My Take | China’s soft power moment has arrived with RedNote’s unexpected global success
The millions of new users who flocked to RedNote ahead of the TikTok ban show that China’s soft power can come in different forms
A recent wave of TikTok users flocking to the RedNote app could finally be China’s grand moment to showcase its soft power credentials, even as Beijing officials have been caught off guard by the development.
RedNote’s unexpected global success provides an invaluable lesson to Chinese policymakers – that soft power can emerge spontaneously rather than projected through assiduously planned official campaigns.
Earlier this month, ahead of the impending US ban on TikTok, millions of American users of the short-form video app decamped to RedNote, the rival Chinese social media platform also known as Xiaohongshu. In just one day, the number of US iPhone users with RedNote accounts surged from about 400,000 to 1.8 million, according to analytics firm Similarweb, and this number has since risen further.
Calling themselves “TikTok refugees”, these users downloaded the Chinese app in the same week that TikTok was expected to go offline, making RedNote the No.1 free-to-use app in the US Apple app store. These users have gained a reprieve after US President Donald Trump issued an order on Monday to delay the app’s ban.
The boon from RedNote comes after China has been seeking for years to boost its soft power, a term popularised by American political scientist Joseph Nye and defined by him as a country’s ability to influence others without the use of coercive pressure.
During the 17th Communist Party Congress in 2007, former Chinese leader Hu Jintao committed China to using soft power as an extension of foreign policy.
