China Brands, Marketing & Consumers
Weibo’s Revival: Sina Weibo Is China’s Twitter, YouTube & InstaGram
With 390 million monthly users, Sina Weibo is seeing a huge revival.
China Brands, Marketing & Consumers
Starbucks Goes Xinjiang & The Kardashians in China
Starbucks rebrands as “Star-Bazaar” in Urumqi—what does it say about shifting perceptions of Western brands in China? Also: a cheating sports influencer and the souvenirs that became most hated.
Originally published in the Eye on Digital China newsletter on Sunday, October 4, 2026.
In this edition:
- Quick scrolls: A Chinese athlete cheated her way to the Berlin Marathon’s finish
- Zooming in: When Localization Gets Political: Starbucks Goes Xinjiang
- On the Feed: The Kardashians in China
- Phrase of the Week: The 3 souvenirs sold everywhere, but nobody wants them
🗞️ QUICK SCROLLS
🇯🇵 The National Day holiday has begun, but nobody’s going to Japan. Although Japan was the number one outbound destination for Chinese travelers during last year’s October holiday, it has now dropped out of the top ten destinations entirely. According to data from Chinese tour operator Tuniu (途牛), Indonesia, Turkey, and South Korea are among this year’s most-booked overseas destinations.
🚲 Chinese fitness influencer “Abeeeer” was caught cheating during the Berlin Marathon after she posted about running her “personal best.” The sport-blogger (530k+ followers on Xiaohongshu) was photographed riding on the back of a bicycle around the 38-kilometer mark. On Saturday, she publicly apologized and admitted that she had broken the rules and that she was “feeling unwell.”
The sports influencer was caught hitching a ride to the finish line.
🏳️🌈 Japanese volleyball player Rui Takahashi came out as gay on Tuesday, saying he wanted to help others struggling with their sexuality by coming out publicly. On Douyin, many Chinese fans and commenters praised Rui for his bravery.
🤖 Former Global Times editor-in-chief Hu Xijin (胡锡进) published a National Day essay praising the country’s achievements but forgot to delete the AI chatbot’s closing follow-up question (”Would you like me to read through the whole text again and check it for omissions?”). Hu quickly deleted the AI prompt, but “Hu Xijin’s National Day AI ghostwriting fail” had already gone trending.
⚽ Chinese football produced…
China Brands, Marketing & Consumers
Quack Like a Goose: Why Beijing Street Vendor “Auntie Goose Legs” Sparked a Nationwide Debate
After the first complaints surfaced, Auntie Goose Legs admitted the truth about her business: she ha been selling duck legs all along.
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Starbucks Goes Xinjiang & The Kardashians in China
Red Carpet, Pandas, and Power: How China Read the Trump-Xi Summit
Keeping Score of History: The Mukden Incident and China’s Basketball Defeat to Japan
The Rise of “Shuaqi-ism,” Taking Starbucks to the Fields, and Pretending to Go to Work
Why Japan Has So Many Surnames, China’s Back-to-School Shifts & Taiwan Pavilion Trouble
“God Won’t Save Us, but the PLA Will”: Floods, Faith, and Kung Fu Soccer Nostalgia
How Chinese AI Videos Turned Foreigners into Villains
Why Japan Has So Many Surnames, China’s Back-to-School Shifts & Taiwan Pavilion Trouble
The Power of Ugly: Why Niu Lai Became China’s Unlikeliest Box-Office Hit
AI Actress Ad Pulled, Baihaitun Disrupts Shanghai and Cicada Meme Bugs Huawei
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Ed Sander
November 20, 2016 at 10:18 pm
After the arrest of ‘big V’ Charles Xue in the summer of 2013 new legislation was passed that made spreading of rumours – with the CCP defining what is and isn’t a rumour – punishable with up to 3 years in prison. Weibo very quickly dead out in the months after. Many, among whom myself, thought that this would be the end of Weibo, which up till then had been a platform where the public could have its say (as long as it didn’t mobilize and criticize the central government) and expose corrupt local officials through ‘human flesh search engines’, an era that started with the Wenzhou train crash. Figures from 2014 seemed to confirm the decline of Weibo (e.g. http://www.chinainternetwatch.com/8829/weibo-aug-2014/). However in early 2015 more positive statistics began to appear (e.g. http://socialbrandwatch.com/weibo-has-stunning-2014/) and since then I haven’t seen much negative news about Weibo. The contradicting sources were gone and Weibo indeed seemed to be in a great revival, which now nobody can deny anymore.
Having said that, the plarform hasn’t just changed in functionality but also in type of content. The height of the online citizen movement of the 2011-2013 (a highly interesting period for social media during which I lived in China) has been replaced by gossip news about the stars, with divorces of moviestars and their cheating wifes now being the most popular topics. And that’s exactly how the CCP likes it: panem et circenses. Weibo has survived and revived but at the same time Weibo is also very much dead and decomposing.
Shelly
November 23, 2016 at 11:24 am
Binfer makes private video sharing very easy. See http://www.binfer.com/solutions/domains/file-sharing-solution-for-video-production
overseaschinese
December 4, 2016 at 7:06 pm
There are a plethora of features on Weibo that completely supersedes anything that we see on Instagram, Twitter or Youtube.
Even Wechat is much more superior than Facebook.
If it’s anything like, we can already say that Facebook is trying to be like Wechat. Twitter is trying to be like Weibo.
Let’s not fool ourselves, these Chinese apps is cashing in, while the US-based ones are struggling to monetise.