The threatened ban on TikTok has connected Chinese and American citizens like never before, as they exchange jokes and memes in what one user described as a “historic moment.”
It all takes place on a popular Chinese social media app called RedNote or Xiaohongshu (literally translates as Little Red Book), which doesn’t have the usual internet firewall that separates China from the rest of the world.
It is self-professional drawing American “TikTok Refugees” are looking for a new home online – despite the fact that their own government is seeking a ban on TikTok due to national security concerns.
Americans have now found themselves in direct contact with 300 million Mandarin speakers in China and elsewhere – while in the real world, Beijing braces for a tumultuous Trump presidency that could strain its fragile ties with Washington.
‘We are here to defy our government’
At the heart of the US ban is the fear that China is using TikTok to spy on Americans.
The app has faced accusations that user data is ending up in the hands of the Chinese government – due to a Beijing law that requires local companies to “support, assist and cooperate with state intelligence”. TikTok denies that this ever happened, or that it would happen.
But that possibility doesn’t seem to worry some US users – 700,000 new users have signed up for RedNote in the past two days, making it the most downloaded free app in the US App store.
“The reason our government is telling us they’re banning TikTok is because they insist it’s owned by you, the Chinese people, the government, whatever,” said one new RedNote user, Definitelynotchippy.
He then explains why he’s on RedNote: “However, many of us are smarter than that so we decided to piss off our government and download a real Chinese app. We call it trolling, so in short we’re here to spite our government and learn about China and hang out with you.”
TikTok, although owned by Chinese company ByteDance, is based in Singapore and says it is run independently. Actually, the Chinese version of TikTok is another app called Douyin. On the other hand, RedNote is a Chinese company based in Shanghai and is one of the few social networking apps available in China and outside.
Thus, Washington’s fears about TikTok would spread to RedNote as well.
That’s why American users on RedNote are calling themselves “Chinese spies” — continuing the TikTok trend of people saying goodbye to their “personal Chinese spy” who has allegedly been monitoring them over the years.
RedNote is now full of posts where ex-TikTok users are asking for a replacement. One post said: “I’m looking for my Chinese spy. I miss you. Please help me find him.”
And Chinese users responded: “I’m here!”
‘Exchange between people’
Honest, funny conversations on RedNote may not be what Chinese President Xi Jinping had in mind when he talked about “strengthening people-to-people cultural exchanges” between China and the US.
But that’s certainly what’s happening as excited Chinese users welcome curious Americans to the app.
“You don’t even have to travel abroad, you can just talk to strangers here,” said one Chinese RedNote user in a video that has received more than 6,000 likes.
“But it’s honestly crazy, no one would have expected that one day we could meet like this, communicate like this openly.”
Food, streaming shows and work were the most popular topics: “Is life in America what it seems [the US TV show] friends?”
Other Chinese users demanded a “tax” for using the platform – photos of cats.
“California cat tax,” read a reply to one post. “Here’s my offer – short hair is a boy named Bob, and calico is a girl named Marley.”
Still others use the platform to ask Americans for help with their English homework.
One post reads: “Dear TikTok refugees, can you please tell me the answer to question 53? Is the answer T (True) or F (False)?”
Help arrived quickly: since then, around 500 people have come forward.
The influx of new US users seems to have caught RedNote off guard – reports say the company is hiring English moderators.
And others are also trying to cash in on RedNote’s newfound US stardom: language learning app Duolingo released a chart showing a 216% jump in its user base, compared to this time last year.
Is RedNote the new TikTok?
However, RedNote’s growing popularity is not guaranteed to last.
There’s no reason to assume it won’t face a backlash for the same reasons as TikTok: concerns that China could use it to spy on Americans.
It’s unclear how long Beijing will be open to such unfettered exchanges — controlling the internet is key to its repressive regime.
The irony of the situation was highlighted by one Chinese user, who posted: “Don’t we have a (protective) wall? How come so many foreigners can get in, when I obviously can’t get out?”
Usually, Chinese Internet users could not directly communicate with foreigners. Global platforms like Twitter and Instagram and search engines like Google are blocked in China, although people use VPNs to get around these restrictions. Sensitive topics – from history to dissent – or anything deemed critical of the Chinese government and ruling Communist Party are quickly censored.
It’s unclear how censored RedNote is – it’s mainly used by younger and middle-aged women in China, where they share pictures and videos. It’s not like Weibo, another Chinese app, where discussions and airing of complaints are much more common, leading to frequent takedowns of posts.
But several new RedNote users say they’ve already received reports that their posts violated the guidelines, including one who asked in a post whether the app was “LGBT-friendly.”
Another said they asked “What [sic] Chinese think about homosexuals?” and received a similar notification that they had violated the guidelines of “public morality”.
Through the app, Chinese users constantly remind Americans “not to mention sensitive topics, such as politics, religion and drugs.”
One Chinese user also advised them to stick to the “one-China policy,” a diplomatic pillar of US-China relations — under which the US recognizes and has formal ties with China, rather than Taiwan, the self-governing island Beijing claims as its own.
The US government has not yet commented on RedNote, and neither has Beijing.
But Chinese state media seems optimistic about it, and the Global Times even interviewed a US user who said she would “like to communicate with Chinese users”.
The American fate of RedNote is anyone’s guess – but for now, at least online, the US-China rivalry is on hiatus. Thanks to pictures of cats.
