The U.S. government’s decision to force a ban or divestiture of TikTok could end up being great news for another hot app from the Chinese tech sector. Xiaohongshu, the buzzy social shopping app known internationally as Red Note, is seeing a surge of U.S.-based signups as the American TikTok ban moves closer to becoming a reality.
Xiaohongshu is certainly not a new app on the market. Founded in 2013, it has already become one of the most popular social apps in China, especially among women under the age of 35. Amidst a broader social commerce boom that has spread across East Asia, China’s answer to Instagram has emerged as one of the biggest winners. Aided by features like its grid-based profile layout, its wealth of product reviews, and its in-app shopping hub, Xiaohongshu has pulled in $1 billion in profit (yes, profit) as it prepares for a potential IPO.
At this point, it would seem as if Xiaohongshu should prepare for something else, too. American “refugees” are preparing for a likely TikTok blackout by downloading Xiaohongshu en masse before the U.S. “divest-or-ban” law goes into effect on January 19.
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According to the New York Times, Xiaohongshu was the most downloaded free app on the Apple App Store on January 14. The Americans who have added their names to the Red Note have brought massive traffic to the hashtag “#TikTokrefugee,” which has been viewed more than 100 million times on the app.
Since Shanghai-based Xiaohongshu is a Chinese-owned company, it could theoretically be targeted by the same law that underpins the U.S. TikTok ban. After all, that statute can be applied to any app that is deemed to be “controlled by a foreign adversary.”
In reality, it would take some effort for Congress to regulate surging TikTok alternatives — such as Xiaohongshu and ByteDance-owned Lemon8 — via the new law. Adding those apps to the list of “foreign adversary-controlled” companies would likely require a review from the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS).
More importantly, the Americans flocking to Xiaohongshu don’t care if it’s controlled by a foreign adversary. In fact, their mass exodus to Chinese Instagram may be an active protest against draconian U.S. measures that characterize China-based apps as proverbial boogeymen. “I don’t really care if I’m using a Chinese app at all,” new Xiaohongshu user Manimatana Lee told The New York Times. “It’s like a place for me to escape reality. And if it’s making me feel good, I’m here for it.”
So even though the literal English translation of Xiaohongshu (“little red book”) is also the name of Mao Tse-Tung’s collected quotations, and even though Xiaohongshu has picked up its share of censorship accusations, red-blooded Americans don’t seem to care. The TikTok refugees are so eager to find the next hot app that they’re using ChatGPT to translate Xiaohongshu’s Chinese-language posts, the New York Times wrote.
((Hi everyone. Sam here. Brief editorial aside on linguistics: Though the literal English translations of Xiaohongshu and Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-Tung are both written as “little red book,” the original Chinese names are different. Xiaohongshu is 小红书, while Chairman Mao’s book is 红宝书. Therefore, it doesn’t seem likely that Xiaohongshu was actually named after Mao’s little red book, even if both names allude to the positive connotations of the color red in Chinese culture. Carry on!))
Rather than speculating about Xiaohongshu’s regulatory future in the United States, it feels more prescient to imagine what this suddenly red-hot app will do to harness its influx of U.S.-based users. Americans have typically been more skeptical than their East Asian counterparts regarding social shopping, but the rise of Xiaohongshu could help normalize that phenomenon in the West. Who knows: By this time next year, there could be millions of Americans buying from Red Note-based sellers, whether Congress likes it or not.
