Young Americans are embracing ‘Chinamaxxing’. That’s a soft power boost for Beijing

By Jessie Yeung, CNN

(CNN) — This article may be meeting you at a very Chinese time in your life.

At least, if you’ve spent enough time recently on social media, where the phenomenon of “Chinamaxxing” has swept feeds with videos of people sipping hot water, shuffling around the house in slippers and donning a viral Adidas jacket resembling historic Chinese fashion.

These things, content creators joke, will help you “become Chinese” – reflecting a growing Western fascination with Chinese culture and aesthetics.

“Morning routine as a new Chinese baddie,” one TikTok creator captioned a video in which he does a series of traditional Chinese exercises. Another video, viewed more than 2.4 million times as of late February, shows the creator boiling apples to make fruit tea – a supposedly old-school Chinese elixir for gut health.

We’ve seen this play out before as Asia steadily accumulated global cultural capital. K-dramas, K-pop and K-beauty have become beloved worldwide, while record numbers of tourists are flocking to Japan and gushing over its pristine streets and high-speed rail.

Now, it seems it is China’s turn.

“For the longest time, there was all this discussion about (how) China didn’t really have as much soft power vis-à-vis South Korea or Japan,” said Tianyu Fang, a PhD student at Harvard University’s Department of the History of Science.

“We see that changing quite a bit over the last few months – with Chinese video games, Chinese films, and even tiny things like Labubus that are really reshaping the cultural imagination of China in the US, and more broadly in the West.”

But this feels a little different from previous Asian cultural waves. For starters, South Korea and Japan are both democracies and staunch US allies, while China is an authoritarian state and major US rival.

The trend also marks a vibe shift within the American public.

Just a few years ago, the Covid-19 pandemic fueled a surge in deadly anti-Asian hate crimes. US President Donald Trump repeatedly used racist language, calling Covid “kung flu.” A trade war and other tensions deepened the widespread Sinophobia.

Against this backdrop, it can seem like something of a 180 for many Gen Z Americans to now embrace “becoming Chinese.”

But experts say the trend reveals deeper undercurrents like dissatisfaction among many Americans with life at home – from political turmoil, gun violence, immigration crackdowns and persistent racial tensions. All this has dulled the veneer of the US, driving curiosity for American youths to see what life is like on the other side.

It’s also about simple exposure, Fang pointed out. While Chinese products have long been ubiquitous across the planet, more Americans are now noticing Beijing’s dominance in many fields – especially in the competitive world of tech.

And increasingly, what they’re seeing is redefining their image of cool.

Has the US lost its ‘cool’ factor?

This isn’t the first time China has drawn intrigue from the West. In the 2000s and early 2010s, as China began opening up to the world, more outsiders began learning Mandarin, and travel and immigration to and from China spiked.

Much of the enthusiasm to engage with the Asian giant was economically driven, said Fang.

In the past decade, however, “China became more self-sufficient, it is much more inward-looking than it used to be, especially during Covid.”

Relations with the US also soured drastically as China turned increasingly authoritarian under leader Xi Jinping, instead of more democratic and liberal as Western leaders had hoped.

But now, it appears people are drawn to China not purely because of money – but because of the cool factor.

That may be partly fueled by China’s reopening post-Covid, which included relaxing some visa policies and encouraging more tourism – as well as the great migration of social media users to China’s Xiaohongshu (also known as RedNote) platform after the US government threatened to ban TikTok.

The influx of Americans to Xiaohongshu saw two vastly different populations – who normally exist in entirely separate online spaces – directly connecting like never before.

And it’s no coincidence the trend comes amid a broader decline in the US’ global image. Though it’s still the dominant cultural force globally, recent geopolitics and domestic turmoil have reshaped how people around the world view the superpower.

Just look at how the immigration crackdown has prompted many international students to go elsewhere for their studies; how research budget cuts have pushed top scientists to work in China instead; how Canadians, angered by a trade war, are boycotting US goods; or how Americans themselves are choosing to leave the country.

You can see this growing sense of disillusionment in the kinds of Chinese content young Americans are gravitating towards.

For instance, videos showing vertiginous skylines from Chinese metropolises like Chongqing and Shanghai have gone viral for depicting a futuristic vision of urban life, replete with seemingly clean streets and low levels of violent crime.

Clips showing neon-lit skyscrapers, drone shows and jaw-dropping transport systems have been topping social media algorithms. Other popular videos highlight China’s electric vehicle advances and embrace of green energy.

In many ways, this romanticism of Chinese progress is oversimplified. For instance, while housing costs in China are lower than in the US, average wages are also far lower – one of many real-life challenges of life in China. Despite these problems, however, the viral videos present a seductive contrast to America’s aging infrastructure and high cost of living.

The current trend “tells us more about what Americans feel about America, than what Americans feel about China,” Fang said.

Is the future Chinese?

With a long history of Sinophobia in the US and geopolitical tensions, it’s hard to say how long “Chinamaxxing” will last – and whether it’s a sign of an increasingly Chinese future.

Beijing has spent years cultivating its soft and hard power in parts of Africa, Latin America, Southeast Asia and the Pacific Islands. In certain countries, it’s common to see Chinese EVs and Huawei or Xiaomi smartphones – products that are far less visible in the US in part due to policy restrictions and import controls.

“A lot of Americans (are) slowly realizing that these are the things China has been producing and they’re pretty good,” said Fang. “There is a lag precisely because these things weren’t allowed in the US.”

Even some of the US’ closest traditional allies are inching closer to China in the face of Trump’s volatile foreign policy. France’s Emmanuel Macron, Britain’s Keir Starmer, Finland’s Petteri Orpo and Canada’s Mark Carney all visited Beijing in recent months, and were hosted by Xi.

Internet culture moves fast, and viral memes fade quickly. For most users, “Chinamaxxing” was never that serious and meant to be used ironically or as a joke.

The trend has come under criticism too, with some members of the Chinese diaspora accusing it of being culturally appropriative and insensitive.

But for a brief moment, trends like these can offer an unlikely digital bridge between two cultures often divided by politics and the decisions of their leaders.

“I personally grew up or came of age in this decade when people in the US and people in China were interested in what each other had to say, and had to offer to the world,” Fang said.

“I’d like to see some of that revive in this day and age.”

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