What RedNote’s rise means for Beijing’s soft power in South-east Asia
The firm must address concerns about the social media app’s potential security risks in its No 2 market
CHINESE social media app RedNote, also known as Little Red Book or Xiaohongshu, has recently expanded its presence in South-east Asia, making the region its second-largest market outside mainland China.
Today, RedNote is one of the most widely used social media apps in South-east Asia.
The app’s popularity in the region is evident from the critical roles it plays in local tourism, e-commerce, cultural exchanges and political engagement. RedNote data shows that South-east Asia has become a top-tier travel destination for China RedNote users, ranking only behind Japan, South Korea and the US.
This rapid growth is also shaping local shopping behaviours and driving the expansion of the digital agency market in the region.
Beyond its commercial value, RedNote plays a crucial cultural and political role within local ethnic Chinese communities.
In Malaysia, it serves as a tool for local Chinese to reconnect with relatives in mainland China. During Malaysia’s 15th general election in 2022, young Malaysian voters used it to document their participation, share posts of their ink-stained fingers and rally their peers to vote for change.
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The efficacy of RedNote in projecting China’s soft power abroad is subject to debate.
Beijing views RedNote’s rise very favourably, aligning with its broader strategy of exporting Chinese culture and boosting China’s global discourse power. Chinese state media describe RedNote as a conduit for grassroots cross-cultural engagement, interpreting its popularity as evidence of both “a measurable shift in global perceptions of China” and a “paradigm shift in how China’s soft power works globally”.
From Beijing’s perspective, the apolitical and ordinary content on RedNote not only promotes mutual understanding through people-to-people exchanges, but also helps break Western stereotypes of China by allowing foreign users to experience authentic Chinese culture.
However, foreign perceptions of RedNote’s popularity are mixed.
Western media and policy analysts view the app’s growth as “an unexpected win for China’s soft power push”, which boosted national sense among Chinese netizens and marked a “new phase” of the escalating “digital Cold War” between China and the US.
A new type of propaganda – featuring “extremely normal and mundane portraits of daily life” – has allowed Beijing to present an alternative image of China to foreign audiences, challenging traditional perspectives on Chinese people and society.
Critics have raised alarms that Beijing could utilise RedNote to bolster its geopolitical influence by manipulating public perceptions and shaping strategic narratives abroad.
These worries stem from RedNote’s potential security risks, as the China-based app must comply with national regulations and its algorithms are closely monitored by the government.
“The unanticipated influx of “TikTok refugees” into RedNote has given Beijing a prime opportunity to showcase its cultural confidence and cultivate a benevolent national image.”
Although South-east Asian countries benefit from RedNote’s commercial reach, they remain cautious of its potential politicisation.
For example, in March 2025, Chinese RedNote users made historical claims to the Philippine province of Palawan, asserting that the island rightfully belonged to China due to its initial links to the 14th-century Chinese explorer Zheng He.
Although Beijing has never officially supported this claim and some Chinese netizens dismissed it as a “complete rumour”, the Philippine government quickly debunked the assertion, describing it as a “strategic disinformation and malign influence campaign targeting an international audience” to strengthen China’s territorial claims in the South China Sea.
While acknowledging the lack of evidence that such posts by users were state-sponsored, regional observers remain wary of the “ultranationalist and hawkish” rhetoric on RedNote, which could distort public views of the South China Sea disputes.
Beijing has recently tightened its legal controls over the Chinese digital market.
Unified by the core principle of digital sovereignty, new laws give the state extensive authority to oversee both domestic and foreign digital companies operating within the country. These strict data regulations present a challenge for Chinese digital companies expanding globally, as their mandatory compliance with Beijing’s rules often clashes with the more market-oriented data laws of other nations.
Consequently, a common approach for leading Chinese tech companies, such as Tencent and ByteDance, is to run separate domestic and foreign versions of their apps to meet local requirements.
Unlike its rivals, such as WeChat and TikTok, RedNote operates a single, censored app designed initially for its home audience.
This strategy is possibly driven by three considerations: First, RedNote learnt lessons from past failed efforts to create localised versions of the app abroad.
Second, the app’s appeal to the overseas Chinese community, coupled with Beijing’s strict control over the platform, alleviated official concerns that information from abroad could threaten national security.
Finally, the unanticipated influx of “TikTok refugees” into RedNote has given Beijing a prime opportunity to showcase its cultural confidence and cultivate a benevolent national image.
However, this single-app model renders RedNote more vulnerable to government content regulation than platforms such as TikTok and WeChat.
Since it operates from mainland China, RedNote must follow not only China’s legal system, but also its ideological principles. The app’s community guidelines prohibit users from posting content that breaks laws and threatens national security, while encouraging posts that align with the core socialist values.
Furthermore, RedNote’s storage and processing of user data within mainland China, if mishandled, could enable the government to impose political censorship and expose the app to security risks.
RedNote’s popularity across multiple sectors in South-east Asia signifies strong grassroots acceptance, particularly among the ethnic Chinese community. This could serve as a conduit for Beijing to project soft power and a benevolent image.
The fact that Chinese authorities have allowed foreigners to access the app, which was originally developed for a domestic audience, reflects a greater sense of cultural confidence and a desire to project it far beyond China’s shores. The app’s appeal stems precisely from its ability to offer foreigners an authentic Chinese cultural experience and interactions with Chinese netizens on everyday issues.
But the authorities in South-east Asia must remain cognisant that the narratives on RedNote tend to be more heavily regulated than on platforms such as TikTok and WeChat.
For RedNote, there is a risk that regional governments could pressure the company to address security risks, adhere to local content laws, and mitigate concerns over Beijing using it to advance political narratives. Failure to comply could risk regional governments moving to limit access to the app.
This is an adapted version of Iseas Perspective 2025/99 published on Dec 5, 2025. The paper and its references can be accessed here.
The writer is a visiting fellow with the Iseas-Yusof Ishak Institute. He is a PhD candidate in political science at the University at Albany, State University of New York.
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