A rare, joyful U.S.-Chinese exchange is taking place on RedNote, but it may not last
The arrival of American users on RedNote has brought instant online connection between Americans and Chinese even as academic and other exchanges have dampened.
HONG KONG — For most people in the U.S. and China, what they hear about each other’s countries comes mostly from their governments and the media. Now they are learning directly from each other, at least for now.
The excitement is palpable on the Chinese social media platform RedNote, or Xiaohongshu (“Little Red Book”) as it’s known in Chinese, after a wave of American users set up accounts in recent days. The self-described “TikTok refugees” are seeking a replacement for the short-form video app as it faces a U.S. ban stemming from concerns over ties between TikTok’s owner, Beijing-based ByteDance, and the Chinese government.
TikTok says it will go dark when the ban takes effect Sunday unless it receives “definitive” assurances from the Biden administration, which has been “exploring options” for how to keep the app available, NBC News reported.
In protest of the looming ban, TikTok users have joined Shanghai-based RedNote, sending it to the top of Apple’s App Store and mocking U.S. security concerns as they try to navigate the Chinese-language app.
Their arrival has brought instant online connection between Americans and Chinese even as academic and other exchanges have been dampened in recent years by pandemic border restrictions and tensions between the world’s two biggest economies.
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