In early 2025, the popular short-video app, TikTok briefly went offline for users in the United States. In an unexpected turn of events, large numbers of users ‘migrated’ to another Chinese Platform, Xiaohongshu (known in English as RedNote), briefly becoming the most downloaded app on the US App Store. Chinese netizen (citizens of the internet) welcomed these newcomers, curious and enthusiastic for connections beyond what can sometimes feel like an insurmountable and separate geography.
For international audiences, this moment offered a glimpse into a digital world that is often perceived as distant, restrictive or incompatible with the World Wide Web. What it revealed instead was that China’s digital ecosystem can be more accessible than assumptions might suggest. For people willing to understand its distinct rhythm, the landscape can welcome international users, with built-in translation and international payment methods becoming increasingly standard.
Why does China’s Internet Work Differently?
China’s digital environment developed along a markedly different trajectory from the UK.
Public access in both contexts started in broadly similar ways during in the mid-1990s, with many users primarily logging on from internet cafes or workplace computers. In the UK however, sustained investment in desktop PCs and laptops led to widespread domestic access. While in China, the affordability of smartphone technology, combined with investment in 3G coverage and Wi-Fi infrastructure, led many internet-users across China to bypass the PC. Today, almost all Chinese internet users (around 99.8%) access the web via mobile devices, compared with 89% in the UK. The accelerated adoption of smartphones has led to a more mature and diverse landscape of smartphone-ready services and apps.
Another distinction stems from the often-referenced ‘Great Firewall’, a series of policies introduced from 2003 that restrict access within China to information and platforms on the global internet. In 2008, this included restrictions on Google, with many other well-used platforms like Facebook, YouTube, X, and WhatsApp following suit. In their place, domestic platforms including Alibaba, Baidu, Weibo, and WeChat developed rapidly in the 2010s through competition with one another. These advanced tools now function as vital infrastructures in circulating and mediating information in China.
For international visitors, the lack of access to everyday tools such as Gmail, Google Maps, or ChatGPT can be disorienting or frustrating. Finding basic information about a cultural organisation or prospective partner can feel difficult when you’re unable to search for websites or LinkedIn profiles. This can disrupt or delay early stages of relationship-building, where sense-checking, trust, and initial interest are often established. Unlike the UK where websites remain the digital architecture of choice, China’s digital ecosystem is organised through a landscape of apps, and at the centre of this garden is WeChat.
What is WeChat?
WeChat is more than a messaging service, it operates as a virtual place where users live, socialise, and do business. Its ubiquitous green interfaces everyday life, with business deals, group chats, and family updates sitting alongside services such as booking travel, scanning menus, or paying household bills. The typical contact list amassed is a patchwork of family members, friends, professional connections, and even customer service representatives you might have met once when shopping or reserving a table.
Within WeChat, users can exchange files, schedule meetings, manage contracts, and make payments via QR Code. Users can also access information through official pages and ‘mini-programmes’, effectively apps within the larger app WeChat.
Cultural organisations often host their box offices, visitor information, and customer service through these tools, making WeChat essential for accessing information about cultural events. Given its convenience, speed and relative privacy of WeChat, many professional conversations never leave the platform.
Although personal WeChat accounts do not feature public profiles, the platform’s social feed, known as Moments, plays an important role in signalling professional status and affiliations. Moments are used for sharing updates about your work, travel and daily life, and can indicate whether you are still active in an organisation, currently in China, or attending a particular event. As posts are only visible within an individual’s contact network, the interface maintains a personal, private and relatively formal tone.
The centralisation of WeChat brings challenges. Much like other contact-driven social media sites like LinkendIn and Facebook, contact lists cannot be easily exported, encouraging users to stay on the platform or risk losing their entire professional and social network. Although WeChat feels private, its services do not offer end-to-end encryption, something to consider when discussing sensitive subjects on the platform, particularly in professional exchanges with Chinese partners. As with any company working under Chinese Law, WeChat’s parent company, Tencent, may be required to share messages, contacts and locations with government authorities if requested.
Digital life beyond WeChat
Alongside WeChat, other social platforms such as Xiaohongshu, Douyin and Kuaishou play a significant role within China’s digital landscape. These platforms enable greater discovery by prioritising algorithm-driven content based on perceived interests and needs, allowing users to encounter content beyond their known networks, much like TikTok.
For those working in the cultural sector, these platforms can be valuable tools for finding information about events, audiences and activity, as well as making your work more discoverable. For organisations, the design of these apps support communication beyond direct contacts, using short-form video, livestreams, and influencer or key opinion leader-led storytelling to reach wider audiences.
Importantly, strategies that work on UK social media platforms do not necessarily translate directly to Chinese contexts. Specialist agencies with knowledge of platforms, sensitivities, and formats, can help UK organisations localise their messaging, and manage this different environment. For example, the V&A Museum’s first livestream on Kuaishou reached 3.8 million viewers. This attention and engagement, much like the Chinese netizens’ response to the US migration to Xiaohongshu, demonstrates the substantial audiences and genuine interest in international cultural connectivity on these platforms.
Why Familiarity Matters more than Expertise
Everyday apps increasingly support international collaboration, with live translation tools improving steadily and speech-to-text functions becoming standard. In addition, payment systems such as WeChat Pay and Alipay, once limited to Chinese bank cards, can now accept international cards through in-app processes. These developments reflect a growing openness within China’s digital ecosystem to welcome foreign users and encourage international exchange.
China’s digital ecosystem is not a closed system designed to exclude. Instead, it is a complex, evolving space shaped by histories, markets, government policy, and daily life. For UK cultural organisations, sustained engagement with Chinese partners depends on understanding and respecting these digital rhythms. You do not need to be an expert but building familiarity matters. The most effective way to begin is to download the apps, observe how they are used, and learn by participating.
The Digital Ecosystem is one of many contexts introduced in the British Council's recently published A Guide to Arts and Culture Opportunities in Mainland China (2025, Enke Huang)
