TikTok refugees or propagandists? China’s RedNote users share mixed responses to U.S. influx

Users of the Chinese social media app RedNote welcomed “TikTok refugees” from the United States with selfies and messages on Wednesday, as Beijing said it encouraged stronger cultural ties with other countries in response to the sudden influx.

Known in China as Xiaohongshu and as a platform to find lifestyle recommendations on areas from beauty to food, the app has in recent days been transformed into an unexpected bilateral channel for U.S.-China exchanges, with users swapping photos and questions about pets, favourite foods and their lives.

Not everyone was happy, though, with some grumbling that their platform was being taken over and nationalist bloggers warning against American influences.

The influx of more than 700,000 new users has been driven by a looming U.S. ban on TikTok, used by 170 million Americans, on national security concerns.

Many Chinese users on Wednesday posted selfies and messages saying “welcome TikTok refugees,” and responded eagerly to questions from U.S. users on topics such as popular Chinese dishes, city tourist sights and even China’s birth policies.

Among them was Jacob Hui, a translator in the eastern Chinese city of Hangzhou, who said he joined a live chat cohosted by Chinese and American influencers on the platform and posed questions – such as what video games were popular in the U.S. – to the new users.

“There were not many such opportunities to directly interact with Americans in the past,” he said.

Chinese state media has also cheered the trend, with state broadcaster CCTV saying that the TikTok users had found a “new home.” Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun, asked at a regular press briefing, said the use of social media was a “personal choice.”

“China has always supported and encouraged strengthening cultural exchanges and promoting mutual understanding among the peoples of all countries,” Guo said.

China has for years tightly controlled cyberspace through its “Great Firewall” censorship architecture and blocked foreign social media networks such as Instagram and X.

While many Chinese social media platforms such as Weibo allow foreign phone numbers to register, they usually limit such users to the international versions. ByteDance restricts TikTok to foreign users and runs a separate version for mainland Chinese residents called Douyin.

RedNote, in contrast, does not require users to have such a number and maintains only one version of its app. The company did not respond to Reuters’ request for comment on Wednesday.

In the past, other Western social media platforms, such as Clubhouse, have enjoyed a similar trend of Chinese mainland users joining in swathes before being blocked by Beijing’s censors.

“Propagandists from the United States”

The newcomers to RedNote have not been universally welcomed, however, with criticism from some Chinese users unhappy with how they were changing the content of the platform and from some nationalist Chinese bloggers.

Ren Yi, the Harvard-educated grandson of a former Chinese Communist leader who runs a popular WeChat blog under the pen name “Chairman Rabbit,” warned his followers against being unsuspectingly influenced.

“Propagandists from the United States can easily achieve their goals by following a simple routine – first praise you a few words to make you ‘relax your vigilance’, and then bring their own goods to subtly influence you,” he said in an article first published on Wednesday morning that was later deleted.

Beijing-based independent industry analyst Liu Xingliang said he believed the sudden popularity of RedNote among TikTok users would be short-lived, though the current atmosphere was “very warm and joyful.”

“American netizens are in a dissatisfied mood, and wanting to find another Chinese app to use is a catharsis of short-term emotions and a rebellious gesture. You can see that Xiaohongshu is also caught unprepared, the experience on it is not very good for foreigners,” he said.

There were also signs that some new foreign users were testing the platform’s censorship limits, with some posting on social media network X that they were unable to post about topics known to be sensitive in China such as the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown.

Reuters reported on Tuesday, citing two sources familiar with the company, that the platform was scrambling to find ways to moderate English-language content and build English-Chinese translation tools.

(This Jan. 15 story has been corrected to clarify that registration is allowed with a foreign phone number and does not require users to have a Chinese phone number, in paragraph 11.)

—Brenda Goh, Reuters

Additional reporting by Sophie Yu and Laurie Chen.

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