The Digital Refugees Stranded on the Chinese Internet: The Decay of America Has Never Been More Vivid

Hello everyone, welcome to this episode of “Yi Yu Dao Po”. Today, as I previewed on Weibo, we’ll discuss the decline of America, or more specifically, political decay.
Political decay is a specialized term most famously used by Samuel Huntington, the creator of the civilization clash theory. He created this concept while studying modernization issues to describe a state in third-world countries during the modernization process. The system fails to function as designed and can’t effectively provide governance products; political systems operate contrary to their original intentions, leading society into political disorder: rifts and conflicts between parties, stagnation of systems, causing the entire country, in a way, to age and decay like an organic life form. This is what’s known as political decay.
Of course, as one of Huntington’s proud disciples—at least self-proclaimed, and keen to replicate the legendary miracle George Kennan once created in the U.S. policy and theoretical circles—is our old friend Francis Fukuyama. Broadly, after he proposed the end of history theory and as the 21st century entered its first decade with the decline of neoliberalism in Western countries, he began applying the concept of political decay to the United States. This represents a significant theoretical innovation but also attracts skepticism from researchers.
In scholarly circles, you could call this an academic debate; but in the realms of policy, politics, media propaganda, and even cognition games, “American political decay” as a term did not become a widely used analytical framework for studying U.S. domestic politics and external behavior. Instead, it remains in a naturally frozen state; often, speaking the truth is riskier than telling lies.
Of course, in the social media discourse arena, there’s not much application surrounding “American political decay”. For some individuals with exquisite characteristics, who possess a built-in automaton to beautify and defend the West in their thought loops, encountering this term might induce a frenzy of sorts, which is one aspect.
On the other hand, in all fairness, despite Fukuyama proposing the so-called political decay concept, for an extended period, the specific phenomena felt less impact and coverage in the direct experiences of ordinary individuals (specifically in the Simplified Chinese public opinion field). It lacked some visually and cognitively striking elements.
Naturally, any complex system enters an emergent stage, one where quantitative changes gradually lead to qualitative changes. We now begin to sense it. I think from 2024 onward, at least in three dimensions, there have been relatively significant shocks that systemically constitute the so-called impacts of American political decay.
Firstly, American politics, especially represented by the 2024 U.S. presidential election, including the nomination process where parties engage in games and attacks. What has been witnessed is the operation of American democracy, once disseminated globally by Tocqueville’s masterpiece “Democracy in America” as a universal beacon. People deeply felt the deeply embedded issues within it—the quintessential manifestation of political decay.
Nonetheless, decay has layers. If the situation involves only political systems, processes, statements by political figures, and theatrical behaviors that fall short of people’s expectations, but its governance system—grassroots institutions, federal and state governments—can still effectively provide public goods on specific public issues, then that nation might still function. For some, this might even be a merit of America. Political figures can babble, yet grassroots governance operates orderly, showing high civic literacy and illustrating true system resilience and capability resilience.
Then, in 2025, the manifestation of American political decay in governance capacity became evident with the California wildfires spiraling out of control. The wildfires represent not a black swan event but a gray rhino, reflecting the capital and profit-oriented system design’s reality in California wildfires.
Many problems we observed were fragmented reports in the media. The tycoon’s water source monopoly; the fire chief’s misuse of budget allocation influenced by her minority group perception; politicians slashing fire budgets in power struggles—resulting in reduced actual capability and response, and so forth. These fragmented pieces, each one, you could say: indeed, cannot singularly cause this incident with no definitive factor.
Conversely, what does that explain? Using a saying from Taiwan, “screws fell everywhere.” Imagine a steampunk scenario: a complex and intricate machine neglected maintenance for years, rust accumulating with some screws loose, some untightened, some on the ground.
In general incidents, a clattering sound is heard, yet things still get done. Their firefighting system can save a building or a few. But when wildfires come, the system is pressured slightly, and issues arise across the board.
The system was not designed to foresee this situation; over the years, it hasn’t undergone systematic upgrades and maintenance nor matched the elevated risk levels discernible through data analysis. Not that no actors foresee elevated risks. Insurance companies accurately foresaw harsher winters and elegantly, without losing composure, canceled wildfires insurance in advance, foreseeing the risk, at least theoretically.
But the public goods system, local governments, did not effectively reflect it. That’s political decay manifested in public policy.
The third incident is the interesting though not necessarily phenomenal event since January 12th or 13th: an emerging group called “TikTok refugee” users on China’s domestic mobile app Xiaohongshu. Although appearing elsewhere too, it’s concentrated on Xiaohongshu. In the U.S. mobile app downloads chart, Xiaohongshu swiftly climbed the ranks, reaching first place at one point and second or third at others.
A crowd of English-speaking netizens, predominantly American styled, conversational American expression with profile picture inclusivity, flooded into the Simplified Chinese environment app to directly interact. They’re exiled by the U.S. government’s ban on TikTok.
The U.S. government issued TikTok-related legislation, presenting a clear American choice: sell to me or shut down; sell by deadline, or I’ll shut you down. In legal defenses, it says, “Rest assured, it’s not about suppressing speech, just threatening to close forcing a sale, no problem”—a kind of predatory logic.
What do we observe? This predatory logic, supported by the American government and Zuckerberg’s Meta, is abandoned by American citizens voting with their feet; they’ve made a clear choice: I’m not going there; your governance is poor; I express direct defiance towards your governance performance, cast my vote with my feet. Here, we see American political decay manifesting at micro-levels, in personal groups, specific incidents. Those trying framed TikTok with broad security-themed narratives yet failed as swarms of TikTok refugees move onto Xiaohongshu, declaring, “China spy, where’s my spy? Handing over my data.” U.S. citizens don’t buy into their government’s rhetoric. Meanwhile, this decay and the decline in governance capabilities entail the collapse of the information wall, the wall of lamentation—a boast of American hegemony—breached by American netizens in action, entering communities constructed on Chinese social media.
Thus, what emerged? At least foreseeable in the future, Chinese and American netizens engage face-to-face online. This face-to-face engagement involves real, specific micro individuals. Everyone can appear in videos, excluding AI cheating scenarios, with multiple methods such as live streaming becoming viable.<
Equipped with AI software for translation, though stuttered, communication is smooth due to genuine intent, disinterested in or disdainful of the decayed hegemony narrative the U.S. government conducts. Consequently, we witness collapse indicators in American hegemony’s core plate. American citizens, confronting China, inquire about things like healthcare costs, tuition fees, food, clothing, shelter, and everyday landscapes.
The U.S. government relied on Western mainstream media to systematically distort China’s realities and employed misinformation in recognition-shaping projects. This wall begins to breach and awaits systemic downfall. Absolute numbers might be limited, yet collapse has begun. The U.S.’s capacity to uphold its information cocoon and movement boundary diminishes. Most ironically, it’s a classical self-defeating mechanism of American hegemony. “Why the fuss in closing it; why so extreme?” Regular citizens took the law seriously, feared its enforcement, and turned to Chinese apps, navigating out of rebellion and genuine dissatisfaction because they’re unable to express effectively under the existing governance structure, crossing directly.
For China, governance challenges arise. How can platforms provide better services? For instance, offering technical support to overcome language barriers. In community culture maintenance, different groups with various preferences and needs create a diverse, balanced, coexistent environment. It’s China’s forte.
Given technological empowerment, we anticipate new digital economy opportunities, removing middlemen from true imports and exports, enabling direct supply-demand interactions. America’s demand meets China’s supply, China’s demand meets America’s supply, everyone’s supply meets everyone’s demand, verifying Chinese leadership’s foresighted, strategic judgments on China-U.S. relations, people’s exchanges, youth exchanges. All this erupted overnight; governance hurdles await. Some fret over geographical-feature marked IPs discussing irrelevant matters, worrying whether provocateurs and instigators might emerge later.
But green hills cannot cover it; after all, waters flow east. Returning to the U.S., we witness its indecisive stance on TikTok. The latest news says U.S. legislators propose a bill to extend TikTok’s ban for 270 days instead of 90.
To put it bluntly, it can’t be shut down. Technically, in application mode, it can’t be shut down. If it could be shut down, it would already be so. Don’t forget it’s American design from the information technology revolution’s onset, with many elements transcending traditional governance boundaries.
By dawdling, retaining the original path, adopting brash, ill-mannered governance actions out of ignorance, resulting in micro-level obvious political decay in unstoppable forms. Opening this breach will accelerate decay. Why? Information will flow back.
Once the information flows back, I’ll recount a statement from around 1995 by Charles Swett, a strategic consultant for the Deputy Defense Secretary for Covert Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict of the U.S. Department of Defense, cited in his internet strategic assessment, mentioning “offensive use of the internet.” In the 1990s, Francis Fukuyama constructed history’s end, and neoliberalists brimming with confidence boasted of witnessing the Cold War’s victory and the Soviet dissolution, declaring aggressively: for nations perceived as undemocratic and authoritarian, the internet constitutes a long-term strategic threat challenging effective responses. Citizens accessing diverse information online which mismatches what governments tell them will lose trust in their governments, leading to so-and-so.
This comment later became a U.S. administration’s guiding directive: the capability of offensive internet utilization. How? By disseminating specific types of information online, affecting recognition among specific groups; through influencing their cognition and behavior, having them make independent judgments, believing themselves free, eventually taking action guided by misinformation, thus achieving effects previously requiring political subversion through covert operations, reducing fatalities. These were in the original report, made available in the 2007-08 declassification period, visible in the DNSA digital U.S. national security archives by keyword search “internet strategic assessment”.
This passage is encapsulated in our post-18th Party Congress internet governance theoretical discourse as: some intend to make the internet China’s greatest variable. Including a certain former U.S. diplomatic envoy to China saying they aim to “unravel China” by fostering conflicts, divisions, and misguiding uninformed citizens using misinformation within China. Concurrently, they equip American citizens with colored lenses against China, sculpting false recognition functional only in making them unwittingly support false U.S. China-policy strategies.
Today, due to the U.S.’ idiotic policies and legal measures handling the so-called TikTok threat—the latter being essentially due to individuals like Zuckerberg’s inability in innovation lacks in mobile internet and short video sectors, losing competition, failing to achieve rightful success through normal competition and cheating through illegitimate means in competition. Engaging in lobbies with money, launching de-escalation strikes; through extended securitization and politicization, eliminating competitors—it instead demonstrated its own ineptitude. Yet even if you eliminate this competitor, I still avoid using your tools. This is Hayek’s hand, delivering a sober slap to Zuckerberg and all those foolish Americans. Of course, they remain oblivious, continuing their decay, perennially proven by practice.
In this context, we witness a historical moment enfolding. A few jest online, questioning whether Xiaohongshu can grasp this emergent prosperity, and how much real passthrough is gained. No rush; time will tell this examination. More revealing, American political decay shows no significant signs of reversal to date, a larger lesson to heed.
We aren’t merely spectators; we’re witnessing Sino-U.S. exchanges. Today, everyone has the opportunity to communicate with real Americans on Xiaohongshu, to truly understand each other, to contribute to the inevitable positive transformation of Sino-U.S. relations and forge an environment beneficial to all, marked by mutual comfort. This positive transition accompanies the inevitable power dynamics shifts, China’s systematic revival, and ascendance. It may commence online.
In simple terms, as of 2024 and before, we find ourselves amid a significant transformation process akin to the Cold War-era Soviet dissolution triggering global systemic shifts and order disturbances. A notable phenomenon therein could be conceptually summarized as the political decay term pioneered by Huntington and first applied judiciously by his student Francis Fukuyama, summarizing the core challenges of U.S. development and its predominant shortcomings. Decay manifests not just in domestic political elections but also in governance competence, public goods provision, beyond merely international public goods, concerning elementary public goods: citizens’ safety, firefighting, even despite considerable resource allocation and expenditure faces inadequacies. Concurrently, at a micro-level, addressing the most symbolic security threats framed under broad securitization and politicization, experiencing an outcome entirely against its purported aims, outright rejected by American citizens, infusing historic humor.
Some may not appreciate this conclusion, yet it’s undeniable: America is a hegemonic state undergoing comprehensive political decay.
In this indicative phase, preparing for the risks involving proactive retaliation from American errors, driven not by strength but incompetence, and ensuing unpredictable conflicts is essential. Managing America’s decline and its potential adverse impacts is imperative.
For all researchers on America, forming a comprehensive, effective recognition framework is vital; equipping our minds with modern theoretical systems, academic frameworks, and knowledge systems to dismantle ingrained ideologies and encompass thorough understanding and comprehension.
Alright, that’s it for today, thank you all.
Editor: Woo