Weibo Watch: How a Chinese Anti-Japanese War Film Backfired

Published

6 months ago

September 24, 2025

Note: If images do not automatically display, please enable image display for this email. Another note: This issue dives into the film Evil Unbound — its visuals, narrative, and why it unexpectedly drew so much criticism and so many one-star reviews (incl a 3.1 rating on IMDb). If you plan to watch the film without “spoilers,” you may later want to skip my review and revisit later.

Dear Reader,

731 and 918, those were the numbers dominating Chinese social media over the past week. Both numbers carry heavy historical weight, but the recent discussions surrounding them reveal two parallel worlds of the official narrative vs the audience experience of a controversial new World War II film.

It was “9.18” on Thursday, when China commemorated the 94th anniversary of the September 18th Incident (九一八事变). On that day in 1931, a small explosion on a Japanese-owned railway near Shenyang (Mukden) was used as a pretext to invade Manchuria.

While many older Chinese were taught in school that the war began in 1937, recent state-led campaigns increasingly emphasize 1931 as the true beginning of China’s “14-year-long war” (1931–1945). Over the past decade, the 918 commemorations have become more prominent online, shaping public memory through nationalistic messaging.

This year, the commemoration had an extra dimension, as it wove the release of Evil Unbound (English title), also known as 731, into the patriotic media narratives around 918.

Patriotic film poster putting 918 and 731 together.

The much-anticipated war movie 731 depicts the atrocities of Japan’s Unit 731 (731部队), notorious for conducting horrific biological warfare experiments in Harbin during World War II under Major General Shiro Ishii (石井四郎), a former army surgeon and biologist with a particular interest in historical plagues. Under his command, Japan’s biological warfare and human experimentation in China were carried out on a larger scale than anywhere else between the 1930s and 1940s.

After the war, because the US felt his knowledge on bioweapons was of great value, Ishii was granted political immunity deal and was never brought to trial.

Together with the Nanjing Massacre, Unit 731 has come to symbolize the peak horrors of Japan’s wartime atrocities. Public attention for this history has grown in recent years, especially since the 2015 opening of the Harbin-based Museum of Evidence of War Crimes by Unit 731.

It was around that same time, about a decade ago, when Chinese director Zhao Linshan (赵林山) started working on the movie Evil Unbound (731), produced by Changchun Film Group in collaboration with the Propaganda Departments of Shandong, Jilin, Heilongjiang, and Harbin.

It finally premiered nationwide on Thursday, ‘9.18’ at exactly 9:18 and shattered 10 box office records on its opening day. Screened 258,000 times in a single day, it rapidly surpassed 200 million yuan (US$28 million) in ticket sales. After three days, the box office exceeded 1 billion yuan (US$140 million).

The film focuses on Unit 731 in the final days before Japan’s defeat in 1945, portraying how local salesman Wang Yongzhang (王永章, played by Jiang Wu 姜武) is imprisoned together with other civilians. They are promised freedom in exchange for “health checks and epidemic prevention cooperation,” and are subjected to frostbite experiments, poison gas, and live dissections.

Official film posters for Evil Unbound/731.

“What we made is not a movie — it is historical evidence,” director Zhao said about the film.

A state-orchestrated hashtag ecosystem is currently amplifying the film’s ‘success.’ Similar to previous viral war film hits such as The Battle at Lake Changjin (长津湖) and Nanjing Photo Studio (Dead to Rights 南京照相馆), the media campaigns highlight the film’s commercial performance, its educational and historical value, the ‘authenticity’ of its production process, and its emotional reception and overseas recognition.

Recent trending hashtags, from Kuaishou to Weibo and beyond, include:

电影731票房再创新高 – “Film 731 sets another box office record”
没有人能在看731时不流泪 – “No one can watch 731 without crying”
观众掩面哭泣 / 哭到没法接受采访 – “Audiences cover faces in tears” or “Audiences too moved to be interviewed”
观众自发起立唱国歌 – “Audience spontaneously stand up to sing national anthem”
新兵入营集体观看731 – “New army recruits joined the camp and watched 731 together”
海外观众看731不停抹泪 – “Overseas audiences weeping when seeing 731”
9岁小孩看完731后泪奔 – “9-year-old child burst into tears after watching 731”
日本观众看完电影731后情绪崩溃 – “Japanese audiences having emotional breakdown after watching 731”
电影731是一本沉重的历史教科书 – “731 is a heavy history textbook”
让731这段历史不再沉默 – “The history of 731 can no longer be silenced”

There are hundreds of other hashtags contributing to this official narrative, that portrays Evil Unbound as an absolute patriotic and commercial triumph.

From Anticipation to Backlash: 731 Between Shawshank and Squid Game

Outside of this official narrative, however, audiences are telling a very different story. Despite months of anticipation, the film has been met with overwhelmingly negative reviews.

On Weibo, the hashtag “731 Film Review” (#731影评#) was pulled offline. On Douban, the movie’s ratings meter was switched off entirely (“暂无评分”). On IMDb, the film is currently rated 3.1.

Usually, criticism of patriotic films is a slippery slope. People have been censored, blocked, or even detained for criticizing war films. But criticism of this film is so widespread, and so ubiquitous across social media platforms, that it is barely containable.

Many viewers called the movie “trash,” while others said they felt “defrauded”.[1] One commenter suggested the director tried to make The Shawshank Redemption but ended up with Squid Game.[2] Others called it “bizarre”[3], or concluded: “The short review section doesn’t even allow enough characters to describe how unbearable this movie is.”[4]

Viewing the film, I must admit I also felt confused – the movie is nothing like you would expect after the state-led promotion of the film.

The opening minutes quickly set a messy historical context, leaping from the 1925 Geneva Protocol to China’s 1943 counteroffensives, to Iwo Jima, and to Japan’s “Operation PX” plan (Operation Cherry Blossoms at Night), a scheme to attack the United States with biological weapons—before landing in Harbin and Unit 731 in the year 1945.

About ten minutes in, the movie seems to switch tracks and take inspiration from Squid Game, the 2021 South Korean survival drama.

Some details appear almost one-to-one from the Netflix show: the cold speaker voice, characters labeled by numbers, stylized lighting (including the Japanese flag’s red dot turned into menacing red spotlight), and eerily sterile sets that create a cold, clinical atmosphere stripped of humanity.

Different scenes from 731.

Narrative elements also echo Squid Game’s deadly competitions, including an actual life-or-death rope pulling game. In 731, “winners” are promised freedom (but actually sent for experiments) and “losers” surviving slightly longer, until even these rules seemingly disappear, leaving viewers just as lost as the characters.

Beyond these echoes of Squid Game and The Shawshank Redemption (with their themes of prison break, brotherhood, and hope), where horror meets drama and occasionally even comedy, I also thought I saw traces of The Green Mile (there’s even a befriended mouse), The Shining, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, and even Kill Bill.

If this all sounds like a fever dream, that’s about right.

While the film undoubtedly has artistic value in its visual references and symbolism, at times it seems more intent on presenting itself as an arthouse production than on telling a coherent historical war story.

731 scene showing Japanese flags with red lasers/spotlights one the left. Some of the movie’s camera angle points, color use, narrative elements and settings show some similarities with Squid Game (image on right).

731 (left), Squid Game (right)

Scene from 731, which I thought sometimes had some echoes from The Shining.

Another reference to Stanley Kubrick? 731 on the left, Clockwork Orange on the right.

Prison mouse friend. 731 (left) and The Green Mile (right).

And that is also what most of the online critique is about – people feel that while the movie is supposed to be about creating awareness of a particularly horrific part of Chinese war history, the actual factual history seems to have ended up in the background.

One commenter from Harbin wrote:[5]

💬 “For Harbin, 731 is the most painful chapter of history. This movie uses a mass of absurd visuals and music to tell a story that has almost nothing to do with real history. All the information that truly should have been shown is brushed over in passing words, and in the end it just tells audiences ‘never forget history’? This tramples on the history of 731. Stupid and vulgar.”

Others are also upset over historical inaccuracies in the film — from the makeup to the sets, the props, and the biological experiments. Even the toilet paper used by the prisoners isn’t very realistic, with some commenters saying these kinds of details ‘drove them crazy’:

💬 “I’m born after 1990, and even I grew up with worse toilet paper than what the aggressors in those years apparently gave to their prisoners. Theirs was so high-quality you could fold it into bows and baby shoes. Must have been strong, durable, and waterproof.”[6]

One other reviewer on Douban wrote:

💬 “As a prison break film it’s not exciting, as a historical film it’s too careless, and as a drama it’s too fragmented.”[7]

Douban reviewer Qingyun (青云) noted that it jumps from relatively calm scenes to intense emotional outbursts or extreme cruelty without any buildup — instead of moving viewers to tears, it alienates them from the story and its characters.

He adds:

💬 “The film wants to exploit history’s seriousness to entertain the public, but also fears the theme is too depressing and will affect the box office, so it stuffs in commercial gimmicks (jokes, fantasy, spectacle). This opportunism sacrifices the solemnity that is rewired for the historical topic, while also failing to provide as qualified entertainment. The result: it offends history and disappoints audiences.”[8]

Most of these disappointed reviewers argued that the chance to tell the story of Unit 731 was wasted by a director and script that offered little context to the subject, with some even suggesting that another, 37-year-old film (Men Behind the Sun, 黑太阳731, 1988) did a better job of conveying the history of Japan’s biological warfare in China.

A ‘Masterful Cult Film,’ But a ‘Total Failure’ as a War Movie

Despite the wave of strongly negative feedback, there are also those who did find the film moving, giving it five-star reviews — some from those who stress the film’s value as a reminder to “never forget national humiliation,” while others genuinely appreciate its creative vision.

Douban commenter ‘Bat Lord’ (蝙蝠君) called it a “masterful cult film” with the film’s aesthetics being “built on a foundation of Western stereotypical Orientalism of Japan and layered with Christian martyrdom.”[9]

As an example, Bat Lord describes a recurring scene in which prisoners are taken from their cells toward “freedom,” only to be taken to lethal human experiments. They are escorted by Japanese guards in traditional kimonos with samurai swords, led by a geisha carrying a bright red umbrella and wearing impossibly high okobo clogs, followed by Edo-period guards with topknots and white kimono. Bat Lord calls it “Orientalist punk seen through a Western gaze” (“有一种西方视角的东方主义朋克的味道”).

The reviewer also interprets the main characters, the Chinese prisoners, as representations of Christian martyrdom. Cross symbols are indeed everywhere in the film, with prisoner No. 017 constantly drawing crosses on the wall, and an ingenious escape plan hidden in a dictionary as a series of crosses.

At the climax, after battling guards in kimonos with wooden swords, the prisoners flee toward a crematorium resembling a cathedral of light, where crosses formed from pure white beams symbolize freedom. But behind the cross loom the Japanese executioners. After a bloody massacre, the survivors are captured and executed — tied to crosses arranged around a pit, with fleas dropped on them from above as Japanese officers watch from a grandstand.

Cross symbols appear throughout the film.

💬 “It’s clearly a direct homage to Christian martyrs who were sacrificed in the Colosseum during the ancient Roman Empire. In the end, all the protagonists die martyrs’ deaths,” Bat Lord writes.[10]

He concludes that the film is “4/5 as an art house film, but zero points as a war movie”:

💬 “As a mainstream patriotic commercial blockbuster, it is a complete and utter failure (..) But as a niche cult prank film, it actually has some positive points (…) – built on exaggerated Orientalist visions of Japan, it feels strangely authentic. This kind of deconstruction of Japanese culture isn’t something the Japanese themselves could do — only the West or China, as seen in works like The Last Samurai, Ghost of Tsushima, and Shogun.” [11]

He adds:

💬 “The biggest problem is the subject matter. Using 731 — such a solemn, tragic history — only to hollow out its pain, exploit national emotions, and repackage it as a cult prank film disguised as a patriotic blockbuster, inevitably backfires. If it had been framed as a semi-fictional low-budget black comedy, the backlash wouldn’t be so severe.”[12]

“No Japanese in Heaven”: Over-‘Othering’ the Enemy

How could 731 have failed so miserably to live up to public expectations?

In recent years, Chinese museums, books, and popular culture have made many attempts to revitalize the history of war and make it more relevant to younger generations. In many cases, this has been successful, from popular war dramas to blockbuster films.

But Unit 731 is perhaps an especially difficult subject to adapt into a commercially successful film for a broad audience, especially since it chose to leave out the kind of contextualization that Oppenheimer provided in exploring the history, process, and character development that led to the atomic bomb.

Like the gas chambers of Auschwitz or Mengele’s brutal experiments, its history is so gruesome that there is little to focus on beyond the suffering of the victims and the cruelty of the perpetrators. (The film had already been postponed once, as it allegedly failed to pass official screenings due to its graphic scenes.)

War films in China are expected to reflect — or help shape — national identity. In 731, this means boosting national unity by focusing on Japan as the ultimate “Other,” the ‘constructed outsider’ against which the own national identity is defined.

The entire nation is cast as an enemy, depicted through exaggerated cultural symbols — geishas, kimonos, samurai, and cherry blossoms — regardless of whether they belonged in the actual prison setting. Japan’s national colors and imagery are fused with scenes of bloody and barbaric slaughter, turning Japanese cultural identity itself into a target.

References to Japanese cultural symbols in the film.

In doing so, the film not only holds Japan as a whole responsible for its wartime aggression, but also strengthens Chinese identity by defining it in opposition to Japan, visually contrasting “good” versus “evil” through opposing characters, colors, and symbols.

Clear visual symbols: dead Chinese bodies covered in white dust. With the red circle of blood, the scene resembles a Japanese flag.

This contrast is also made explicit in dialogue: at the beginning of the film, for instance, a young boy enters the stark white prison halls and asks, “Master, are we in heaven?” to which the older Chinese man replies, “Nonsense, how could there be Japanese in heaven?”

In promoting the film, director Zhao Linshan (赵林山) reinforced the image of Japan as the eternal “Other” by explaining that he had insisted none of the Japanese roles could have possibly played by Chinese actors, suggesting they would not be able to convey their evilness. Despite the difficulty of bringing over more than 80 Japanese actors during China’s ‘zero Covid’ era, when 731 was largely filmed, Zhao maintained that “only the Japanese can play this dual nature.”

While Chinese social media is often filled with anti-Japanese sentiment, many viewers criticized the depiction of “Japan” and the Unit 731 staff — not because of the anti-Japanese angle, but because they felt it trivialized history. They argued that Unit 731 was already so horrific that it needed no added gimmicks, tropes, or exaggerated villains to make it look bad.

As Douban reviewer Qingyun wrote:

💬 “Portraying devils as clowns diminishes their true guilt. The real criminals were rational, organized, and intelligent, embodying the will of Japanese militarism as a systematic project. Making them idiots (..) greatly underestimates the danger and organization of militarism, and is a severe simplification of history.”[13]

This critique goes further, suggesting the film both weakens its warning value (“the true terror is that advanced civilization and barbarism can coexist”) and cheapens the victims’ suffering (“if the enemy is so stupid, the tragedy seems less grave”).

On Weibo, one commenter criticized this one-sided approach:

💬 “I saw an auntie in Hangzhou who, after watching the movie 731, said she hated the Japanese devils so much — that she would hate them for her entire life. But this elderly woman, brainwashed by hatred education for a lifetime, doesn’t stop to think that (..) so many other brutal slaughters happened throughout Chinese history. If you only speak of hate, can your hate keep up with all of them? Shouldn’t we instead explore and reflect more deeply on the underlying causes of these events? Better to talk less of hate and more of love — because only the most genuine love from the depths of the human heart can ultimately prevent such tragedies from happening again.”[14]

Some viewers who appreciated the film, however, disagreed. One Weibo user wrote: “I watched the film with my husband and on our way home we scolded the Japanese, wishing we could throw two more atomic bombs on them. It was a good film.”

Between the history and the hate, the official narrative, the polarized audience reactions, and disagreements over the film’s message, 731 has brought more controversy than clarity.

But beyond the debate and confusion, one message remains clear. As one viewer wrote:

“The film wasn’t what I expected, but I’m not sure what I even expected? A good story? More like a documentary? There’s one thing I can say for sure: this movie is just a shell — the history itself is the soul.”[15]

Best,

Manya

[1] “看完有种被诈骗的感觉” (source: Douban).
[2] “一句话评价《731》，导演按照《肖申克的救赎》拍出了《鱿鱼游戏》” (source: Xiaohongshu).
[3] “令人非常迷惑” (source: Douban).
[4] “短评骂的字数不够了实在是忍不了了” (source: Douban). [5] “作为一个哈尔滨人，去过至少三次纪念馆，731对于哈尔滨就是最沉痛的一段历史，这个电影用大量极其荒诞的镜头和音乐，讲述一个基本跟真实历史毫无关系的故事，所有真正需要拍出来的信息全部是文字一笔带过，最后却告诉观众勿忘历史？这是对731这段历史的践踏。弱智且下流” (Source: comment section Sina). [6] “作为一个90后，我出生的那个年代卫生纸质量都达不到侵略者给实验体使用的，纸的质量太好了，又是编蝴蝶结，又是编鞋子的，我猜应该是坚韧又耐用，透水都不断的那种吧” (Source: Douban long reviews). [7] “或许是删减太多或许是各种局限，当做越狱不精彩，当做历史片太随意，当做剧情片太碎片”(Source: Douban). [8] “影片既想利用沉重历史的严肃性作为宣传噱头，又担心题材过于压抑影响票房，于是强行注入商业娱乐元素（搞笑、幻想、刺激场面）。这种“既要…又要…”的投机心态导致影片既失去了历史题材必需的敬畏感，又未能提供合格的娱乐体验。最终，它既冒犯了历史，也辜负了观众”(Source Douban, review by Qingyun (青云). [9] “西方刻板印象东方主义日本与基督殉难的碰撞，cult片的杰出之作”(Source: Douban, review by ‘Bat Lord’ (蝙蝠君).
[10] “很明显也在致敬古罗马帝国时期殉道在斗兽场的圣徒们。最终主角团全员殉道，无一幸免。”
[11] “这个片作为主流主旋律商业大片是完全的，彻头彻尾的失败，彷佛那纯纯的依托！甚至从预告片开始这电影就没有任何一丝一毫的符合历史，我从一开始就完全没有抱任何期望的去看，结果发现这片作为小众邪典整蛊片却颇有可取之处（。。）当你不认为这片是正常电影之后，这片表达出的那股子真的是超正宗的外国视角下的刻板印象东方主义日本美学、东方朋克味，这种对日本文化的魔怔向的解构其实我个人还真感觉挺不错的。这种解构日本人是搞不出来的，目前只有欧美和中国能搞出来，代表作就是《最后的武士》、《对马岛》、《幕府将军》之类的作品，里面的日本文化，日本武士道精神一个赛一个魔怔，欧美是往骑士幻想的那个路子去走的，我们是往黑暗邪典的路子去走的“
[12] “所以这片的最大问题还是选择了731这个严肃题材，完全在消解历史的悲痛，消费民族的情感，拍了个小众邪典整蛊片后，还按照主流商业片来包装和宣发，如果他拍成半架空的超小成本黑色喜剧我觉得反噬恐怕不会有这么大”(Source: Douban). [13] “它美化了真正的邪恶：将恶魔塑造成小丑，实际上减轻了他们的罪责。真实的731部队不是一群疯癫的傻瓜，而是清醒的、有组织的、高智商的罪犯。他们的行为是日本军国主义国家意志的体现，是一个系统性的工程。把他们拍得弱智，仿佛这场悲剧只是一群笨蛋造成的意外，这极大地低估了军国主义的危害性和组织性，是对历史的严重简化”(source: Douban).
[14] “看到一位杭州阿姨看完电影731后讲太恨日本鬼子了，要一辈子一辈子的恨。这个被仇恨教育洗脑一辈子的老太太，您也不思考一下，嘉定三屠，江东六十四屯，南京大屠杀等等一系列的野蛮屠杀事件在中国历史上发生的太多了，光讲恨您恨的过来吗？不应该是更多的探究和反省发生这些事的深层原因嘛！还是少谈恨多讲爱吧，只有发自心底人类最真实的爱才能最后解决这些惨案在人类世界的发生吧”(Source: Weibo).
[15] Weibo user “红屋顶上的猫”: “我不知道该怎么评。首先在这个忙乱的日子里安排自己去看这个电影，我也说不清楚我是想铭记那段历史，还是想比较小时候看过的《荒原城堡731》，还有那部《黑太阳》。其次我也不知道电影从越狱视角切入，写实和魔幻风格交替，是好还是不好？但它和我想象的不一样，可我也不知道自己想看到的到底是什么样？甚至我也说不清我对这场电影的期待是什么？讲好故事？还是拍成纪录片？我只能确定，电影只是个壳子，那段历史才是灵魂。”

What Else Is Trending?

Popular Topics at a Glance 

Prefab Panic | I didn’t want to add much else to this newsletter — there’s already plenty to chew on — but if you’re in the mood for more reading: you may have heard about the online controversy surrounding the Chinese restaurant chain Xibei and the debate over pre-made food. What began with a single negative restaurant review on social media quickly spiraled into a nationwide discussion on prefab meals in Chinese dining, and it ended with far-reaching consequences. This is definitely a trend to watch, as it’s likely to serve as a warning for others.

If you need a clear explainer of the Xibei controversy, read on:

Read More

Also keep an eye on:

■ Besides Super Typhoon Ragasa (拉加萨) hitting southern China, there’s also another online storm, namely the fireworks show held by Anta-owned outdoor clothing brand Arc’teryx in collaboration with Chinese artist Cai Guoqiang (蔡国强) . The show took place on September 19 in Tibet’s Himalayas. What was staged as a tribute to nature quickly backfired, with critics blasting it as tone-deaf commercialization of sacred, fragile land. Ivy Yang covered this issue here.

■ I’m publishing another round-up of what’s been trending in the coming two days. Meanwhile, check out the last China Trend Watch here.

What’s On

Handpicked China events for our readers

Political historian Joseph Torigian has been presenting his new and much-praised biography of Xi Zhongxun, the long-serving Chinese Communist Party official and father of Xi Jinping. Based on new archival sources and interviews, Torigian explores Xi Zhongxun’s role in shaping CCP policy from the revolutionary period through reform-era China, including his influence on the Special Economic Zones and United Front work. The book also offers insight into how the legacy of Xi Zhongxun may illuminate the leadership of his son.

👉 Get the book here

👉 Register for the Oct 6 event in London by SOAS

👉 OR Register for the Oct 13 event in The Hague by Leiden Asia Center (also allows for online attendance) here.

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China Trend Watch

Raising Lobsters, 6G Coming, and China’s DIY Deity Trend

Chinese netizens “raising lobsters,” farmer pensions emerging as a key Two Sessions talking point, and humanoid robots running through Beijing — what you need to know about Chinese social media discussions this week.

Published

1 day ago

March 15, 2026

Manya Koetse

🔥 China Trend Watch (week 11 | 2026) Part of Eye on Digital China by Manya Koetse, China Trend Watch is an overview of what’s trending and being discussed on Chinese social media. The previous newsletters covered last week’s main talking points & a chapter dive into the Chinese online discourse surrounding the Iran war. This edition was sent to paid subscribers — subscribe to receive the next issue in your inbox.

“It became a memorable moment in China’s meme culture recently: the popular fictional online character “Purple Potato Spirit” (紫薯精) has an emotional breakdown and is offered food for comfort by her male co-worker, who says: “If the whole world condemns you, I’ll take you to eat Liu Wenxiang” (如果全世界都指责你，我就带你去吃刘文祥).

The scene, from a short-video series by Douyin creator Zhou Xiaonao (周小闹), unexpectedly made the Chinese restaurant chain Liu Wenxiang (刘文祥) go viral, turning it into an internet hit as the trend resonated with overworked young workers who enjoyed the mix of cathartic online meme culture & affordable comfort food.

The viral moment caused immediate chaos. Liu Wenxiang stores across the country were overwhelmed by two-hour queues, ingredients sold out, and the “order explosions” (爆单) forced some locations to temporarily suspend operations altogether.

Who could have expected a Douyin comedy creator to catapult a long-standing Chinese brand back into the spotlight so suddenly — not through its own marketing, not through a brand collaboration, but because a fictional online persona is obsessing over its malatang (spicy skewer soup)? It’s very much China’s online culture.

While I’m writing this newsletter, however, China’s 3.15 Consumer Rights Day is dominating Chinese social media. Earlier tonight, the 36th edition of China’s annual consumer rights show (3·15晚会) aired — a joint production by CCTV and government agencies that aims to educate the public on consumer rights while exposing violations and holding companies accountable.

Tonight, Liu Wenxiang suddenly saw its image crumble as the show exposed that multiple franchise locations across the country had been substituting duck meat for the advertised beef and pork in various menu items. According to the report, staff knowingly misled customers even when they knew beef or lamb was not actually being delivered — a practice reportedly involving thousands of orders per location each month.

The price gap helps explain why: pure beef rolls cost ¥28 (about US$4) per 500 grams, while duck rolls cost just ¥7 (about US$1) — a fourfold difference.

Public opinion is currently in full swing, rapidly turning against the brand that people had embraced so enthusiastically over the past few weeks.

And that, too, is a sign of this social media age. Unofficial sources can make you go viral in a minute, but when you’re officially exposed for essentially scamming customers, it becomes very difficult to recover. I wonder whether “Purple Potato Spirit” will still be treated to Liu Wenxiang malatang after this scandal.

(For more on China’s consumer day show, see last year’s post here.)

Let’s dive into the other trends that were widely discussed on Chinese social media this week.

(Short note: if you’re reading this and appreciate the newsletter but are not yet a paying subscriber, please consider supporting it. Eye on Digital China is fully independent and reader-funded. Your subscription helps keep this work going.)

Quick Scroll

- 🏎️ F1 Fever All eyes were on the F1 Chinese Grand Prix in Shanghai this weekend, especially given the cancellation of the Bahrain and Saudi Arabian races. The race was completely sold out, and Chinese media noted a marked increase in Chinese F1 fans, especially among women, with China’s current F1 fanbase exceeding 150 million.
- 🥢Swallowed Chopstick A 46-year-old man named Wang from Dalian gained attention after visiting the doctor for a sore throat, and it was found that a 12-centimeter metal chopstick had been lodged in his pharynx for eight years. Wang told the doctors he had accidentally swallowed it during a meal but was too afraid of surgery to seek treatment. The chopstick has now been removed, and Wang is fine — the chopstick remains intact as well.
- 📚 Iron Rice Bowl This weekend, 5.87 million people took the provincial civil service exams, known as the Shěngkǎo (省考), across 23 provinces, competing for 126,000 positions in provincial and local government offices — an average of 47 applicants per job (with some desirable positions attracting as many as 1,900 applicants for a single post!).
- 🚆 Boarding for Pyongyang Earlier this week, a train from China arrived in North Korea. As of March 12, the China–North Korea international passenger train operates four times a week between Beijing and Pyongyang. The train service, which remains highly restricted for ordinary travelers, had been suspended for years during and after the pandemic.
- 🏛️ Mao Under Construction From this week until the end of August, the Chairman Mao Memorial Hall (毛主席纪念堂) at Tiananmen Square, which houses the embalmed body of Mao Zedong, will undergo internal renovation and construction work and will be closed to the public. The site, opened in 1977, draws millions of domestic visitors each year.
- 🇨🇳🇺🇸 US–China Talks High-level US–China talks commenced in Paris on March 15. The discussions, led by US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng (何立峰), carry added significance because of their timing: right after the Two Sessions concluded and China’s 15th Five-Year Plan was approved, and before Trump’s anticipated China visit from March 31 to April 2 (although Beijing has not yet officially confirmed it).
- 🌹 Steel Roses Victory China’s women’s national football team, officially nicknamed the Steel Roses (钢铁玫瑰), became one of the most-discussed sports topics on Chinese social media this week after the team secured their spot at the 2026 FIFA Women’s World Cup in Brazil, defeating Chinese Taipei in the AFC Women’s Asian Cup. The celebration in football balanced the online disappointment over the elimination of China’s table tennis champion Wang Chuqin (王楚钦) from the World Table Tennis (WTT) Champions Chongqing tournament after losing 2–4 to 18-year-old Japanese player Matsushima Teraku.

What Really Stood Out This Week

Why Everyone in China Is Talking About “Raising Lobsters”

[#养龙虾为什么爆火#]

This week, everyone is talking about raising lobsters.

“Raising lobsters” in Chinese is yǎng lóngxiā (养龙虾), and it’s now widely used as a term for deploying AI agents. The reference to the lobster comes from the lobster-like creature that serves as the logo of the AI agent OpenClaw, formerly known as Clawdbot, developed by Austrian computer programmer Peter Steinberger and released in November 2025.

OpenClaw describes itself as a “Personal AI Assistant” or “the AI that actually does things,” such as sorting out your inbox, sending emails, managing your calendar, checking in for flights – all through the chat apps you already use.

So why is the open-source AI tool such a major success in China, going well beyond developer niche communities? One of the reasons so many people are talking about and using OpenClaw is that installing it has become a niche profession in itself.

Caiwei Chen at MIT Technology Review recently described how small companies and independent entrepreneurs in China, such as the young Chinese developer Feng Qingyang (冯庆阳), have directly contributed to the tool’s success by helping others install it. Feng began offering “OpenClaw installation support” in late January this year, and what started as a side gig has now grown into a full-fledged professional operation with more than 100 employees.

While in Western countries the comments by analyst firm Gartner, which described OpenClaw as an “unacceptable cybersecurity risk” last month, were still resonating, the AI tool’s popularity in China has surged in recent weeks. Companies like Feng’s have mushroomed across the country, with unofficial OpenClaw installation events drawing crowds in many cities. Larger corporate events are also attracting attention, such as a recent installation event at Tencent’s headquarters in Shenzhen that drew hundreds of participants.

By now, virtually all of China’s major tech companies have jumped on the hype. From ByteDance to JD.com, companies are offering a range of OpenClaw products and services.

Success stories quickly went viral, including a claim that an OpenClaw agent completed three weeks’ worth of work for six employees in just 24 hours. But the hype has also brought concerns, with online rumors circulating about people’s credit cards being charged unexpectedly or local files and emails being deleted.

Chinese authorities have now restricted state-run enterprises and government agencies from running OpenClaw AI apps on office computers, while official cybersecurity agencies have warned about potential security risks.

In the RealTime Mandarin newsletter, Andrew Methven explained the rise of the online phrase “one lobster, three ways” (龙虾三吃), a play on the name of a popular Chinese dish. With the latest security concerns, Chinese business-oriented programmers are spotting yet more money-making opportunities; In addition to OpenClaw installation services, some now also offer “uninstallation services.” In other words, people are now making lobster money in three ways with OpenClaw: installing the AI, training people how to use it, and uninstalling it when things go wrong.

Viral Weibo commentary from one blogger (@菜刀曦曦) neatly captured the hype cycle:

“How fast the world changes these days. Yesterday I was scrolling Weibo and everyone was raising lobsters, paying to get it installed, and honestly I was tempted too. Today what I’m seeing is that the lobster is basically a Trojan horse, and now people are paying to uninstall it. Install: 500 yuan [US$72]. Uninstall: 299 yuan [US$43]. Those of us who didn’t follow the trend have effectively saved 799 yuan [US$115].”

From 6G Dreams to Pension Debates: The Viral Topics of the Two Sessions

[#6G网要来了#] [#两会声音##] [#微观两会# ]

In last week’s newsletter, I already discussed some of the main social media trends coming out of the Two Sessions. In the final days of China’s annual parliamentary meetings, which ended on March 12, several more noteworthy topics went trending.

📍 “6G Is Coming” (#6G网要来了#) became a hot-search phrase, as 6G was explicitly included both in this year’s Government Work Report and in the 15th Five-Year Plan, which lays out China’s strategic vision for the period from 2026 to 2030.

The report stated that China would nurture future industries, including 6G, quantum technology, and embodied AI, positioning itself as a global leader in 6G development. In November 2025, news emerged that China had completed its first real-world testing trial of 6G applications. Being roughly 100 times faster than 5G (you’ll be able to download a 4K movie in just one second), 6G is expected to become the future mobile standard, with commercial use in China planned for around 2030.

Beyond what was mentioned in the official reports or what happened in the corridors, it was mostly the policy suggestions and proposals from NPC delegates and CPPCC members that trended in public online debates.

📍 NPC delegate Tang Lijun (唐利军) proposed a “nighttime silence” for short video platforms, calling for a mandatory break from scrolling during 1 AM-5 AM to protect both children and adults from “unhealthy” social media use.

Although I believe it’s unlikely that such a measure would be enforced for everyone (for one, it could harm China’s digital economy), it might suggest that China’s current social media rules for children could be further tightened or even expanded to include individuals over 18.

📍 Overall, it’s clear that rest was a recurring theme during the Two Sessions. As discussed last week, there were discussions about adjusting Chinese public holidays and working fewer hours. NPC delegate and Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun (雷军) triggered all kind of discussions, one of them related to a comment he made during an interview with China News Weekly (中国新闻周刊), where he suggested that in the AI era people might no longer need to work eight hours a day or five days a week, and could perhaps work three days a week, two hours a day—dramatically improving quality of life.

Another proposal came from NPC delegate Zhong Baoshen (钟宝申), who suggested reducing the standard workday from 8 hours to 7 hours while significantly increasing overtime pay standards. This idea was not necessarily applauded online; many commenters argued that an extra day off would make more sense and expressed skepticism about whether shorter hours would actually happen, given that the current eight-hour day already often results in overwork.

📍Then there were the welfare-related proposals that went viral. Delegate Zheng Gongcheng (郑功成), also president of the China Social Security Society (中国社会保障学会), called for establishing a “Mother’s Pension System” (母亲养老金制度).

The proposal suggests that during child-rearing years, mothers would continue to accrue pension benefits for old age without reductions for time spent away from work.

This proposal resonated with many female netizens. One popular comment said:

“Having children, raising them, caring for them… we spend countless sleepless nights and give up many work opportunities and personal time for it. Most of a lifetime’s energy ends up devoted to family and children. (…) Giving women who have given birth an additional pension subsidy is not an extra privilege; it is a recognition of the many years of sacrifice and effort we have made.”

📍Other popular proposals were not about the gender pension gap, but about the rural–urban pension gap. At least nine proposals focused on how China’s farmers contributed enormously to the country’s development over the decades—submitting grain to the state even when hungry during the Mao years, or performing obligatory labor (义务工) building railways, reservoirs, and other infrastructure through the commune system.

Despite these contributions, many argue that rural residents have historically not been treated fairly under China’s national welfare system, and that their contributions mean the state now owes them a decent safety net in old age.

These proposals received waves of support online. China Digital Times archived one post from WeChat public account “Reflections on the Past” (往事随想录) by author Peng Yuanwen (彭远文), who called China’s rural pension dilemma “the hottest issue at this year’s Two Sessions,” one that “overshadowed everything else, almost giving the impression that this year’s Two Sessions had only one real topic.” He added: “In my twenty years of observation, this is unprecedented.”

Although the pension was raised by only 20 yuan (about US$2.90) this year, there is now a growing wave of voices—from politics, academia, and the media- calling for substantial increases to bring pensions for urban and rural residents closer to the lower level of the urban employee pension.

Peng sees this as the clearest signal that change may be coming:

“Look around—the fields are already lush and green. Friends, can the autumn harvest still be far away?”

On the Feed

DIY Deities

A traditional Fujianese folk ritual in which deity figures are paraded through the streets, accompanied by music, drums, crowds, and incense smoke, has been popping up on Chinese feeds in unexpected ways.

Recently (still ongoing today), dozens of netizens have gone viral on Douyin by jokingly recreating the Fujian “deity parade” (福建游神) ritual at home, at their workplace, or even in parking lots, using DIY deities and creative ways of throwing the “divination cups” (for example, tossing slippers instead).

From Sichuan to Henan, these creative netizens joke that “you don’t need to go to Fujian to see the deity procession.”

This year, a controversy over the selection of a spirit medium at a Mazu goddess procession—which I also covered in a previous newsletter—pushed these kinds of deity processions further into the mainstream than ever before. Suddenly, millions of people who had never paid close attention to these rituals were reading about divination cups, spirit possession, and the rules surrounding sacred selection.

Although that incident likely helped spark the current playful DIY deity trend, other figures appearing in these rural parades—also called “tagu” (塔骨)—had already gone viral before. One example is Zhang Shizi (张世子), a handsome figure in a rural deity procession who gained a sizable online fanbase, along with the subordinate “divine generals” (神将) that appear before and after the main deity, swaying and swinging their arms with attitude, and sometimes even bumping into spectators.

Going even further back is the trend of the “Electric-Techno Neon Gods” (电音三太子), which began years ago when Taiwanese temple youth groups started mixing sacred imagery with pop culture. They used the Nezha figure (哪吒, the Third Prince, 三太子) with a giant head, dancing to techno and house music instead of traditional percussion.

These current memes similarly blend religious ritual with pop culture, gamifying old customs in the social media age by treating participation in the folk ritual trend as a “cultivation path toward godhood.” Although it is all very tongue-in-cheek, there is also a clear appreciation of folk ritual aesthetics and spiritual customs behind it.

See videos here.

One More Thing

Humanoid Robots Spotted Running in Beijing Streets

Some Beijingers who were up and about early this weekend witnessed a surreal scene: humanoid robots walking through the streets of Beijing. From the evening of March 14 to the early morning of March 15, the humanoid robot half marathon held its first test run.

The robots will participate in the 2026 Beijing Yizhuang Half Marathon, scheduled for April 19 in Beijing’s Yizhuang Economic Development Zone. The race features a “human-robot co-run” (人机共跑) format: human athletes and humanoid robots will start together on the same route, with robots running in a separate designated lane.

See video of the early morning practice here.

—That’s a wrap.

See you next edition!

Best,

Manya

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. If you’re already subscribed and want to switch platforms, just get in touch for help. If you no longer wish to receive these newsletters, or are receiving duplicate editions, you can unsubscribe at any time.

China Memes & Viral

Two Sessions, a Celebrity Meltdown, and the Rise of China’s “Forget It” Mindset

Inside this week’s trends: Two Sessions talking points, a massive celebrity meltdown, and a pet gym in Shanghai charging $275 a month.

Published

1 week ago

March 8, 2026

Manya Koetse

🔥 China Trend Watch (week 10 | 2026) Part of Eye on Digital China by Manya Koetse, China Trend Watch is an overview of what’s trending and being discussed on Chinese social media. The previous newsletter was a chapter dive into the Chinese online discourse surrounding the Iran war. This edition was sent to paid subscribers — subscribe to receive the next issue in your inbox.

“Taiwan never was, is not, and never will become a country,” China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi (王毅) said during the annual press conference this Sunday on the sidelines of the Two Sessions, China’s most important political gathering of the year.

Besides Taiwan, Wang Yi spoke about the Iran war (“should not have happened”), Palestine (“two-state solution”), Sino-American relations (“mutual respect”), and more. Although there are undoubtedly many things to disagree on, one thing Wang mentioned more than once is just how turbulent the world we live in today has become – I think we all agree about that.

If you missed Wednesday’s newsletter about China’s online discourse on the Iran war, you can find it here. In this edition, let’s dive into other trending topics beyond that conflict, which dominated much of the discussion this week.

Quick Scroll

- 🌸 Women’s Day, March 8, falls on a Sunday in 2026, which ironically means women are not entitled to their usual half-day off under China’s national holiday regulations this time.
- 🤖 China has released its first national standards framework for humanoid robots and embodied AI, unveiled at an industry conference in Beijing. The move signals Beijing’s push to accelerate commercialization and large-scale production as China positions itself as a global leader in humanoid robotics.
- 🎬 Zhang Yimou’s latest crime thriller Scare Out (惊蛰无声), about national security officers battling enemy spies and produced under the guidance of China’s Ministry of State Security, has become the highest-grossing crime film of the Spring Festival season at the Chinese box office.
- 🚗 A Chinese Lynk & Co Z20 car owner recently crashed into a road divider at night after asking the car’s voice assistant to turn off all reading lights, but the system mistakenly turned off the headlights instead. When he tried to turn them back on, the AI assistant replied, “I can’t do that yet.” The company has since apologized, but the incident has sparked criticism of automakers putting smart features ahead of safety.
- 🐶 A pet gym in Shanghai charging around 2,000 yuan ($275) for a monthly membership shows just how hot China’s pet economy is becoming. At the upscale gym, dogs can walk on treadmills, swim, get massages, and receive one-on-one training.
- 🍑 The latest costume drama Pursuit of Jade (逐玉), which premiered on iQIYI and Tencent Video on March 6, has become a breakout success during its opening weekend, setting a record for the fastest-rising drama on Weibo, driven by a massive fandom known as the “Peach Blossom Chasers” (桃花逐理人).
- 🚆 A Chinese student suffered cardiac arrest after traveling 31 hours in a hard-seat train back to school after Spring Festival. She survived, with doctors diagnosing ‘economy-class syndrome’ (经济舱综合征): blood clots caused by prolonged immobile sitting.
- 📱 The Chinese Honor brand came out with the world’s thinnest Android tablet this week. The MagicPad 4 measures just 4.8mm thick, making it thinner than the iPad Pro or Samsung Galaxy Tab. As it also debuted OpenClaw collaboration technology, becoming the first commercial device to officially support running open-source AI agents, the device became a much-discussed ‘wannahave.’

What Really Stood Out This Week

Holiday Debt, Bride Prices, and Meme CEOs: What’s Trending from China’s Two Sessions

[#全国两会#]

The annual Two Sessions—China’s National People’s Congress (NPC) plenary and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC)—are convening from March 4 to March 11. As usual, they’ve become a major topic of discussion on Chinese social media this week, alongside the ongoing developments in Iran.

This year, topics such as pensions, holidays, healthcare, tech, and AI have been receiving special attention. Here are three talking points that have generated considerable online discussion.

📍 One issue that netizens especially seemed to care about is the phenomenon of China’s “compensatory working day” system (调休 tiáoxiū), which allows people longer holiday blocks (such as seven days for the National Day holiday, or nine days for the recent Spring Festival) but requires people to make up for some of those days by working weekend days on either side of the holiday.

NPC delegate Tian Xuan (田轩) has proposed reducing or avoiding the use of these “make-up days,” and instead increasing the number of public holidays. The proposal is receiving strong support from workers who have long been frustrated by this system of “borrowing” free days, which creates a sense of being in holiday “debt.”

📍 Another proposal that went viral concerns child safety and stricter punishment for sex offenders. Female NPC delegate Fang Yan (方燕) suggested that convicted sex offenders against minors should be banned from professions involving close contact with children, prohibited from entering kindergartens and schools, and subjected to mandatory electronic location monitoring after serving their sentence.

📍 NPC delegate Zhang Qiang (张强) put forward another proposal that generated online discussions, focusing on the topic of China’s bride prices (彩礼 cǎilǐ), payments made by the groom’s family to the bride’s family. The issue has been widely debated for years as bride prices have been skyrocketing in rural China, where there are more men of marriageable age than women.

Zhang proposes that, in line with village rules, bride prices should be capped at no more than 20,000 yuan (US$ 2,900). Zhang spoke from experiences from his own village, where some bride prices rose to a staggering 188,000 yuan (US$27,260) – which allegedly almost made the marriage fall apart before it even started. Although many agree that there should be measures to break the cycle that puts rural families in debt, others think that the government shouldn’t intervene in private family customs.

📍 The most discussed NPC delegates are Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun (雷军) and Zhou Yunjie (周云杰), top executive at the Haier Group. Xiaomi is one of China’s leading smartphone and electronics makers, while Haier is one of the country’s largest home-appliance groups. The two delegates already appeared together at the Two Sessions last year, when their contrasting roles drew attention: one representing China’s younger, fast-moving digital companies, the other the face of China’s older, traditional manufacturing industry.

This year, the two appearing together has become a source of memes, often portraying Lei Jun as the more playful, younger figure leading Zhou Yunjie into the world of social media. The stark difference between the two business leaders is what strikes a chord—Zhou is seen as the more serious, traditional senior business leader. The pair is affectionately called the “HaiMi Brothers” (海米兄弟) by netizens.

Many netizens hope that beyond the Two Sessions, Lei and Zhou will continue to hang out and collaborate more by combining their strengths and expertise.

The Celebrity Drama Taking Over Chinese Social Media

[#谢娜喊话薛之谦#] [#李雨桐实名报案薛之谦重婚罪#] [#段曦发长文#]

Earlier this week, I promised to update you on the juicy celebrity story that almost managed to rival the Iran war as one of the most talked-about topics of the week—despite being entirely insignificant in comparison (which, of course, is exactly what makes it so irresistible🍿).

At the heart of the story is a decade-old celebrity feud involving singer Joker Xue (薛之谦 Xue Zhiqian) that was reignited by his messy former girlfriend Li Yutong (李雨桐). On March 2, she posted a chaotic online rant filled with grievances against Xue, who left her in 2017 before reconciling with his ex-wife. Apparently, there is still a lot of unprocessed grief from those days, because there is no other obvious reason to explain why Li decided to share her since-deleted meltdown with millions of Chinese netizens earlier this week.

In more than 20 posts of threats and dirty laundry—from “I will expose everything” to accusing Xue of forcing her into an abortion and filing a public police report against him for bigamy—Li dragged her ex down while also mentioning details about Xue being nasty toward celebrity colleagues. Among them, she referenced mean remarks about Chinese pop star Zhang Jie (张杰), also known as Jason Zhang. With more than 81 million Weibo followers and record-breaking ticket sales for 12 consecutive concerts at Beijing’s National Stadium, he is about as famous as you can get. His wife, Xie Na (谢娜), is arguably the most recognizable female television host in China.

The situation then spiraled into a much bigger controversy when fans began linking Li’s claims about Joker Xue’s remarks to a 2017 comedy roast program (吐槽大会 Tǔcáo Dàhuì). Soon after, Xie Na published an open letter on her personal Weibo directly addressing Joker Xue and demanding a formal apology to her husband Zhang Jie for the remarks—essentially accusing him of belittling Zhang’s supposedly “low-class” singing style.

As if that wasn’t enough, another ex-girlfriend entered the scene with a Weibo post. Duan Xi (段曦), seemingly triggered by Xie Na’s intervention, asked: if people are publicly demanding apologies now—“can I have one too?” In a lengthy message, she recounted how she fell into loneliness and depression after Xie Na entered the life she had shared with Zhang Jie more than two decades ago, suggesting that their past behavior might not have been entirely clean either.

Should we care about this story? Not at all. But it contains all the elements of a soap drama. Former lovers seeking revenge, bitter jealousy, and long-standing feuds. Reality, in this case, is hardly less dramatic than a scripted series. Above all, it offers a glimpse into the lives of China’s rich and famous. Although they often seem far removed from ordinary netizens, these occasional meltdown moments reveal something much more familiar: fragile egos, messy relationships, and very public outbursts.

There is also a commercial side to it. Besides other celebrities jumping in to boost their own online visibility and renew their relevance, the entire spectacle is lucrative for Weibo, once the central stage of China’s celebrity culture. Even though regulators have spent years trying to curb celebrity gossip and “vulgar” online content on platforms like Weibo, it remains exactly the kind of content that generates the most traffic and clicks.

In between news about the war in Iran and China’s Two Sessions, it is stories like these that keep people returning to social media—not for foreign news or state media narratives, but for drama.

On the Feed

The Little “Coal Mining” Panda

One little panda cub born last summer at a conservation base in Sichuan has recently gone viral for its muddy black appearance, with some joking that it’s “cosplaying” a black bear and others calling it the “coal mining bear” (挖煤小熊). The cub, now often referred to as the “Su Jin cub” (苏锦崽) since giant panda Su Jin is its mother, has quickly become a crowd favorite. Although there has been a lot of speculation about its color, the explanation is simple: even though staff wipe it down every day, little Su Jin just loves rolling through the mud.

Word of the Week

“算了型人格” (suànle xíng rénge — “forget-it personality type”)

The “forget-it personality” can be seen as a kind of coping strategy for younger generations navigating modern life, where they face information overload and decision fatigue. In that sense, it can be added to the list of other self-labeling terms we’ve seen in Chinese youth culture before, from “lying flat” (躺平 tǎng píng) to “rat people” (老鼠人 lǎoshǔrén).

The “forget-it personality,” however, is somewhat more pragmatic: it reflects a day-to-day attitude in which someone decides it’s simply not worth the trouble to fuss over something. You say “forget it” because you already have enough on your plate.

One thing these terms have in common is a sense of emotional exhaustion, yet adopting such an attitude is not necessarily about giving up; for some people it has even become something to aspire to.

One Douyin user wrote:

“I like browsing online, but sometimes comments make me so angry that I want to reply. Then I think about how many words I’d have to type and how much I’d have to think about the response, and suddenly I’m too lazy to comment. My temper is bad, but I also hate hassle.”

—That’s a wrap.

See you next edition.

Best,

Manya