BEIJING — If you spend any time browsing YouTube or Instagram, you might come across a growing new genre: China travel vlogging.
According to the criteria of
There’s the American who made a four-hour vlogumentary about eating dumplings in Shanghai and the British couple admiring colourful traditional clothing in the western region of Xinjiang. They have hundreds of thousands of views.
Videos are even more popular on Chinese social media. YouTube and Instagram are banned in China, but Chinese users have found ways to share them on Chinese sites. Bloggers have been interviewed by Chinese state media and their experiences promoted with hashtags like, “Foreign tourists have become our spokespersons on the Internet.”
The emergence of these videos reflects the return of foreign travelers to China after the country was isolated for three years due to the pandemic. But The videos are also an opportunity for Beijing to push back against what it calls an anti-China narrative in the West. In recent years, China has urged locals to treat foreigners as potential spies; expanded its surveillance state; and expelled or arrested journalists. But it points to the lighthearted travel videos as proof — from Westerners — that criticism of such issues is fabricated.
Bloggers themselves sometimes feed the official Chinese argument, with video titles like: “Did the media lie to EVERYONE about China? We share the TRUTH.”
“This is considered one of the most controversial areas in China if you go by the Western media,” said British couple Libby Collins and Tauseef Ahmed in their video about their trip to Xinjiang. Western countries and human rights groups have accused China of mass detention and surveillance of Uighurs and other Muslim minorities in the region. China says strict security measures are needed to stamp out terrorism.
“All the Uighurs seemed to be doing well,” Ahmed said.
The influencers have denied any ties to the government. Many of the videos appear authentic, without the typical hallmarks of state involvement, said Fang Kecheng, a professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong who studies Chinese propaganda.
In interviews, Western influencers who appeared in Chinese media said they did not set out to refute any narrative. They simply wanted to experience the country for themselves.
Mac Candee, who posted the four-hour video about Shanghai on YouTube, said he had been anxious before his six-day trip, learning he would not be allowed to film. It was no problem.
But as China has allowed in more foreign visitors, it has become harder to shape the narrative that emerges. Some bloggers have shared experiences that the government is less willing to promote.
Sara Qiu, a Spanish cyclist who has been touring western China, shared exuberant posts on Facebook and Instagram about being invited by strangers to join her son’s wedding or have dinner at their homes. But she has also shared stories about being followed by police patrols and being turned away from hotels because she is a foreigner.
Cheng Lei, an Australian journalist who was recently released after serving three years in prison in China on charges of endangering national security, has described China as a “closed paradise.”
“If you are a visitor, you can have a fabulous time cycling through the alleys, tasting the food, talking to the locals, taking the high-speed train,” he wrote last month. “You forget that you are in a huge film forum, watching a façade of freedom.”
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