As a Taiwanese American living in Taiwan, I\u2019ve been eyeing the TikTok ban and the (unexpected, to me) surge of interest in XiaoHongShu aka RedNote with varying degrees of anxious eye-twitching.
A friend\u2019s husband\u2019s friend said that his XHS developer friend is working overtime to figure out a way to segregate the Americans from the Chinese users, which, honestly, is tragic-funny to the extreme.
No, our governments don\u2019t want us talking to each other, what a surprise. If not for my other concerns, I\u2019d make a RedNote account just out of spite.
The thing is, I don\u2019t feel safe performing acts of conspicuous rebellion, so I will not be making an account there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I saw the \u201cin retaliation, I will be directly giving all my personal information to China\u201d posts and, welp.
The thing is, I\u2019m not sure how many Americans are aware that there are people\u2019s whose entire job is scouring the Chinese bits of the internet and making sure it\u2019s all copacetic. According to CCP standards, that is.
So whereas us authors like to joke that we\u2019re possibly on a watchlist somewhere due to our internet searches and that the crime and horror authors likely have an alphabet agent assigned to them\u2026 well, unfortunately, that sort of thing is a wee bit more likely in China.
And you don\u2019t want to be asked in for tea by the authorities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Even my own parents don\u2019t understand what it means when the CCP passes a law that sounds completely ridiculous.
Like \u201cyou could get actual jail time and huge fines for writing sexy fiction\u201d.
It\u2019s always \u201cno one is actually going to go after all the people writing sexy-times\u201d\u2026 until, they are.
Recently, they\u2019ve started cracking down hard.
There were Chinese writers who were on Haitang writing sexy stuff. Never mind that Haitang and its servers are Taiwan based.
Over 50 plus authors were hauled away for \u201ctea\u201d and fined. At last check, at least one had at least five years of jail to look forward to. Others had bail set at bankrupting amounts, from what I\u2019ve heard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Recently, iirc, the CCP passed a law that makes it treasonous to claim Taiwanese sovereignty and to encourage or endorse Taiwanese independence.
\u2026so yes, technically that means they could haul you in for owning a Taiwanese flag. For treason.
Or they could get you for claiming to be \u201cTaiwanese\u201d.
Which, in case anyone is paying attention, is a pretty serious offense in any country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A BlueSky Taiwanese American mutual made a RedNote account and she said her \u201cnote\u201d was placed under review for saying she\u2019s Taiwanese American.
She then said she couldn\u2019t make an image text with either the words \u201cTaiwan\u201d or \u201cTaiwanese\u201d in either English or Mandarin.
Someone sent her a RedNote \u201ctip\u201d saying \u201cyou must support the One-China policy\u201d and that Taiwan belongs to China.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Best Beloved went to China on a work trip years back and iirc she got her WeChat account suspended because she\u2019d accidentally said something the censors didn\u2019t like.
Big Daddy is watching you. It\u2019s not just a joke there.
Your reminder that not having a functional WeChat in China is like losing access more than half of what\u2019s necessary to get around there. Many small vendors don\u2019t carry cash; they\u2019ve gotten so used to paying with WeChat. It\u2019s used at restaurants, vending machines, taxis\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In short, if you don\u2019t care about human rights or genocide or freedom or anything that might possibly trip a censor\u2019s eye, then it\u2019s probably okay to be giving your information to the CCP.
If you\u2019re never planning on going to China, or even stopping there on a layover, then it\u2019s probably safe to give the CCP an in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Nowadays, my reading almost exclusively comes from JinJiang, which is Chinese owned and therefore subject to the CCP\u2019s increasingly tight grip.
I got a message via the app reminding me to support the \u201cpure net movement\u201d. So that would be \u201cno descriptions of anything below the neck\u201d and \u201cno kissing with tongue\u201d. Yes, if you type out \u201cbutt\u201d or \u201ctit\u201d in Mandarin, that\u2019s gonna get censored into \u53e3\u53e3 and if the censors think you\u2019ve gone over the line in steamy (like, licking someone\u2019s neck), then your work gets locked.
Reading between the lines of author notes and how the fiction has been evolving, it\u2019s clear what the censors want to see: nothing that could possibly be framed as criticism of the government; nothing that could possibly be seen as praise for other countries, especially Japan and America; and a distinct uptick in \u2018empire empire empire\u2019.
Empire is bad, except when China does it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A friend in Shanghai once told us that the CCP is aware of every single VPN option; the only reason the VPNs work is because the CCP allows it when it suits them to. They just don\u2019t crack down on users unless they want a reason to haul you off for tea.
It\u2019s always \u201cit\u2019s fine it\u2019s fine it\u2019s fine\u201d until it\u2019s not fine.
And people always think \u201cthey\u2019re not gonna go after all of us\u201d. But, your reminder that Chinese officials have always been totally okay with scything down entire swathes of people for Reasons.
Reasons including \u201cputting the fear into the rest of the population\u201d and \u201cthis is a good excuse to get rid of the intelligentsia\u201d and \u201cwhy not, power feels good\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Note how I\u2019ve been careful to say \u201cthe CCP\u201d or \u201cChinese officials\u201d.
I think the average Chinese netizen is probably a great friend to have. I\u2019ve mostly encountered kindness from the people I\u2019ve met and known in China.
The Chinese are not a monolith, but in this case I\u2019m okay with generalizing that they\u2019re funny, they\u2019re sharper than tacks, they\u2019re intelligent and wise. I think having access to RedNote is a wonderful thing and I hope that this might walk back some of the damage done by US politicians re: anti-Chinese sentiment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Do I think it likely? Probably not. I don\u2019t know that the average person ready to beat up an elderly Chinese woman is either going to use RedNote or would be swayed either way. But I can hope because hope is free. Free even if somewhat fanged.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That said, because the CCP, I suspect it could be dangerous to just hop onto RedNote without being aware that Big Daddy is always watching and there are consequences to the watching.
The Chinese often say that the internet is not a place outside of governance and it\u2019s good to keep in mind what CCP governance could look like.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As a Taiwanese American living in Taiwan, I\u2019ve been eyeing the TikTok ban and the (unexpected, to me) surge of interest in XiaoHongShu aka RedNote with varying degrees of anxious eye-twitching.A friend\u2019s husband\u2019s friend said that his XHS developer friend is working overtime to figure out a way to segregate the Americans from the Chinese… Continue reading