo, as a company, frequently organizes and sponsors events ranging from entertainment to sports). This has created a distinct Weibo culture, more reminiscent of Western platforms like Reddit than X/Twitter or Facebook.
4. Tencent’s QQ (腾讯QQ)
🚀 Launched: February 1999 by Tencent
🀄 Chinese name: QQ: “Q” and “QQ” are also used for “cute.”
💬 Tagline: “轻松做自己”
“Relax and be yourself”
🔍 QQ at a Glance:
QQ has always been known as China’s most powerful instant messaging software. It is also one of China’s oldest social media platforms, and in many ways, its success paved the way for WeChat to thrive. Launched by Tencent in 1999 under the name OICQ, this instant messaging service was China’s counterpart to the Israeli software ICQ, developed in 1996 and later acquired by AOL. Following a lawsuit from AOL, Tencent rebranded the application as QQ. As the platform partnered with pager services and mobile communication companies, QQ was initially used on pagers, personal computers, and for SMS services. Over time, QQ evolved and is now primarily used on smart mobile devices. In 2005, Tencent introduced QZone (QQ空间), a social media platform integrated with QQ, where users can share updates, photos, videos, and more with friends.
For many people, QQ is a nostalgic part of their childhood—comparable to MSN Messenger in the West. As WeChat rose in popularity, many users migrated to it, particularly since Tencent made it easy to import all QQ contacts into WeChat. Despite this shift, QQ remains actively used, especially among young people and fans of ACG (anime, comics, and games), as well as older users who rely on it for work-related purposes such as file sharing and communication. In fact, according to Tencent’s 2024 financial report, QQ’s mobile monthly active users still reached 554 million, demonstrating its lasting influence in China’s social media landscape even after 25 years (Negro et al 2020; Yidong Huliangwang 2024)
🔑 Some Key Features of QQ:
● Messaging (消息): Text and voice messaging, voice and video calls, group chats, and customizable profile styles, chat decorations, and themes.
● Groups (QQ群): QQ Groups are like chatrooms for users with shared interests, managed and guided as community spaces.
● File Management/Online Storage (文件传输): Group file sharing, large file uploads, and permanent file storage—unlike WeChat, QQ stores files permanently and can handle larger files.
● Mail (QQ邮箱): An email service hosted by QQ.
● Wallet (QQ钱包): Top up phone credit, pay off credit card bills, and settle utility fees for water, electricity, and gas.
● Super QQ Show (QQ秀): A customizable avatar feature where users can dress up and design their online persona which can be used across QQ-related platforms, using accessories that can be purchased with QQ Coins (QQ币).
● QQ Games (QQ游戏): Access and play games directly within the app or through linked gaming platforms.
🌍 Global Influence:
QQ is very much a domestic app. It’s not particularly easy for foreigners to register either. If you use a foreign phone number, verification messages often fail to arrive, or the app may flag your number as “suspicious” or “not secure.” If you use a Chinese phone number, registration requires a Chinese name and ID number. While there are certainly foreigners on QQ, it’s clear that making the app more foreigner-friendly is not a priority for Tencent.
📌 Important to know:
Besides its file transfer feature, QQ’s group function is also quite popular, offering much larger group capacities compared to WeChat. QQ Groups cover a wide range of topics, from web novels to cryptocurrency, attracting communities of all kinds. Depending on the group type, VIP members can create groups with up to 2,000 members, while certified members can host groups with up to 5,000 members. In the past, QQ Groups have faced backlash for hosting vulgar or inappropriate content, leading to hefty fines for Tencent and increased moderation efforts.
5. Kuaishou (快手)
🚀 Launched: March 2011, but under different name (GIF快手) as a GIF-making tool.
🀄 Chinese name: 快手 Kuàishǒu, literally meaning “fast hand.” Its international name is “Kwai.”
💬 Tagline: 快手，拥抱每一种生活
“Kuaishou, embracing every way of life”
🔍 Kuaishou at a Glance:
China has many different apps for sharing videos and livestreaming, but Kuaishou holds a unique place in this crowded digital landscape. Why? Unlike most other popular social apps in China, Kuaishou’s content and user base are deeply rooted in the country’s smaller towns and rural areas—over 60% of its users come from rural communities. As a result, Kuaishou has become the go-to app for content related to authentic rural lifestyles and agriculture, setting it apart from apps like Douyin or Xiaohongshu, which primarily cater to urban, middle-class users in higher-tier cities (Ran 2024, 3). Kuaishou’s success story (the app has around 500 million monthly active users) reflects that of many other Chinese digital giants—it has evolved with the times, continuously adapting to user needs instead of following a cookie-cutter approach or a ready-made formula.
Launched in 2011 as a GIF-making tool during Weibo’s golden era, the platform later transformed into a short-video app.Founded by Su Hua (宿华) and Cheng Yixiao (程一笑), Kuaishou benefited from strong technical expertise. Before co-founding the platform, Su worked as a software engineer at both Google and Baidu. Kuaishou’s major mainstream breakthrough came in 2016, when it introduced livestreaming, which quickly became a core part of the platform. Since 2020, the platform has focused more on e-commerce and has integrated it into the app in various ways, making it an appealing option for rural merchants and aspiring influencers. By 2021, half of all rural creators on Kuaishou were generating income from the platform (Ran, 2024, 1).
🔑 Some Key Features of Kuaishou:
● Short Video Feed (短视频): Kuaishou’s main function is sharing and scrolling through short videos, covering everything from gaming and cooking to news events and memes. Through the app’s “Discovery” (发现) feature, you can find new creators and follow more people.
● Live Streaming (直播): Kuaishou offers a wide range of livestream channels available at all hours, from gaming to e-commerce, often blending shopping and entertainment.
● Special Filters: Like Douyin or Snapchat, Kuaishou provides a variety of video effects and templates so that users can post creative videos.
● Kuaishou Shop (快手小店): Kuaishou’s in-app e-commerce platform offers a wide selection of products, including household items, food, and cosmetics.
● Kuai Coins (快币): Kuaishou users can top up their accounts with ‘Kuai Coins’ (Kuaibi), the platform’s virtual currency. These can be used to purchase virtual gifts to support content creators or unlock paid content.
🌍 Global Influence:
Within mainland China, Kuaishou’s strength lies in its focus on second- and third-tier cities as well as rural areas, meaning it is not necessarily focused on expanding its global influence with this particular app. However, similar to the domestic vs. foreign approach of Douyin and TikTok, Kuaishou released an international version of its app called Kwai, though it did not achieve the same level of success as TikTok. Another Kuaishou product with a much greater international impact is its self-developed video generation model, Kling (可灵), also known as KLING AI. Initially, Kling started as a feature within Kuaishou’s video editing app, KuaiYing (快影), in China but was later launched internationally, gaining recognition as a powerful AI model and a possible alternative to OpenAI’s Sora.
📌 Important to know:
Kuaishou is known for increasing its market share by partnering up with other powerful platforms or brands. For example, the company has partnered with Chinese shopping/food delivery platform Meituan since 2021 in the local life services sector. For its e-commerce livestreaming, Kuaishou previously joined forces with JD.com. To drive more traffic to its platform, Kuaishou also established partnerships for copyright and content with various international sports events, including the NBA and the UEFA Champions League, as well as the Tokyo and Paris Summer Olympics, along with the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics and the 19th Asian Games Hangzhou.
6. Bilibili (B站)
🚀 Launched: June 26, 2009 by Xu Yi (徐逸)
🀄 Chinese name: 哔哩哔哩 Bìlī Bìlī, doesn’t really mean anything but sounds cute and vibrant, like beep beep. Bilibili is more commonly referred to as “B站,” meaning “B-station.”
💬 Tagline: (゜-゜)つロ干杯~-bilibili
“Cheers to Bilibili” [not literally, but that’s what this symbolic motto conveys]
🔍 Bilibili at a Glance:
Bilibili is China’s online home for fans of anime, comics, games (ACG), and technology. While the video streaming platform started as a niche community, it has since grown into one of the go-to video-sharing platforms for China’s Generation Z. Founder Xu Yi (徐逸) designed the earliest version as an improved alternative to existing video-sharing platforms, particularly the ACG hub ACfun (also known as A站, A-station). Although Bilibili remains heavily centered on anime, music, esports, and gaming culture, the platform now hosts a vast range of content, with creators covering topics such as culture, education, and social commentary. Bilibili allows both amateur and professional creators/channels to upload content, as well as producing in-house content, making it a diverse and dynamic platform where users can find everything from unpolished vlogs to Chinese anime series or BBC and History Channel documentaries. This has led to “B Station” becoming a versatile platform used by some 348 million users on a monthly basis. A unique aspect of Bilibili is its user engagement system. One way the platform helps maintain content quality is by requiring users to first answer a set of questions before posting comments and videos. Official members can also go through six membership levels, each unlocking various platform privileges, fostering a stronger sense of community and rewarding user engagement.
🔑 Some Key Features of Bilibili:
● Home of Video Streaming (首页): On Bilibili’s main page, users can explore the latest trending videos or discover new content across various categories, from anime series (番剧) to entertainment (娱乐) and music (音乐).
● Bullet Comments (弹幕评论): Bullet comments, or danmu, are real-time floating texts overlaid on videos, creating an interactive and communal viewing experience. Bilibili was the first Chinese platform to adopt this feature, which has since become its signature function.
● Livestreaming (直播): Users can browse Bilibili’s livestreaming rooms, where they’ll find a variety of live gaming streams, as well as study sessions, homework help, and other interactive content.
● Bilibili Game Center (游戏中心): A platform for game distribution, reviews, and gameplay videos, covering both mobile and PC gaming content.
● Bilibili Manga (哔哩哔哩漫画): A section dedicated to reading and discussing manga, including licensed and original works.
● Bilibili Classroom (哔哩哔哩公开课): Educational content featuring tutorials, lectures, and courses on a wide range of topics.
● Bilibili Shopping (会员购): An integrated e-commerce section where Bilibili members can purchase merchandise, anime goods, and other products related to content creators and the Bilibili platform.
🌍 Global Influence:
Since Bilibili is focused on ACG, it has some niche global appeal among those interested in anime, gaming, and East Asian pop culture. However, beyond these communities, its global influence remains quite limited. In addition to being primarily geared toward Chinese-speaking users, much of the platform’s content is also subject to copyright restrictions outside of China, making it difficult or even impossible for many international viewers to access professional channels on the site.
📌 Important to know:
Like Weibo, Bilibili is a company that focuses on building communities and fostering a unique “Bilibili Culture.” Since 2010, Bilibili has been the main initiator, host, and/or sponsor of various popular events, most famously its Bilibili Spring Festival Gala. Additionally, Bilibili actively contributes to the growth of the Chinese anime industry by financing and co-producing anime content while also making efforts to distribute Chinese anime globally.
7. Rednote/Xiaohongshu (小红书)
🚀 Launched: June 2013 by Charlwin Mao (毛文超) and Miranda Qu (瞿芳)
🀄 Chinese name: 小红书 Xiǎohóngshū, literally meaning “Little Red Book.”
💬 Tagline: 你的生活指南
“Your Guide to Life”
🔍 Xiaohongshu at a Glance:
Is it Xiaohongshu, Rednote, or RED? In China, there is actually only one name for this “little red app”: Xiaohongshu. The Shanghai-based platform began as an online international “shopping guide” where users posted independent reviews (videos, text, images) of luxury products and cosmetics they had purchased. Over time, it evolved into a broader lifestyle community focused on travel, fitness, fashion, and overseas experiences. As the app gained popularity, the products reviewed by users also started being distributed through the platform itself—flipping the traditional e-commerce model on its head. Instead of a shopping site with reviews, Xiaohongshu became a review site that seamlessly integrated e-commerce. “We don’t ask ourselves if we’re a social or a commerce company,” Xiaohongshu co-founder Charlwin Mao once said: “We ask, ‘what does the consumer want?’” (Rowan 2016).
By 2025, Xiaohongshu’s influence is undeniable. With over 300 million monthly active users, the majority of whom are young, urban, and female, it has become an essential part of China’s online ecosystem. What sets Xiaohongshu apart is its ability to blend genuine real-life experiences with online sharing and offline consumption, creating a truly unique digital space.
🔑 Some Key Features of Xiaohongshu:
● Discover (发现): the core function of Xiaohongsu is the personalized homepage (首页), where users can discover new user-generated content, either based on interest through data-driven algorithms, or based on location, giving an overview of content that was posted near to you.
● Post a Note (发布笔记): All users can create content Xiaohongshu and post either videos, images, text, writing reviews, sharing tips, or document experiences. In doing so, they can tag products and link directly to e-commerce listings.
● Shopping (购物): Xiaohngshu is both a social app and a shopping plaform: users can browse and buy products without leaving the app. The stores selling the products can also be ‘followed’ to stay in touch.
● Live Streaming (直播): Xiaohongshu has a livestream feed, where users can scroll through thousands of different livestreams happening simultaneously. These streams range from people singing and teaching English to selling products, cooking, or giving makeup tutorials.
🌍 Global Influence:
Since much of its content has always revolved around overseas shopping experiences, Xiaohongshu has been inherently global from the start, catering primarily to overseas Chinese users. As a result, the app has been available in foreign app stores and allowed international users to sign up. However, nobody expected Xiaohongshu to become a global sensation overnight in January 2025. With a potential TikTok ban looming in the U.S., millions of American TikTok users began seeking alternative platforms. The most notable destination for these users was Xiaohongshu/Rednote, which saw a massive influx of so-called “TikTok refugees” (TikTok难民). This sudden surge propelled Xiaohongshu to the #1 spot in app stores across the U.S. and beyond. The arrival of over three million foreign users marked an unprecedented milestone for a domestic Chinese app, bringing Xiaohongshu into the global spotlight. Though not all of these TikTok users may stay long-term, and TikTok wasn’t banned after all, the event cemented Rednote’s instant fame. In response, the platform has taken proactive steps to internationalize, including hiring foreign content moderators and launching a one-click translation feature for seamless cross-language interaction.
📌 Important to know:
Gender demographics inevitably play a role on all social media platforms, but this holds especially true for Xiaohongshu, as its user base is overwhelmingly female—approximately 80% of its users are women, while only about 20% are men. This is very different from platforms like Bilibili or Zhihu (which have more male users) or WeChat, where gender demographics are more balanced. Since the platform is targeted toward educated, wealthier, and predominantly female users, its content naturally reflects these demographics. When combined with its strong e-commerce aspect, Xiaohongshu stands out as a unique platform that is far more about lifestyle, shopping, and real-life experiences than it is about politics, economics, or news events.
8. Zhihu (知乎)
🚀 Launched: January 26 2011, with funding from, among others, Tencent and Sogou.
🀄 Chinese name: 知乎 Zhīhū, which is usually left untranslated, but with 知 (zhī) meaning knowledge and 乎 (hū) serving as a classical particle for a question or emphasis, the meaning could be loosely translated as “Do you know?”
💬 Tagline: 有问题，就会有答案
“When there’s a question, there’s an answer”
🔍 Zhihu at a Glance:
Zhihu is most commonly known as the Chinese version of the American question-and-answer website, Quora. While Quora was founded in 2009, Zhihu was launched in 2011 and has been growing steadily ever since. It is recognized for its relatively high-level discussions, often focusing on topics such as society, economy, business, history, law, and many other areas. Users can submit both questions and answers, with the best answers being upvoted and placed at the top of the thread. Some popular contributors have answered thousands of questions, with many responses resembling mini-essays. Zhihu has over 80 million monthly active users. Unlike many other Chinese social media platforms, it has a slight majority of male users (51.5%), with most of its users being highly educated. (Bao 2024, 1).
🔑 Some Key Features of Zhihu:
● Q&A: The core function of Zhihu is either posting a question (提个问题) or replying to a question (回答问题).
● Zhihu Homepage (首页): On the main homepage, users get an overview of recommended posts. They can also select from various categories—ranging from science to law—and view the most popular posts across different topics.
● Live Streaming (直播): Zhihu offers a livestreaming feature, where users can scroll through livestreams and post reactions or questions in real time.
● Zhihu Direct Answer (知乎直答): Zhihu has also introduced the “Zhihu Direct Answer” AI model, which integrates the DeepSeek-R1 model to allow users to ask questions and receive direct answers through a chatbot.
● Zhihu Podcast Square (播客广场): Zhihu’s opodcast squore’ is a place where Zhihu users can listen and subscribe to podcasts.
🌍 Global Influence:
Unlike many other Chinese apps, Zhihu is available on foreign app stores, such as Google Play, and allows users from a wide range of countries to sign up. Nevertheless, the platform remains primarily China-focused, with Chinese as the main language. While Zhihu is popular among overseas Chinese communities, it lacks significant global influence.
📌 Important to know:
In the AI era, where chatbots can quickly provide direct answers to almost any question, traditional question-and-answer platforms risk losing relevance. Zhihu, however, is using AI tools to its advantage by integrating an AI-powered search function and a DeepSeek-based chatbot to handle straightforward queries. By doing so, Zhihu is positioning itself as the go-to platform for reliable answers and diverse perspectives offered by both authentic users and AI.
9. Douban (豆瓣)
🚀 Launched: March 2005
🀄 Chinese name: 豆瓣 Dòu Bàn, literally means the “cotyledon of a bean” but the platform was actually named after a Beijing hutong (traditional alley) (Shen 2019).
💬 Tagline: 来豆瓣，记录你的书影音生活
“Come to Douban, record your book, film & music life”
🔍 Douban at a Glance:
Douban is China’s online home of books, music, movies, and more. The site has been around for two decades already, and thus was originally very much desktop-based. While Douban is primarily a review site, it has evolved into a vibrant online community of “Douban friends” (豆友们), where users can explore and discuss the latest films, connect with people who share similar interests, look up events, and seek advice on anything from work-related problems to love and relationships. Douban has approximately 60 million monthly active users and a much larger base of about 200 million registered users. Most importantly, it’s the go-to platform for checking the latest ratings and reviews on blockbuster movies and highly anticipated TV dramas.
🔑 Some Key Features of Douban:
● Movie Reviews and Ratings (豆瓣电影): ‘Douban Movie’ is one of Douban’s core features. Similar to IMDb, it enables users to explore reviews, blogs, and ratings for the latest films, discuss trending topics in the world of cinema, and search for the highest- or lowest-rated movies.
● Books and Music (豆瓣读书, 豆瓣音乐): In line with ‘Douban Movie,’ these sections offer similar functionalities for books and music, allowing users to post reviews and discover new titles or albums within their favorite genres.
● Groups and Forums (豆瓣小组): Douban Groups allow users to join or create communities centered on specific interests, such as hobbies, professions, or niche topics.
● Event Listings (同城活动): This feature helps users discover upcoming local events, from exhibitions and workshops to concerts and meetups.
● Douban Merchandise (豆瓣豆品): An online shop offering a range of unique products, including bookmarks, notebooks, sweaters, and umbrellas.
🌍 Global Influence:
Douban is open to international users, but with its community-driven approach, it remains heavily China-focused, particularly in its selection of books, movies, and event listings. In the English-language social media space, platforms like Goodreads, IMDb, and Reddit already offer many of the same functions as Douban.
📌 Important to know:
China has an incredibly vibrant TV drama industry. With so many new dramas released every month, many people rely on Douban ratings to decide which ones are worth watching and which they can skip.
10. Baidu Post Bar (百度贴吧)
🚀 Launched: December 2003 by Baidu
🀄 Chinese name: 百度贴吧 Bǎidù Tiēbā: Baidu Post Bar
💬 Tagline: 聊兴趣，上贴吧
“Discuss interests, join Tieba”
🔍 Baidu Tieba at a Glance:
Baidu Tieba is an online social media forum where users can explore various ‘bars’—online groups dedicated to specific topics. As a discussion platform divided into thousands of communities, it is somewhat similar to the American platform Reddit. On Baidu Tieba, people can follow and participate in all kinds of groups, from Beijing-focused ones to parenting groups, specific film and arts groups, or those dedicated to tech or business. There are thousands, even millions, of different topic boards to explore, with each ‘bar’ forming its own community.
In its heyday, Baidu Tieba had around 500 million monthly active users, but this number has decreased over the years. In 2021, there were reportedly only about 37 million monthly active users left (Sanyi Shenghuo). In China’s current social media era, Baidu Tieba might not have done enough to compete with newer and more innovative platforms. Although other platforms, such as the Chinese video livestreaming services Huya (虎牙) or YY (YY直播), likely have a stronger presence in terms of active users, Baidu Tieba remains more well-known because it has been around for so long and has become a household name when it comes to China’s internet.
🔑 Some Key Features of Baidu Tieba:
● Topic-Based Communities (贴吧): The core function of Baidu Tieba is its tieba (贴吧), which are topic boards or discussion-based communities. On the main page, users can explore trending topics across various major communities.
● Live Streaming (直播): Baidu Tieba also features a livestreaming function, allowing users to explore various ongoing livestreams. Many streamers broadcast simultaneously across multiple platforms to maximize their earnings through virtual gifts and monetization.
● Chat Rooms (聊天频道): Baidu Tieba’s communities include dedicated chat channels where members can engage in direct conversations.
● Topic Moderators (吧主): Each topic board has its own moderators (吧主), who are responsible for managing discussions and moderating content within the community.
● AI Square (AI广场): AI Square (AI广场) is a feature within Baidu Tieba that integrates AI-driven interactions across different topic boards. For example, in the parenting community, users can chat with AI-generated “mothers” to seek advice on child-rearing, feeding babies, and other parenting topics.
🌍 Global Influence:
Baidu Tieba is aimed at domestic audiences. Although Baidu as a company has global ambitions and international influence, its worldwide efforts do not extend to Baidu Tieba, which remains a classic representation of China’s Web 2.0 era.
📌 Important to know:
Baidu Tieba is an important part of China’s internet history. Many of the country’s most famous viral trends and memes from the 2005–2010 era originated on Baidu Tieba, which became an influential platform due to its decentralized structure—managed by communities rather than a central authority. Words like “diaosi” (屌丝, loser) and “tuhao” (土豪, filthy rich), both of which remain widely used today, first gained popularity on Baidu Tieba. Although Baidu Tieba has lost its relevance as a leading platform for online discussions in China, its impact on the country’s internet culture continues to this day (Edward Shuo 2024).
By Manya Koetse
(follow on X, LinkedIn, or Instagram)
References
◾ Brennan, Matthew. 2020. Attention Factory: The Story of TikTok and China’s ByteDance. ChinaChannel. https://amzn.to/3X2CEwS
◾ Edward Shuo/Edward说. 2024. “Baidu Tieba from Glory to Decline: Robin Li Abandoned Baidu Tieba [百度贴吧辉煌到没落，李彦宏放弃百度贴吧].” QQ News, August 26. Accessed February 18, 2025. https://news.qq.com/rain/a/20240826A04ZJT00
◾ Ghose, Ronit. 2024. Future Money: Fintech, AI, and Web3. London: Kogan Page.
◾ Negro, Gianluigi, Gabriele Balbi and Paolo Bory. 2020. “The Path to WeChat: How Tencent’s Culture Shaped the Most Popular Chinese App, 1998–2011.” Global Media and Communication 16 (2): 208-226.
◾ Yidong Huliangwang 移动互联网. 2024. “Why Are So Many People Still Using QQ [为什么还有那么多人在用QQ]?” Tencent Research Institute 腾讯研究院, March 27. Accessed February 13, 2025. https://www.tisi.org/27710/.
◾ Ran Xi. 2024. “Rural Chinese Youth on Kuaishou: Performing Gender, Labor, and Rurality.” Journal of Youth Studies, August 19.
◾ Rowan, David. 2016. “China’s $1bn Shopping App Turns Everyone Into Trendspotters.” WIRED Magazine, April. Accessed February 19. https://www.wired.com/story/little-red-book-xiaohongshu-crowdsourced-shopping-app/.
◾ Sanyi Shenghuo 三易生活. 2021. “Baidu Tieba’s User Loss of Nearly 90% in Five Years? The Past Is Gone, Let’s Look at Today—Is Baidu Tieba Exiting the Historical Stage? [百度贴吧五年用户流失近九成？前浪已过且看今朝——百度贴吧要退出历史舞台了吗?]” Jiemian, October 29. Accessed February 18, 2025. https://www.jiemian.com/article/6759080.html
◾ Shen, Xinmei. 2019. “How Douban Went from China’s IMDB to Its ‘Spiritual Corner’.” South China Morning Post, October 15. Accessed February 16, 2025. https://www.scmp.com/abacus/who-what/what/article/3100865/how-douban-went-chinas-imdb-its-spiritual-corner.
◾ Su, Chunmeizi. 2024. Douyin, TikTok and China’s Online Screen Industry: The Rise of Short-Video Platforms. London & New York: Routledge.
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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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©2026 Eye on Digital China/Whatsonweibo. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce our content without permission – you can contact us at info@whatsonweibo.com.
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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Geometry Arrow
February 21, 2025 at 9:01 am
It’s interesting to see how China’s social media scene differs from the rest of the world.