The photo showed a young Chinese couple in a park in Adelaide, with a caption saying that they were celebrating their six-month anniversary. Alice immediately recognised the man in the photo as the partner of a friend of hers who she had messaged earlier that day. She was disgusted by the discovery of his two-timing, but impressed by the power of Xiaohongshu’s algorithm.

Alice didn’t follow her friend or her partner on Xiaohongshu, but despite that and her being 729 kilometres away from Adelaide, Xiaohongshu’s powerful combined geographical and personalised algorithm had shown her that photo.

Background and expansion

Launched in 2013 in Shanghai by Stanford graduate Charlwin Mao and Miranda Qu, Xiaohongshu 小红书 – also known as ‘Red’ or ‘The Little Red Book’ – has become the fastest growing social platform in China by 2023.^[1] Users share stories and photos from daily life, exchange life hacks and post reviews ranging from new lipsticks to interior design.^[2] Similar to Instagram, Xiaohongshu prioritises posts that contain photos and videos, and divides them into three main feeds for users: ‘Follow’, where users can view posts from people they choose to follow; ‘Explore’, where users can access algorithm-personalised posts by choosing their favourite content categories, from manicures to career development; and ‘Nearby’, where the app recommends content produced in the same geographical area as the user.

When it was first launched, Xiaohongshu was designed as an e-commerce platform providing overseas travel and shopping information for Chinese tourists abroad, offering them user-generated recommendations on where to eat, shop or stay and what to buy overseas. It was also the time when the phenomena of daigou 代购, shoppers buying sought-after goods overseas on behalf of consumers in China, caught global attention. As daigou relied on social media to advertise the products, it contributed to China’s first transnational e-commerce boom, with the sector recording 2.7 trillion RMB ($573 billion AUD) in 2014.^[3] The profits of the e-commerce boom not only prompted then Premier Li Keqiang to announce new economic policies to promote the growth of cross-border e-commerce, but also inspired Xiaohongshu to launch its own online store in 2014 selling overseas products recommended by its users.^[4]

With the increasing traffic to the app and growing diversity of content, Xiaohongshu’s e-commerce feature extended to products available in mainland China. The app combines the user-generated posts with e-commerce by allowing each post to embed a shopping link to the products. Users describe Xiaohongshu’s e-commerce model as ‘planting seeds’ 种草: the user-generated reviews plant the seed of desire for the items. This differentiates the platform from traditional e-commerce platforms such as Taobao and newer ones such as TEMU, which still follow the Amazon-like structure that prioritises item search, rather than customer reviews.^[5]

Specifically, Xiaohongshu encourages users to produce anecdotal, visual and first-person reviews that directly address other users. These requirements constitute what marketing professionals call the Xiaohongshu format 小红书文案, which feature of a condensed, click-bait headline, a strong first-person anecdote, practical tips and suggestions, and address other users as ‘families’ 家人们, ‘sisters’ 姐妹们, ‘fairies’ 仙女们 and ‘little sweet potatoes’ 红薯们 (hongshu men, a pun on the name red book, hongshu 红书) which is the way Xiaohongshu fans describe themselves. With the development of artificial intelligence in recent years, Chat-GPT style AI tools have been developed to help users and marketing professionals write the kind of post favoured by Xiaohongshu’s algorithm.^[6] For Instance, to generate a negative review of a restaurant with unreasonably high prices and poor service, a Xiaohongshu-tailored AI would generate a post as below^[7]:

Title: NEVER EVER eat at this restaurant!

Today I want to share with you all my experience at a shady restaurant: xxx restaurant. Firstly, the prices were quite high, the food just so-so, and not worth the price. Secondly, the staff’s attitudes were bad – while we ordered, the waiter looked impatient, which made us feel very uncomfortable. Lastly, the dining environment was no good either, and it made you lose your appetite. In summary, never ever eat in this restaurant, I really don’t recommend it! #NotRecommend #BadReview #HighPrice

According to a senior Xiaohongshu director, the philosophy behind promoting such an anecdotal style of reviews is to encourage users to ‘genuinely share’ 真诚分享 their experiences: ‘When we first began the platform for offering reviews of transnational shopping, we aimed to present authentic views from real people on real items, and these reviews could be shown to another person with similar demands. When the person read these reviews, they’d find them useful,’ said ‘Monkey King’, the director of the CEO office. (As part of its corporate culture, all staff in Xiaohongshu address each other using nicknames – the CEO himself is known as Seiya, from the Japanese manga Saint Seiya: Knights of the Zodiac).^[8]

However, the rise of AI generated content and ‘soft advertising’ on the platform raise doubts on the supposed authenticity of the reviews. Similar to other video sharing platforms such as TikTok and Instagram, Xiaohongshu has become a new platform for online influencers who collaborate with brands to produce advertisements disguised as authentic product reviews.

Some accounts will embed a link that directs customers to shops on Xiaohongshu, so that shoppers don’t need to quit the platform to complete the purchase. Among the brands that maintain accounts on Xiaohongshu are Dior and Chanel. In the first quarter of 2024, Xiaohongshu recorded over US$1 billion sales, with a net profit of $200 million.^[9] The platform records around 300 million active users per month and has been listed as most popular mobile app among Chinese people under thirty along with second-hand selling platform Xianyu 咸鱼 (No. 2) and video platform bilibili 哔哩哔哩 (No.3).^[10] But as the platform continues to grow, issues embedded in its technical and algorithmic structure have emerged, including social and political dilemmas that could worry the Party and government.

A feminist platform?

Since its founding, Xiaohongshu has accumulated a large base of young female users. According to data from a Fujian-based social marketing company, around 70 percent of Xiaohongshu’s users are young women, with 85 percent of them born after 1996 (‘Gen Z’) and half of them from China’s first and second-tier cities.^[11] The preponderance of women has created a space for women to interact and discuss gender-related topics from skincare routines to menstrual shaming.^[12] Notably, compared to other social media platforms such as Weibo, users of Xiaohongshu are more likely to follow and adopt recommendations of other users due to its nature as a review-sharing platform.^[13] Xiaohongshu’s operations team knows that growing their user community gives them more opportunities to monetise user-generated content. Taiwanese software engineer Nick who worked for Xiaohongshu in 2017 has told Bailingguo News – one of the top three podcasts in Taiwan – that during his time at the company, Xiaohongshu had around 200 staff, over half of whom were women.^[14] The majority of the team of operation engineers responsible for content presentation were women as well. According to him, Xiaohongshu would collaborate with cosmetic brands to offer training about makeup products to male engineers responsible for the algorithm so they could learn about trends. ‘It’s very useful. It helps you understand what’s the difference between lipsticks and lip glosses,’ he told Bailinguo News.^[15]

With users’ heavy focus on consumer aesthetics, Xiaohongshu has sparked debates over consumerism and gender stereotypes, including that which promotes the ‘pale, young and slim’ 白幼瘦 obsession among young women. In 2020 and 2021, a combination of user-directed recommendations and brand-driven promotion made the American fast-fashion brand Brandy Melville a symbol of youth, charisma and fashion. Xiaohongshu users coined the term ‘BM style’ based on the brand’s one-size-fits-all (so long as ‘all’ are slim) philosophy and posted photos and videos of themselves in Brandy Melville clothing. ‘BM style’ became the subject of a popular user-driven discussion on young women’s appearance, with many discussing ‘appearance anxiety’ 容貌焦虑 related to the promotion of the ‘pale, young and slim look’, leading to the hashtag ‘RejectAppearanceAnxiety’ 拒绝容貌焦虑’ on the platform in 2022. The discussion eventually inspired a new popular online buzzword, ‘beauty conscription’ 服美役, that likened the social pressures and gender stereotypes forcing young Chinese women to apply makeup, dress up and keep fit (slim) to military conscription.^[16] Today, the promotion of ‘pale, young and slim’ aesthetics co-exists on Xiaohongshu alongside discussions of appearance anxiety. The hashtag #AppearanceAnxiety, where people criticise the overemphasis on appearance has received 2.8 billion views. To put this in perspective, the hashtag #FatLoss 减脂  – for sharing tips on losing weight and building and maintaining a fit and thin figure – has received almost 13.4 billion views.

Still, the disproportionate number of female users on Xiaohongshu has fostered the assertion of individual identities and feminist awareness where users discuss important topics of women’s health that are still taboo in China’s mainstream society, ranging from menstruation and postpartum depression to motherhood. It creates a community where women offer peer support and tips to each other through first-person narrated posts with visual elements. For instance, the hashtag #menstruation had 1.5 billion views by end of 2024. Women used it to discuss the pros and cons of menstrual products from pads to menstrual cups, share their reviews of different hygienic brands and tell stories related to menstrual cramps.  You can find critiques of the social stigma around periods and explainers for women’s health issues such as the sexually transmitted human papillomavirus (HPV), which can lead to cervical cancer. In November 2024, the conversation around women’s menstruation sparked a public outrage against China’s major sanitary pad producers, including over their misleading advertising about the dimensions of their pads.^[17]

Such discussions are partly fuelled by the sanitary product industry itself. Many posts looked like an explainer of menstrual cycles with tag lines such as ‘girls must read’ or ‘it’s 2024, time to normalise discussions about periods’, yet they are in fact product placements, or posts from sanitary product brands themselves. There are questions about whether consumeristic ‘self-care’ rhetoric is truly feminist, not only on Xiaohongshu but also on Douyin other social media platforms (and which echo similar questions raised by and posed on foreign platforms such as Instagram). However, such public discussion of subjects like menstruation has encouraged women to speak openly about other controversial topics such as the desirability of child-free marriage^[18], violence against women, and reproductive strategies such as egg-freezing for young women who want to delay motherhood.^[19]

Besides engaging in topic-specific discussions, many women on Xiaohongshu will post about their daily routines, career progress and travel, often through well-edited and filtered videos. While some of them spark controversies and criticism for worshipping materialism and over-glamourising middle-class lifestyles in China’s first-tier cities, it can be argued that the content reflects the concerns of many Chinese Gen Z women. The discussions show that marriages and families are not a priority for this demographic group, which prefers to define success in terms of personal growth, mental health and career. An example is the series of ‘Living Alone 独居’ vlogs where Xiaohongshu users show off their single lifestyles: travelling alone, engaging in their nightly routines after work.^[20] Some have become influencers as their videos go viral – even as questions arise about whether some are just product placements disguised as lifestyle. The connectivity of social media platforms means that the ‘Living Alone’ series videos are also widely available and popular on platforms such as Douyin. Product placements or not, the key message of these videos remains that women can also live happily without being married or having children, and this has had a significant social impact in itself.^[21]

Is Xiaohongshu the next tool for Beijing’s foreign influence?

The platform has never officially acknowledged whether the name Xiaohongshu bear any reference to the ‘The Little Red Book’, the nickname given to Quotations from Chairman Mao published in the 1960s and was ubiquitous during the Cultural Revolution. And while it was founded for commerce, not political ends, there are concerns that Xiaohongshu will follow TikTok – a short video app that originated from China – and be manipulated to serve Beijing’s political interests abroad.

In 2022 in Taiwan, where the government is combating a multi-front mis- and disinformation assault from China, Tsai Ing-wen’s government banned public servants from downloading Xiaohongshu on government devices.^[22] But Xiaohongshu is popular with Taiwanese youth who use it as a reliable search engine for beauty and lifestyle information. The increased popularity of Chinese drama and entertainment shows among Taiwanese young people also drives downloads for access to updates and fan-made content.^[23] While politics isn’t a major topic of discussion on Xiaohongshu, a Taiwan-based Xiaohongshu user told Radio Free Asia’s Wainao – a longform news outlet for the Gen Z Chinese diaspora – they did occasionally receive recommended posts containing mainland nationalist content, including one encouraging them to read the People’s Daily.^[24]

In the United States and Australia, Xiaohongshu is widely used by Chinese students studying at universities and young first-generation migrants, who find it useful for locating Chinese restaurants, Asian grocery stores and Chinese-speaking trade services as well as researching immigration policies and sharing their immigration experiences.^[25] In Australia, Xiaohongshu attracts almost 700,000 users^[26], including Chinese Australian citizens and temporary residents such as international students.^[27] In 2021, I interviewed three Australians who are on Xiaohongshu.^[28] Sebastian, who first came across Xiaohongshu through his Chinese partner, treated the platform like a ‘Chinese Instagram’ where he posted his daily outfits in exchange for hundreds of likes – often much more than on his Instagram where he shares the same content. Julie, an Anglo Australian who began studying Chinese at 11 years old, was a part-time influencer collaborating with an Australian marketing company to promote Australian products to Chinese audiences. Michael, a corporate worker in Melbourne who speaks Chinese and married a Chinese international student, talks about his upbringing as a second-generation Chinese Australian on Xiaohongshu. He also shares his personal tips for new migrants and international students on job hunting and ‘fitting in’. Xiaohongshu has become a new platform for Australian politicians to engage with the Chinese Australian electorate. According to an ABC News report in November 2024, twenty politicians, ranging from federal members to local councillors, use the app.^[29]

Since November 2023, Xiaohongshu has been gaining attention from teenagers outside China, after a video of a male blogger who learned makeup techniques from Xiaohongshu users went viral on TikTok. They joined Xiahohongshu to participate in the new Chinese social media trend of ‘Open to blunt advice’ 听劝 which encourages people to take advice from strangers on the internet. On the platform, they asked for make-up advices and suggestions on improving their appearances.^[30] In January 2025, ahead of the possible TikTok ban in the United States, many TikTok users rushed to Xiaohongshu as ‘TikTok refugees’ as they considered Xiaohongshu to share similar functions as TikTok.^[31]

However, unlike TikTok, Xiaohongshu’s global influence remains limited. Just as Tencent WeChat was the international version of Weixin to mitigate data and social media regulations from China on users outside the country, Xiaohongshu also launched an international version for overseas users, which it calls REDNote.^[32] According to the descriptions of Xiaohongshu and REDNote on the Apple Store, the two apps take different approaches to data from users’ contacts. Xiaohongshu users could find their data from contacts could be collected and linked to their identities^[33], while REDNote users may still find the data being collected by the app, but the data would not link to their identities.^[34] While Xiaohongshu has its own X account and YouTube channel to promote the platform in English, neither have been updated since 2022.

Nevertheless, utility of Xiaohongshu as a travel guide for Chinese tourists has prompted the tourism offices of foreign governments to launch their official accounts on Xiaohongshu in hopes of boosting visitor numbers from China. In August 2024, Australia’s Northern Territory, which experienced a 10.5 per cent drop of domestic tourists in 2023 due to Australia’s ongoing cost of living crisis, tense competition against international markets and other factors, launched its Xiaohongshu account to promote destinations such as Uluru, attempting to attract tourists from China.^[35]

Bumps in the road

Despite its lifestyle focus, Xiaohongshu is exposed to political risks inside and outside China. It is subject to China’s toughening censorship regime and has been found to censor keywords relating, for example, to the 1989 Tiananmen protests and Xi Jinping.^[36] Internationally, despite being one of the most popular platforms Chinese travellers turn to for overseas trip advice, Xiaohongshu does not yet have an overseas branch, although it is planning to open an office in Hong Kong.^[37] This could partly be due to the fact that Xiaohongshu struggled to make a profit until 2023, almost a decade after it was first launched.^[38]

The platform has drawn attention from business analysts for inefficiently monetising its huge amount of content and large community of users to boost its e-commerce business, which is the foundation of its business model. Its existing e-commerce feature does not have a clear brand compared with TEMU’s low pricing and Taobao’s convenience, for example.^[39] China’s tightening control of private companies going public overseas may also have slowed Xiaohongshu’s international expansion.^[40] However, as the platform recorded its first profits and caught the attention of venture capital investors^[41], it is possible that Xiaohongshu will relaunch overseas, although the company has denied that it would go public in Hong Kong or the United States.^[42]

The lack of a corporate presence overseas has posed questions such as data safety for overseas users. In Australia, there have also been concerns about misinformation on Xiaohongshu regarding Australian elections and referenda, with media academics calling for the Australian government to develop policy regarding the regulation of such platforms.^[43] There are a number of issues the platform will have to address if it wants to follow WeChat and TikTok overseas.

The Xiaohongshu bubble

To some extent, Xiaohongshu serves as a kind of pop culture survey, capturing and presenting the latest social trends and phenomena in contemporary China through vivid and relatable stories from everyday life. For instance, the intensive work environment and Chinese economic slowdown sparked a new trend on Xiaohongshu in June with users posting about life after quitting their jobs.^[44] In these posts, users share photos of themselves walking out of offices, packing their luggage and moving back to their hometowns, and beginning afresh by farming, travelling or pursuing other personal goals. However, Xiaohongshu has also caught attention from the Cyberspace Administration Office of China for failing to regulate the increasing number of posts that celebrate an over-materialist lifestyle.^[45] Since 2021, as part of the China’s mass campaign for internet regulation, Operation Qinglang 清朗行动, Xiaohongshu have followed instructions from the Cyberspace Administration Office of China and suspended accounts and removed social media posts that involve ‘showing off money and worshiping wealth’ 拜金炫富.^[46] Many people simply find other ways to project images of success on Xiaohongshu: Chinese state media reported in November 2024 that a growing number of users on Xiaohongshu post doctored photos of themselves making speeches at the United National Assembly.^[47] In August 2019, following reports by several Chinese media that Xiaohongshu failed to regulate accounts that sell pirate luxury-brand items on its e-commerce platforms, and advertising posts for tobaccoes, China’s cyberspace authorities instructed Xiaohongshu to rectify its content, and the app was removed from all mobile app stores for a month^[48].

Xiaohongshu is also heavily invested in an algorithm designed to fragment its users into groups based on their interests and lifestyles. When a new user joins Xiaohongshu, the platform automatically activates its personalisation algorithm. In its algorithm’s guidelines, Xiaohongshu states that it tracks information on the users’ devices, but it does not specify what type of information it will track. It also states that it will track geolocation, view history and all activities on the app so that the algorithm can recommend posts and videos of interest to them. It then reacts to likes by creating a bubble that pushes more and more similar content into their feeds. Commercially, this helps users, whose tastes are thus validated, develop a strong sense of community, which increases their loyalty toward the platform, and both Xiaohongshu and brands can easily make money from users in such bubbles. But it also restricts the picture of modern China and overseas Chinese communities for users to that reflected in their bubbles, including notions of wealth distribution and inequality, especially as the app itself is heavily biased towards the middle-classes. Its invasive yet opaque access to users’ personal information on phones have also sparked concerns on privacy. For Alice, who discovered the partner of her friend cheating on her in Adelaide while she was using the app in Melbourne, the incident did not just alert her to the platform’s powerful algorithms, but also how Xiaohongshu could have unintended effects on Chinese people’s daily lives wherever they live.

*Alice prefers using a pseudonym to protect her identity

Notes

^[1] Newrank, ‘2023 New Media Content Ecosystem Data Report’, 2023新媒体内容生态数据报告, Newrank.cn, 5 March 2024, online at: https://edit.newrank.cn/detail.html?uuid=CD1017CC7A7C05F817C31DCA2F049C32

^[2] Eleanor Olcott, ‘Chinese Social Media Sensation Xiaohongshu Win Major foreign VC Backing’, Financial Times, 11 July 2024, online at:  https://www.ft.com/content/2d5f515f-d341-41c8-ace5-16a16cb33e35

^[3] Qu Yiping, ‘How does Cross-border e-commerce platform Work’, 跨界电商究竟怎么跨, People.cn, 1 October 2015, online at: http://paper.people.com.cn/rmzk/html/2015-10/01/content_1638473.htm

^[4] People Daily, ‘Li Keqiang hosted State Council Executive Meeting’, 李克强主持召开国务院常务会议,http://politics.people.com.cn/n/2015/0611/c1024-27135868.html

^[5]  Wing Kuang, ‘TEMU’s business model could only work in China. But they’re racing to replace Amazon in the global market’, ABC Online, 29 August 2023, online at: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-08-29/temu-may-save-china-status-as-world-factory-amid-deflation/102724900

^[6] She Xiaochen, ‘AI post is dominating Xiaohongshu’, AI文案正在攻占小红书, Jiemian news, 17 July 2024, online at: https://www.stcn.com/article/detail/1261073.html

^[7] Tai Feng, ‘Xiaohongshu Generator-ChatGPT’, 小红书生成器-ChatGPT, online at: https://ai.xiaohongshu.live/

^[8]Zan Kuang Zhanyu,’In-depth Interview: Behind the Scene of Xiaohongshu’, 深度访谈：想不到你是这样的小红书, bilibili, 29 March 2021, online at: https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1DK4y1T7na/?spm_id_from=333.337.search-card.all.click&vd_source=9fdd674b2b019d60d5f6a64069e21ad3

^[9] Bloomberg News staff, ‘China’s Instagram-style Xiaohongshu crosses $1 billion in profit’, Bloomberg, 12 December 2024, online at: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-12-12/china-s-instagram-style-xiaohongshu-crosses-1-billion-in-profit

^[10] QuestMobile, ‘QuestMobile Report: Xianyu, Xiaohongshu and bilibili top ranking of young people’s most favourite apps’, QuestMobile报告：咸鱼与小红书、B站并列高值年轻人喜爱三大APP, 1 July 2024, online at: http://www.ce.cn/xwzx/gnsz/gdxw/202407/01/t20240701_39055609.shtml

^[11] Qiangua, ‘QIangua data: Xiaohongshu’, 千瓜数据-小红书数据分析平台,Qiangua Data, online at: https://www.qian-gua.com/article/index/1/1.html

^[12] Hanzhe Chi, Renhao Liu and Jingye Pan, ‘Users’ behaviour under the uneven gender ratio of social media platforms: taking Hupu and Xiaohongshu as examples’, SHS Web of Conferences, vol. 50, no. 2 (2022): 1-5.

^[13] Zhuoli Wang, Wei-jue Huang and Bingjie Liu-Lastres, ‘Impact of user-generated travel posts on travel decisions: A comparative study on Weibo and Xiaohongshu’, Annals of Tourism Research Empirical Insights, vol. 3, no. 2 (2022): 1-11.

^[14] Nick didn’t reveal his last name in the show.

^[15] Bailinguo News, ‘The KK Show – 216 Xiaohongshu Algorithm Engineer Nick’, The KK Show – 216 小紅書算法工程師Nick, YouTube, 26 September 2023, online at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cN07i8Puqzs

^[16] Huiyan Chen, What’s behind Chinese Women’s ‘Beauty Duty’ Backlash?’, Jing Daily, 19 October 2022, online at: https://jingdaily.com/posts/beauty-duty-womens-rights-china

^[17] Koh Ewe, ‘Chinese companies apologise for ‘shrunken’ sanitary pads’, BBC News, 28 November 2024, online at: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cev9ry341dyo

^[18] Jingshen Ge and Weiqi Tian, ‘Reimagining maternity: a multimodal analysis on the identity construction amongst Chinese ‘Married, child-free’ women in Xiaohongshu’, Social Semiotics, (2024): 1-12.

^[19] Jingshen Ge and Weiqi Tian, ‘Preserving choice: weaving femininity and autonomy through egg freezing discourse on Xiaohongshu’, Critical Discourse Studies (2024): 1-22.

^[20]Jia Guo, ‘Living-alone’ Wanghong: Women’s singleness as a Wanghong genre and the configuration of Chinese postfeminist wanghong culture’, Global Media and China, (2024).

^[21]Jia Guo, ‘Living-alone’ Wanghong: Women’s singleness as a Wanghong genre and the configuration of Chinese postfeminist wanghong culture’, Global Media and China, (2024).

^[22] Liang Jinghong, Chen Yuzhen and Xu Bosong, ‘Taiwanese teenagers on Douyin and Xiaohongshu: when national identity co-exists with Chinese social media trends’, 抖音、小紅書上的台灣青少年：當本土認同與中國社群媒體熱潮並行,Initium Media, 12 January 2023, online at: https://theinitium.com/article/20230113-taiwan-concerns-teens-chineseapps

^[23] Liang Jinghong, Chen Yuzhen and Xu Bosong, ‘Taiwanese teenagers on Douyin and Xiaohongshu: when national identity co-exists with Chinese social media trends’, 抖音、小紅書上的台灣青少年：當本土認同與中國社群媒體熱潮並行,Initium Media, 12 January 2023, online at: https://theinitium.com/article/20230113-taiwan-concerns-teens-chineseapps

^[24] Xu Jiaqi, ‘Postfeminism, capitalist traps or cultural united front work? We talked to the female users of Xiaohongshu in Taiwan’, 后女性主义？资本主义陷阱？文化统战？我们和“小红书“的台湾女性用户聊了聊, Wainao, 23 June 2022, online at:https://www.wainao.me/wainao-reads/xiaohongshu-in-taiwan-06232022

^[25] Shuyue Chen, ‘In the eyes of overseas young Chinese, Xiaohongshu becomes a ‘search engine’’, 海外中國年輕人眼中，意外成為「搜索引擎」的小紅書, Initium Media, 23 February 2023, online at: https://theinitium.com/article/20230223-mainland-overseas-students-xiaohongshu

^[26]Jenny Cai and Iris Zhao, ‘How Australian politicians are using emerging Chinese social media app Red’, ABC News, 3 November 2024, online at: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-11-03/politicians-campaigning-chinese-social-media-red-xiaohongshu/104482116

^[27] Yuwen Jing, ‘Temporary Migrants’ Reactions to Immigration-related Content on Social Media Platform: Taking Australian Chinese Temporary Migrants on Red (Xiaohongshu) as An Example’, SHS Web of Conferences, vol. 190, no. 03018, (2024): 1-5.

^[28] Wing Kuang, ‘Australian influencers on Xiaohongshu, and China influence in their eyes’, 以小红书为阵地的澳洲网红，和他们眼里的中国影响力, Wainao, 13 October 2021, online at:  https://www.wainao.me/wainao-reads/Xiaohongshu-Australian-influencer-10132021

^[29] Jenny Cai and Iris Zhao, ‘How Australian politicians are using emerging Chinese social media app Red’, ABC News, 3 November 2024, online at: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-11-03/politicians-campaigning-chinese-social-media-red-xiaohongshu/104482116

^[30] Shuyue Chen, ‘Please help me look good: when foreign internet users seek makeup advice on Xiaohongshu’, 请帮助我发光：当外国网友到小红书寻求外形改造, Initium Media, 22 February 2024, online at: https://theinitium.com/zh-hans/article/20240223-mainland-foreign-users-little-red-book

^[31] Kinling Lo and Viola Zhou, U.S. TikTokers flock to Xiaohongshu, baffling and bonding with Chinese users, Rest of World, 14 January 2025, online at: https://restofworld.org/2025/tiktok-refugees-rednote-xiaohongshu-chinese-users/

^[32] Xingin, ‘REDnote – Xiaohongshu’s international version’, 小红书国际版, Google Play, 22 December 2024, online at: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.xingin.xhs&hl=zh

^[33] Xingin, ‘Xiaohongshu’, 小红书, Apple Store, 7 January 2025, online at:  https://apps.apple.com/au/app/%E5%B0%8F%E7%BA%A2%E4%B9%A6/id741292507

^[34] Xingin, ‘REDnote – Xiaohongshu’s international version’, 小红书国际版, Apple Store, 30 December 2024, online at: https://apps.apple.com/tz/app/rednote-%E5%B0%8F%E7%BA%A2%E4%B9%A6%E5%9B%BD%E9%99%85%E7%89%88/id6499068935

^[35] Northern Territory government, ‘Tourism | NT Budget’, The Territory, 2024, online at: https://budget.nt.gov.au/industry-outlook/tourism#:~:text=on%20international%20visitors.-,Domestic%20visitation,consumer%20behaviour%20and%20higher%20airfares.

^[36] China Digital Space, ‘Xiaohongshu Censorship Encyclopedia’, 小红书审查百科, China Digital Times, August 2020, online at: https://chinadigitaltimes.net/space/%E5%B0%8F%E7%BA%A2%E4%B9%A6%E5%AE%A1%E6%9F%A5%E7%99%BE%E7%A7%91

^[37] Karen Wong, ‘Xiaohongshu to set up office in HK’, Marketing-Interactive, 28 November 2024, online at: https://www.marketing-interactive.com/xiaohongshu-to-set-up-office-in-hk

^[38] Eleanor Olcott and Ryan McMorrow, ‘China’s Instagram-like Xiaohongshu makes first profit’, Financial Times, 25 March 2024, online at: https://www.ft.com/content/1716fcfd-31fd-4dc3-9475-f04283fe3eaf

^[39] ​​Beihe, ‘Xiaohongshu e-commerce’ buyers: their rise and challenges’, 小红书点上‘淘金’人：佛系、崛起和犹疑, CBN Data, online at: https://www.cbndata.com/information/292933

^[40] Eliot Chen, ‘Failure to List’, The Wire China, 19 November 2023, online at: https://www.thewirechina.com/2023/11/19/failure-to-list-chinese-ipo-china-companies-stock-market/

^[41]  Eleanor Olcott, ‘Chinese Social Media Sensation Xiaohongshu Win Major foreign VC Backing’, Financial Times, 11 July 2024, online at:  https://www.ft.com/content/2d5f515f-d341-41c8-ace5-16a16cb33e35

^[42] Pandaily, ‘Xiaohongshu Denies Reports of $20 Billion pre-IPO Financing Round’, Pandaily, 29 April 2024, online at: https://pandaily.com/xiaohongshu-denies-reports-of-20-billion-pre-ipo-financing-round/

^[43] enny Cai and Iris Zhao, ‘How Australian politicians are using emerging Chinese social media app Red’, ABC News, 3 November 2024, online at: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-11-03/politicians-campaigning-chinese-social-media-red-xiaohongshu/104482116

^[44] Cailin Zheng, ‘Job-quitting vloggers: pretending to be relaxed is harder than going to work’, 假装松弛的离职博主，比上班卷多了, iFeng, 30 June 2024, online at: https://news.ifeng.com/c/8apzXQiFP4G

^[45] No. 10 Company, ‘Xiaohongshu has banned over 8,700 posts that involved ‘showing off money’, bloggers are united to oppose showing off money’, Paper.cn, 18 November 2021, online at: https://www.thepaper.cn/newsDetail_forward_15438246

^[46] Chi-hui Lin, ‘Chinese Social Media Companies Remove posts ‘Showing off Wealth and Worshipping Money’, The Guardian, 17 May 2024, online at: https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/may/17/chinese-social-media-companies-remove-posts-showing-off-wealth-and-worshiping-money

^[47] Guancha Jun, ‘China’s rich ladies are outdated, as ‘United Nations ladies’ are emerging on Xiaohongshu’, 国内假名媛过时了，小红书正在批量制造‘联合国名媛， Guancha.cn, 23 November 2024, online at: https://user.guancha.cn/main/content?id=1337163

^[48] Juan Hou, ‘Is it the end of Xiaohongshu?’, 小红书要‘黄’了？, People.cn, 2019, online at: http://paper.people.com.cn/zgjjzk/html/2019-08/15/content_1945098.htm

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As years passed, Sydney’s original Chinatown no longer served as a community hub, gradually becoming a cultural attraction for local and international visitors alike. At the same time, Burwood grew to become one of the suburbs where large numbers of the Chinese diaspora live, along with Sydney’s Chatswood and Melbourne’s Box Hill.

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, 48.8 percent of the population in Burwood is of Chinese ancestry, with 29.9 percent born in China.^[2] With 16.6 percent of the population aged 25 to 29 years, more than three times higher than the New South Wales average, the suburb is dominated not just by recent migrants from mainland China but also by students and young working professionals.^[3] The demographic skew of Burwood has led to its vibrant Chinatown and paved the way for one of the most rapidly developed sectors in Australia: online food delivery.

Since 2016, the online food delivery sector has gone through exponential growth in Australia, accelerated by COVID-19 lockdowns. In 2023, the sector recorded AU$1.3 billion in revenue, up 180 percent over seven years, despite an ongoing cost of living crisis in the country.^[4] Yet the market is highly concentrated in the hands of a few multinational companies. After the exit of UK-based delivery giant Deliveroo in November 2022 citing tough competition,^[5] Australia’s food delivery market was left with three big players: UberEats (54.5 percent), Australia-founded Menulog (27.5 percent) and DoorDash (15.0 percent). Other players make up 3 percent.^[6] Both UberEats and DoorDash originated in Silicon Valley.

At Burwood Chinatown, every food vendor collaborates with food delivery platforms, evident from the colourful placards of delivery platform logos at their counters and from the large posse of delivery riders in yellow or blue jackets and helmets standing and waiting in front of the food stalls, scrolling their phones, with their vehicles parked outside the plaza. However, the platforms that dominate Burwood Chinatown are not from Silicon Valley or Australia but two Asian food delivery apps: HungryPanda 熊猫外卖, which originated in the UK, and Fantuan 饭团, which originated in Canada. HungryPanda offers a choice of languages, including English, Chinese (a choice of simplified or traditional characters), Japanese and Korean, while Fantuan offers choices of English, French and Chinese (simplified or traditional characters). Despite the language options, the two platforms are dominated by Chinese-language users.

Like the physical, concrete Chinatowns that served as a one-stop community hub for the Chinese diaspora, these food delivery apps have shaped the daily experience of newly arrived Chinese migrants in Australia, especially during the pandemic. However, these delivery apps face distinctive challenges as Chinese diaspora-oriented digital platforms operating in the West, including questions about the treatment of their delivery drivers and the sustainability of the diaspora economy.

The non-Silicon Valley apps born in the West

Launched in 2017, HungryPanda was first created in the United Kingdom by former Chinese international student Eric Liu, who saw the potential of developing an online Chinese food delivery platform tailored to the needs of the Chinese diaspora community in Britain.^[7] The platform expanded to France and New Zealand the following year, and in 2019 it was launched in the United States and Australia. As the app expanded, it incorporated more cuisines and languages, with Asian food as its core business. The app has also attracted venture capital, including US$130 million in its Series D funding round in 2021. Today, HungryPanda claims more than six million users worldwide, partnering with more than 100,000 merchants and 80,000 delivery riders.

Despite its achievements, HungryPanda did not have a smooth start in Australia, as the country had had its own online Asian food delivery app, EASI, since 2014.^[8] The Melbourne-based business claimed it had 1.5 million Australian users, worked with around 20,000 vendors and partnered with 25,000 delivery riders.^[9] In March 2022, HungryPanda acquired EASI for AU$50 million, making it a leading player in specialist online food delivery service, available in nine cities and towns.

But the same month the HungryPanda–EASI deal was completed, a Canadian Chinese food delivery app also entered the Australian market. Fantuan was founded in 2014 in Vancouver, where almost 20 percent of the population are of Chinese heritage.^[10] Besides Canada and Australia, the app is also available in the United States and the United Kingdom. Its Australian business mainly operates in Sydney and Melbourne. In December 2023, Fantuan secured US$40 million in Series C funding from a US grocery e-commerce company as well as investors from the United States and China.^[11] The deal, along with HungryPanda’s in 2021, shows optimism from the sector about the potential of these Asian food delivery platforms and confidence in consumers from diaspora communities.

Despite roots in the West, HungryPanda and Fantuan are on a different path from Silicon Valley rivals such as Uber and Doordash. They built their businesses by specifically offering Chinese diaspora communities modern, authentic Chinese food that tastes like home. Their focus on offering services in Chinese won them loyalty from new migrants and international students still adapting to an English-speaking environment. Their growing number of users in turn helped them accumulate an increasingly long list of Chinese food vendors that also rely on the specific customer groups targeted by these delivery apps. They grew strongly during the COVID-19 lockdowns when dining out was impossible.

As elsewhere, following their initial success, they expanded their focus in Australia from Chinese food to Asian cuisine more broadly as well as local fast food chains. As specialist delivery apps they proactively court restaurants well known in the communities with the hope of being the first one to secure contracts—especially exclusivity contracts—with the restaurants, according to the food vendors I talked to.^[12] Like their Silicon Valley competitors, which expanded their delivery services to grocery shopping, both HungryPanda and Fantuan have launched similar services for Asian grocery stores. In Burwood, one Asian gourmet snack shop that sells bags of marinated duck neck and other traditional Chinese snacks told me they joined these two delivery platforms ‘for convenience’, as ‘everyone is using them now’. They also actively support community events and traditional cultural festivals through sponsorships and advertising.^[13]

A stepping stone for new migrants

In a Hong Kong café in Burwood, Joe and Qing (not their real names) sat with me after they finished their deliveries for the day. It was the winter of 2023, and both Joe and Qing had heard predictions of extreme heat in the upcoming months. Joe recalled that a couple of years before, during a hot summer in Sydney, he suffered damaging sunburn on his face even though he had applied sunscreen and covered his face while doing his deliveries.

Both men were in their fifties and spoke Mandarin with a strong Malaysian accent. Although news reports often describe food delivery riders as young international students and backpackers on working holiday visas,^[14] a proportion of riders for these specialist delivery apps are middle-aged men like Joe and Qing who came to Australia to support their families in Malaysia, China or Taiwan. However, the size of the proportion remains unknown as there is no accurate data available. As Australia does not offer low-skill work visas, some of the riders I talked to were in complicated ‘visa-hopping’ situations in which they secure and keep their work rights through various types of temporary visa. Their visa conditions plus their poor English skills limited their employment options to farm work and other low-skill jobs. Food delivery became their stepping stone to other work.^[15] The process of becoming a food delivery rider is simple: download the app, sign the job application, demonstrate valid work rights in Australia and go through road safety training on the app. Chinese-language delivery apps like HungryPanda and Fantuan are the first choice for newly arrived migrants with limited proficiency in English. Unlike international students, whose work hours are capped as part of their student visa requirements, riders like Joe and Qing deliver food as a full-time job with no limits on working hours. Many riders sign up for several platforms as they are considered contractors, not employees.

As a full-time rider, Joe told me that during the pandemic—when there was a huge shortage of migrant workers as a result of the border closures—he could earn around AU$300 for eight hours of work. Income consists of delivery fees from each order plus bonuses from the platforms for reaching a certain number of orders. Both Joe and Qing came to Australia with the hope of making more money than staying at home. Their incomes as delivery riders in Australia could not only cover their daily expenses but also support their families in Malaysia.

But making a living as riders can be challenging. Because not all orders are of the same value, to maximise their income, many riders will take several orders at a time. They might engage in ‘order-grabbing’ 抢单, by which, in addition to the orders allocated to them, riders also lay claim to unallocated orders while still in transit. Order grabbing has sparked concerns about road safety, as many riders were found scrolling their phones while riding on the road. In an interview with me, HungryPanda confirmed that they no longer allow riders to take unallocated orders along the way. They also confirmed that they have adopted a computerised system to allocate orders that avoids unfair arrangements, with human coordinators stepping in when the riders report an error.

Despite all these measures, road safety for delivery riders has been a major concern in Australia, with at least 13 riders killed on the roads since 2017 and frequent major accidents.^[16] The need to complete the delivery within the required time to avoid penalties and get new orders is the main reason riders take risks on the roads.^[17] Riders and labour advocates also raise questions about the speed and simplicity of the sign-up procedures.^[18] When fatal accidents occur, the employment status of delivery riders as contractors makes it difficult for victims’ families to seek compensation from delivery platforms. In September 2020, HungryPanda delivery rider Xiaojun Chen died on the job in Sydney. After a two-year legal battle, his widow was finally granted AU$830,000 compensation.^[19] The landmark case later pushed HungryPanda, UberEats and other key food delivery players to announce stricter road safety policies, to launch mandatory safety training sessions for new riders and to extend riders’ insurance schemes.

In October 2023, in the wake of the Labor government passing new workplace legislation that imposes minimum wage standards on gig work, Uber warned that customers would have to pay 85 percent more for food deliveries, although commentators said the claim demonstrated how badly they were underpaying their delivery riders.^[20] In February 2024, Parliament approved the Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Closing Loopholes) Act, which said that gig workers could receive minimum wages if they demonstrate that they are engaged under a services contract and work for a digital platform with low bargaining power under the contract.^[21]

While the Closing Loopholes Act sparked hopes among delivery riders for improving their working conditions, for many of them, it is too difficult to advocate for themselves in conflicts with delivery platforms. Some of them have joined the Transport Workers’ Union—the national advocacy organisation for transport workers – to defend their rights, including around safe practices. There have been protests and organised meetings with the delivery apps management, and the union has helped members to lodge fair work dismissals.

But mobilising workers unfamiliar with Australia’s legal system comes with challenges. Joe and Qing, who are both members of the Transport Workers’ Union, told me they had ‘very positive’ experiences with the union. When the union organised protests, they would share the information in the WeChat groups with other delivery riders, but only a few would end up joining them.^[22] In my interview with the National Secretary of the Transport Workers’ Union, Michael Kaine, he told me his organisation actively approached migrant workers to support them.^[23] However, due to the fact that they were constantly on the road, it was challenging to mobilise them compared to those who work in the physical venues.

The sustainability of diaspora economy

Despite being created for the Chinese diaspora community, delivery apps like HungryPanda and Fantuan have so far avoided the ownership and data-sharing controversies that dog TikTok. While they were to some extent inspired by the success of China’s own food delivery apps Meituan 美团 and E Le Ma 饿了吗,^[24] both HungryPanda and Fantuan were founded in Western countries in accordance with the laws of the United Kingdom and Canada. Although they have investors from China, their influence is limited in comparison to TikTok’s Beijing parent ByteDance.

But these specialist delivery apps might face consequences from changes in immigration policies. In December 2023, the Australian Government released a migration review that set higher barriers for international students to stay after graduation and cracked down on the abuse of student visas as a pathway to work in Australia. The review also targeted the phenomena of ‘visa-hopping’—a tactic that several of my interviewees have adopted in order to keep working in Australia legally – to prevent visa applicants from exploiting the temporary visa system.^[25] It remains unknown to what extent the new migration review will affect the supply of delivery riders—where the majority of them are visa holders—in Australia. Noticeably, due to the rise of cost of living, there has been an increase of English-speaking delivery riders using and joining HungryPanda, even though the app’s primary language option is Chinese.^[26] The surge echoes the growing trend of Australians working two or more jobs—including food delivery—to ease their financial burdens amid the continuous rises of interest rate in 2022 and 2023.^[27] As government policies gradually put in place while Australia’s per capita recession is estimated to extend, there may be significant changes in the future of both delivery riders in Australia and the sector.^[28]

Notes

^[1] Burwood Chinatown, ‘Our story’, Burwood Chinatown homepage, retrieved 29 March 2024, online at: https://burwoodchinatown.com.au/

^[2] Australian Bureau of Statistics, ‘2021 Burwood (NSW)’, ABS, 2021, online at: https://abs.gov.au/census/find-census-data/quickstats/2021/120031678

^[3] Ibid.

^[4] IBIS World, ‘Online food ordering and delivery platforms in Australia – market size, industry analysis, trends and forecasts (2024–2029)’, IBIS World, August 2023, online at: https://www.ibisworld.com/au/industry/online-food-ordering-delivery-platforms/5538/#IndustryStatisticsAndTrends

^[5] Praveen Menon, ‘Britain’s Deliveroo exits Australia, citing tough competition’, Reuters, 16 November 2022, online at: https://www.reuters.com/business/retail-consumer/britains-deliveroo-exits-australia-citing-tough-competition-2022-11-16/

^[6] IBIS World, ‘Online food ordering and delivery platforms in Australia’.

^[7] HungryPanda, ‘About us’, HungryPanda, retrieved 29 March 2024, online at: https://www.hungrypanda.co/

^[8] Ibid.

^[9] Anthony Macdonald and Kanika Sood, ‘UK’s HungryPanda buys Melbourne food delivery business Easi’, Australian Financial Review, 10 January 2022, online at: https://www.afr.com/street-talk/uk-s-hungry-panda-buys-melbourne-food-delivery-business-easi-20220109-p59mwb

^[10] Justin McElroy, ‘Majority of metro Vancouver residents now identify as visible minority, census data shows’, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, 26 October 2022, online at: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/2021-census-minority-demographics-metro-vancouver-bc-1.6630164

^[11] Fantuan, ‘Fantuan raises $40 million series C round, led by e-commerce platform GrubMarket’, PR Newswire, 5 December 2023, online at: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/fantuan-raises-40-million-series-c-round-led-by-e-commerce-platform-grubmarket-302006255.html

^[12] Wing Kuang, ‘Chinese delivery riders in Australia: They worked hard during the pandemic, then got replaced by new immigrants during post-COVID’ 澳洲華裔送餐員：疫情時用命搏，疫情後卻被新移民取代, Initium Media 端傳媒, 29 September 2023, online at: https://theinitium.com/article/20230929-international-delivering-food-in-austrilia

^[13] HungryPanda, ‘HungryPanda supports Dragon Boat Festival celebrations in Australia’ 熊猫外卖HugryPanda助力澳大利亚端午节活动, HungryPanda, 24 June 2023, online at: https://www.hungrypanda.co/zh-hans/hungrypanda-xszq/

^[14] Lydia Feng, ‘Death of latest Sydney food delivery rider Adil Abbas prompts calls for reforms to overseas licence rules’, ABC News, 21 August 2023, online at: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-08-21/calls-nsw-driver-licence-reform-after-delivery-rider-death/102746298

^[15] Wing Kuang, ‘Chinese delivery riders in Australia’.

^[16] Edwina Storie, ‘“I can barely survive.” We ask delivery riders if they feel safe on the job’, SBS News, 28 August 2023, online at: https://www.sbs.com.au/news/the-feed/article/i-can-barely survive-we-ask-delivery-riders-if-they-feel-safe-on-the-job/qd8wysl06

^[17] Ibid.

^[18] Samantha Hawley and Lydia Feng, ‘The delivery riders at risk for your dinner’, ABC News Daily, 7 September 2023, online at: https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/abc-news-daily/the-delivery-riders-at-risk-for-your-dinner/102823264

^[19] Isabel Roe and Issac Nowroozi, ‘Family of food delivery driver Xiaojun Chen, who died at work, granted $830k compensation’, ABC News, 23 June 2022, online at: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-06-23/compensation-for-xiaojun-chen-food-delivery-driver-died-on-job/101176062

^[20] Jordyn Beazley, ‘Uber warning that food delivery prices could spike 85% shows gig workers are underpaid, experts say’, Guardian, 17 October 2023, online at: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/oct/17/uber-warning-of-85-meal-hikes-under-labors-new-laws-shows-how-underpaid-gig-workers-are-experts-say

^[21] Department of Employment and Workplace Relations, ‘Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Closing Loopholes) Act 2023’, Australian Government, 26 February 2024, online at: https://www.dewr.gov.au/closing-loopholes

^[22] Jason Om, ‘This food delivery rider spoke up against Hungry Panda. Then they called the police on her’, ABC News, 18 March 2024, online at: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-03-18/food-delivery-rider-spoke-up-against-hungry-panda/103561144

^[23] Wing Kuang, ‘Chinese delivery riders in Australia’.

^[24] Fantuan, ‘Fantuan raises $40 million series C round’.

^[25] Nick McKenzie et al., ‘Trafficked’, Age, November 2023, online at: https://www.theage.com.au/topic/trafficked-6frg

^[26] Wing Kuang, ‘Chinese delivery riders in Australia’.

^[27] Greg Jericho, ‘A record number of Australians are now working more than one job to make ends meet’, Australia Institute, 8 September 2023, online at: https://australiainstitute.org.au/post/in-the-past-year-the-number-of-people-working-more-than-one-job-has-risen-7/

^[28] Michael Janda, ‘“Tepid” GDP extends Australia’s per capita recession, hinting November’s interest rate rise may have been “unnecessary”’, ABC News, 6 March 2024, online at: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-03-06/gdp-december-quarter-2023-meets-low-expectations/103553062

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