cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/53763707

Archived

Chongqing, a futuristic Chinese city, has caught the eye of influencers and bloggers. Beijing, meanwhile, welcomes new visitors, often unaware of the geopolitical and ideological currents running beneath their social media posts.

[…]

Chongqing has recently become a social media sensation. Its online popularity has spread like wildfire [and] is helping to shape the country’s image among Generation Z, a demographic that gets its information via TikTok and Instagram rather than through traditional media.

TikTok, in particular, has succeeded at making short, looping videos and endless scroll the norm – a format that competing platforms later tried to adopt. Influencers know they have to grab viewers’ attention in just a fraction of a second, and the skylines of Dubai and Manhattan were already familiar.

“You need a shock effect on the viewer for the influencer to be promoted by the algorithm,” noted Jackson Lu, a local influencer. “New York doesn’t surprise anyone anymore, whereas Chongqing offers a new and visually striking backdrop with its verticality and its lights at night.” Every week, Lu receives at least one or two requests from influencers planning to come to the city from abroad, eager to find the most unusual places to shoot their photos and videos.

[…]

In the hearts and minds of digital natives, the stunning images of major Chinese achievements – massive bridges, train stations and airports – have begun to replace prior negative perceptions of the country: Wuhan’s central market at the start of the Covid-19 years, Uyghurs kneeling in handcuffs during transfers to indoctrination camps and crackdowns against protesters in Hong Kong. “There is a sense of disillusionment; young people tell themselves that Western governments have condemned the human rights situation in China in the past, but that they have not, however, prevented what is happening in Gaza. This is helping people forget the criticism aimed at China, in favor of a narrative focused on its development,” observed Paulina Oveckova, a China specialist at the Pragu

[…]

In this context, President Xi Jinping and the entire Chinese diplomatic corps have been hammering home a message aimed at presenting China as a force for stability, in contrast to the US, which they accuse of having upended global energy supplies by attacking Iran with little regard for the consequences. The parade of foreign leaders through the Chinese capital, all of them eager to secure a smooth relationship with Beijing while grappling with the “Donald Trump problem,” has further contributed to this image-building effort.

[…]

During his official visit in January, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said that the warming of relations with China “put [Canada] in a good position for the new world order.” Even Annalena Baerbock, a critical voice regarding China when she served as Germany’s foreign minister from 2021 to 2025, has changed her tone since becoming president of the United Nations General Assembly. During her visit to Beijing on April 29, she praised China’s “unwavering commitment to the multilateral system,” seemingly forgetting the economic and diplomatic support that Beijing has offered Moscow despite Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

[…]

Even though relations between China and Europe remain weighed down by two major issues – the Chinese trade surplus and close ties between China and Russia – Beijing believes in its capacity to win over Europe’s digitally connected youth through social media, regardless of the reticence of their governments.

[…]

The turning point for international interest came in the spring of 2025, when an American from Cincinnati, Ohio, Darren Watkins, arrived in China. This 20-year-old, known to his followers as “IShowSpeed,” embarked on a two-week livestreamed tour across China, broadcasting for hours each day. He has 54 million followers on Youtube, 51 million on TikTok and 47.9 million on Instagram. Internet users from around the world watched him marvel at Shenzhen’s robots in the south, learn lessons from Kung Fu masters at the Shaolin Monastery in the east, and, of course, take in the spectacle of Chongqing.

[…]

The Italian-Senegalese influencer Khaby Lame, who has 161 million followers on TikTok, traveled there in September 2025. YouTuber Drew Binsky, known for having visited every country in the world and followed by 6.9 million people for his videos on unusual places, also visited.

[…]

The Chinese themselves often have a much more nuanced view of their own country. Though they admire the development of infrastructure, street safety and technological progress, they worry about the lack of economic opportunities for younger generations and the lack of sufficient social reforms to address low birth rates.

[…]

By virtue of sheer clicks and views, these influencers serve as a convenient vessel for hiding the topics Beijing doesn’t want to be seen.

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has welcomed anyone who avoids complicated issues and sticks solely to cultural subjects – kung fu, spicy cuisine, etc. – or who focus only on the positive side of Chinese modernity. “Depoliticizing is in itself a very political act,” said Emma Belmonte, host of the China Observers podcast and analyst at the Association for International Affairs, a French foreign policy think tank. “The effort to depoliticize the debate and the representation of China is a strategy. The flood of footage is meant to drown out the narrative that Beijing dislikes.”

In other words, images of achievements alone are often enough to convince people of the merits of the Chinese political system that made them possible.

[…]

The effort is particularly visible with Taiwanese youth, whom Beijing has sought to win over by bypassing the much-disliked government in Taipei. Two Taiwanese students told Le Monde that they were invited, with all expenses paid, to visit Hangzhou, an ultramodern city that has boomed thanks to artificial intelligence, and travel through northeastern regions of China where, for the first time, they saw snow-capped mountains. “In some ways, they are more modern than we are,” said one of them, Mei, age 21. “In hotels, when you order dinner online, robots take the elevator and deliver the meals left at reception by delivery drivers to the rooms.” They were encouraged, but not required, to share what they had done and their impressions of the trip on social media. At no point were they bothered with pressing political questions; instead, the organizers simply allowed the magic of modernity to do its work.

[…]