China offers a cautious welcome to inflow of ‘TikTok refugees’ on RedNote By Reuters

(This Jan. 15 story has been corrected to make clear that registration is allowed with a overseas cellphone quantity, and never require customers to have a Chinese language cellphone quantity, in paragraph 11)

By Brenda Goh

SHANGHAI (Reuters) – Customers of the Chinese language social media app RedNote welcomed “TikTok refugees” from the US with selfies and messages on Wednesday, as Beijing stated it inspired stronger cultural ties with different nations in response to the sudden inflow.

Identified in China as Xiaohongshu and as a platform to seek out way of life suggestions on areas from magnificence to meals, the app has in current days been remodeled into an surprising bilateral channel for U.S.-China exchanges, with customers swapping pictures and questions on pets, favorite meals and their lives.

Not everybody was pleased, although, with some grumbling that their platform was being taken over and nationalist bloggers warning in opposition to American influences.

The inflow of greater than 700,000 new customers has been pushed by a looming U.S. ban on TikTok, utilized by 170 million People, on nationwide safety issues.

Many Chinese language customers on Wednesday posted selfies and messages saying “welcome TikTok refugees”, and responded eagerly to questions from U.S. customers on matters corresponding to fashionable Chinese language dishes, metropolis vacationer sights and even China’s delivery insurance policies. 

Amongst them was Jacob Hui, a translator within the japanese Chinese language metropolis of Hangzhou, who stated he joined a reside chat co-hosted by Chinese language and American influencers on the platform and posed questions – corresponding to what video video games had been fashionable within the U.S. – to the brand new customers.

“There weren’t many such alternatives to instantly work together with People prior to now,” he stated.

Chinese language state media has additionally cheered the development, with state broadcaster CCTV saying that the TikTok customers had discovered a “new residence”. Chinese language overseas ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun, requested at a daily press briefing, stated using social media was a “private selection”. 

“China has at all times supported and inspired strengthening cultural exchanges and selling mutual understanding among the many peoples of all nations,” Guo stated. 

China has for years tightly managed our on-line world via its “Nice Firewall” censorship structure and blocked overseas social media networks corresponding to Instagram and X. 

Whereas many Chinese language social media platforms corresponding to Weibo (NASDAQ:) permit overseas cellphone numbers to register, they normally restrict such customers to the worldwide variations. ByteDance restricts TikTok to overseas customers and runs a separate model for mainland Chinese language residents referred to as Douyin.      

RedNote, in distinction, doesn’t require customers to have such a quantity and maintains just one model of its app. The corporate didn’t reply to Reuters’ request for touch upon Wednesday. 

Up to now, different Western social media platforms, corresponding to Clubhouse, have loved an analogous development of Chinese language mainland customers becoming a member of in swathes earlier than being blocked by Beijing’s censors. 

‘PROPAGANDISTS FROM THE UNITED STATES’

The newcomers to RedNote haven’t been universally welcomed, nonetheless, with criticism from some Chinese language customers sad with how they had been altering the content material of the platform and from some nationalist Chinese language bloggers. 

Ren Yi, the Harvard-educated grandson of a former Chinese language Communist chief who runs a well-liked WeChat weblog below the pen title “Chairman Rabbit”, warned his followers in opposition to being unsuspectingly influenced. 

“Propagandists from the US can simply obtain their objectives by following a easy routine – first reward you just a few phrases to make you ‘loosen up your vigilance’, after which carry their very own items to subtly affect you,” he stated in an article first printed on Wednesday morning that was later deleted. 

Beijing-based impartial trade analyst Liu Xingliang stated he believed the sudden reputation of RedNote amongst TikTok customers can be short-lived, although the present ambiance was “very heat and joyful”.

“American netizens are in a dissatisfied temper, and wanting to seek out one other Chinese language app to make use of is a catharsis of short-term feelings and a rebellious gesture. You may see that Xiaohongshu can also be caught unprepared, the expertise on it isn’t superb for foreigners,” he stated. 

There have been additionally indicators that some new overseas customers had been testing the platform’s censorship limits, with some posting on social media community X that they had been unable to put up about matters identified to be delicate in China such because the 1989 Tiananmen Sq. crackdown. 

Reuters reported on Tuesday, citing two sources aware of the corporate, that the platform was scrambling to seek out methods to reasonable English-language content material and construct English-Chinese language translation instruments.