{"id":1885322,"date":"2026-04-16T11:27:00","date_gmt":"2026-04-16T08:27:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1885322"},"modified":"2026-04-16T11:27:00","modified_gmt":"2026-04-16T08:27:00","slug":"were-chinamaxxing-our-way-through-the-death-of-the-west","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1885322","title":{"rendered":"We\u2019re Chinamaxxing our way through the death of the west"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>[analyse_image type=&#8221;featured&#8221; src=&#8221;https:\/\/images-prod.dazeddigital.com\/1200\/265-63-1953-1302\/azure\/dazed-prod\/1440\/3\/1443427.png&#8221;]<\/p>\n<article class=\"main-article longread\">\n<div class=\"article-main-content article-wrapper has-media-but-its-an-image\" data-status=\"loaded\" data-primary-article=\"true\" data-url=\"\/life-culture\/article\/70095\/1\/china-death-of-west-amy-ireland-vincent-garton-machine-decision-ishowspeed\" data-article-id=\"70095\">\n<header class=\"article-header has-landscape-image no-media\">\n<div class=\"wrapper dg-max-width\">\n<div class=\"inner\">\n<figure class=\"main-img has-figcaption\" data-img-aspect-ratio-type=\"landscape\" data-img-aspect-ratio=\"1.78\" data-template=\"Longread Article\"><span class=\"has-css-custom-props image-container\" data-aspect-ratio-type=\"landscape\"><span class=\"preserve-aspect-ratio\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"IShowSpeed, irl stream in Shanghai, China\" class=\"img\" height=\"1440\" src=\"https:\/\/images-prod.dazeddigital.com\/1400\/azure\/dazed-prod\/1440\/3\/1443427.png\" width=\"2560\"><\/span><\/span><figcaption class=\"img-caption\"><span class=\"inner\"><span class=\"credit\">Via YouTube<\/span><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<aside class=\"meta\">\n<div class=\"inner\"><time datetime=\"2026-04-16T11:27:00+00:00\" class=\"timestamp\" title=\"16 April 2026\"><span class=\"month\">DateInMeta<\/span>\u00a0<br \/>\n<span class=\"day\" data-day=\"16\">16,<\/span>\u00a0<br \/>\n<span class=\"year\">2026<\/span><\/time><\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<div class=\"titles\">\n<div class=\"tags\">\n<div class=\"sections\"><a class=\"category vertical vertical - life-culture\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/life-culture\">Life &amp; Culture<\/a><br \/>\n\/<br \/>\n<a class=\"series\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/longread\">Longread<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<h1 class=\"title\"><span>We\u2019re Chinamaxxing our way through the death of <span class=\"nowrap\">the west<\/span><\/span><\/h1>\n<div class=\"standfirst\">\n<h2>Young westerners are now dreaming of \u2018becoming Chinese\u2019 \u2013 are we just fetishising an imaginary way of life? Or could our obsession with China really <span class=\"nowrap\">save us?<\/span><\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<p><time datetime=\"2026-04-16T11:27:00+00:00\" class=\"timestamp\" title=\"16 April 2026\"><span class=\"month\">April<\/span>\u00a0<br \/>\n<span class=\"day\" data-day=\"16\">16,<\/span>\u00a0<br \/>\n<span class=\"year\">2026<\/span><\/time><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"tags\">\n<div class=\"sections\"><a class=\"category vertical - life-culture\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/life-culture\">Life &amp; Culture<\/a><a class=\"series\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/longread\">Longread<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><time datetime=\"2026-04-16T11:27:00+00:00\" class=\"timestamp\" title=\"16 April 2026\"><span class=\"month\">April<\/span>\u00a0<br \/>\n<span class=\"day\" data-day=\"16\">16,<\/span>\u00a0<br \/>\n<span class=\"year\">2026<\/span><\/time><\/p>\n<div class=\"providers\">\n<div class=\"contributors\"><span class=\"contributor\" data-contributor-role=\"Text\"><span class=\"contributor-role\">Text<\/span><a class=\"contributor-name\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/user\/ThomWaite\">Thom Waite<\/a><\/span><span class=\"contributor\" data-contributor-role=\"Text\"><span class=\"contributor-role\">Text<\/span><a class=\"contributor-name\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/user\/solomonpacemccarrick\">Solomon Pace-McCarrick<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n<div class=\"article-body-container\">\n<div class=\"article-body wrapper\">\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<p><span>From late 2025 to the early months of 2026, social media has been flooded with videos of young people from the US and Europe at \u201ca very <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/china\">Chinese<\/a> time in their lives\u201d. American girls, living in Paris, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/beauty\/article\/69431\/1\/everyone-is-chinese-now-in-a-respectful-non-colonising-way-tiktok-trend-2026\"><span>making breakfast<\/span><\/a><span> with stock ingredients from Traditional Chinese Medicine. British TikTokers <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/music\/article\/69785\/1\/fakemink-londons-saviour-terrified-interview-uk-ug-underground-spring-2026-issue\"><span>drinking warm water<\/span><\/a><span>, wearing house slippers, and boiling apples for their gut health. Europeans yearning for the glittering metropolises of Chongqing, Shenzhen and Shanghai. Suddenly, everyone seems to be Chinamaxxing, but it\u2019s more than just a short-lived trend. The meme has broken containment, revealing a new affinity for the world\u2019s \u201cnext superpower\u201d that runs much deeper than a craving for bubble tea and <\/span><em><span>xiaolongbao<\/span><\/em><span>.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>In Britain, there was a <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/yougov.com\/en-gb\/articles\/53934-what-do-britons-think-about-the-uks-relationship-with-china-at-the-start-of-2026\"><span>significant uptick<\/span><\/a><span> in the number of people who see China in friendly terms between October 2025 and late January 2026, with the only other notable shift being US relations (down 17 points). A <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/bfpg.co.uk\/2025\/07\/2025-annual-survey-of-uk-public-opinion-on-foreign-policy\/\"><span>separate poll<\/span><\/a><span> from 2025 reveals a stark generational divide, with young people much more inclined to trust China than their older counterparts. And this swing was already taking place before Keir Starmer became the first UK leader to accept an invite from the CCP since 2018, ending a so-called diplomatic \u201c<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/articles\/cm2j04lk83zo\"><span>ice age<\/span><\/a><span>\u201d (and, more importantly, locking down plans for <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/articles\/cgm4kyw482eo\"><span>seven<\/span><\/a><span> new Labubu stores in the UK).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>These figures alone would suggest that Chinamaxxing was, and still is, more than just a passing trend, but they\u2019re just one example of a sweeping renegotiation of the west\u2019s relationship with China under president Xi Jinping. Earlier in January, Canadian PM Mark Carney also declared a \u201c<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.pm.gc.ca\/en\/news\/news-releases\/2026\/01\/16\/prime-minister-carney-forges-new-strategic-partnership-peoples\"><span>new strategic partnership<\/span><\/a><span>\u201d with China, and European leaders likewise entered a new era of diplomacy as the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/life-culture\/article\/69545\/1\/fire-horse-alice-sparkly-kat-2026-chinese-new-year-snake-astrology\"><span>year of the Fire Horse<\/span><\/a><span>\u00a0began, resulting in major trade deals and <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/articles\/c875d3d3x34o\"><span>visa-free<\/span><\/a><span> travel.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"instagram-container embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"media-instagram\" data-script-depends=\"instagram-embeds\">\n<script async src=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<p><span>This diplomatic shift comes amid a widely noted \u201c<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.weforum.org\/stories\/2026\/01\/davos-2026-special-address-by-mark-carney-prime-minister-of-canada\/\"><span>rupture<\/span><\/a><span>\u201d in the old world order. The former superpower <\/span><em><span>du jour<\/span><\/em><span>, the USA, has tanked its global reputation with \u201c<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/ecfr.eu\/article\/trumps-strikes-on-iran-are-an-illegalwar-of-choice-and-europeansshould-say-so\/\"><span>illegal<\/span><\/a><span>\u201d wars and <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/life-culture\/article\/69378\/1\/bjork-slams-trump-denmark-and-colonialism\"><span>threats of invading<\/span><\/a><span> allied territories; some commentators <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ft.com\/content\/658e3fc5-4a43-4dd5-8942-cf2f7fe3a686\"><span>argue<\/span><\/a><span> that Donald Trump has single-handedly driven the west into China\u2019s arms. But it\u2019s not really such a simple case of cause-and-effect. After all, the political disruption of early 2026 only accelerated a process that was already underway. So where <\/span><em><span>did<\/span><\/em><span> it originate? Are young westerners under the spell of a strategic \u201csoft power\u201d campaign cooked up by China\u2019s greatest minds, spanning social media, music, video games, and more? A series of subconscious TikTok <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/life-culture\/article\/58042\/1\/were-entering-an-age-of-psyop-realism-but-what-does-that-mean\"><span>psy-ops<\/span><\/a><span>? Or is the west simply charmed by snapshots of life, culture, and technology we get to see through the Great Firewall, from <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/reel\/DSaSaezkuJz\/?hl=en\"><span>aunties dancing<\/span><\/a><span> in the park, to <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/cyberrobooo\/status\/2023378370592174272\"><span>backflipping robots<\/span><\/a><span>?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Maybe it\u2019s not so much about China at all \u2013 arguably, our obsession actually says more about our own dreams about the future, or lack thereof. In 2026, living in the UK and Europe can feel like living through the \u201cdeath throes of empire\u201d, says <a href=\"https:\/\/www.urbanomic.com\/contributor\/ireland-amy\/\">Amy Ireland<\/a>, writer, theorist, and editor of <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.urbanomic.com\/book\/machine-decision-is-not-final\/\"><em><span>Machine Decision is Not Final<\/span><\/em><\/a><span>. This is by no means a unique feeling, either: polls say that young people\u2019s pride in Britain was down to a meagre <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.kcl.ac.uk\/news\/uks-sense-of-division-reaches-new-high-as-culture-war-tensions-grow-study-finds\"><span>29 per cent<\/span><\/a><span> in 2025, and faith in current forms of democracy is <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/society\/2025\/jul\/04\/young-europeans-losing-faith-in-democracy-poll-finds\"><span>gradually fading<\/span><\/a><span> across Europe. \u201cWe\u2019re going through this negative moment, where we\u2019re feeling a sense of loss and decline, and we\u2019re looking for something to fill that void,\u201d Ireland adds.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<hr>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<p><span>Almost a year ago, the Ohio-born streamer <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/life-culture\/article\/62752\/1\/ishowspeed-twitch-youtube-streamer-summer-2024-cover-interview\"><span>IShowSpeed<\/span><\/a><span> touched down in Shanghai for a two-week trip through several major cities, including Beijing, Chongqing, Chengdu and Shenzhen. This livestreamed journey exposed tens of millions of viewers to a side of China that\u2019s \u201crarely highlighted\u201d by western mainstream media, as noted in glowing <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.scmp.com\/news\/china\/diplomacy\/article\/3304034\/china-hails-us-youtube-star-who-racks-10-million-views-beijing-shanghai-streams\"><span>praise<\/span><\/a><span> from CCP officials. In November 2025, the popular streamer <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/life-culture\/article\/65723\/1\/hasan-piker-i-think-the-overton-window-is-shifting-on-palestine-interview\">Hasan Piker<\/a> also visited the country, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.scmp.com\/news\/us\/diplomacy\/article\/3343845\/hasan-piker-talks-about-his-controversial-china-trip-and-thinking-chinese-thoughts\"><span>telling<\/span><\/a><span> the <\/span><em><span>South China Morning Post<\/span><\/em><span>: <\/span><span>\u201cMy motivation was to show that China isn\u2019t this hermit kingdom the way it\u2019s often presented&#8230; Americans have been taught to hate China, this country that we heavily rely on. And I find that to be not only hypocritical, but also very stupid.\u201d More recently, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/timothee-chalamet\"><span>Timoth\u00e9e Chalamet<\/span><\/a><span> joined Chinese social sites RedNote and Weibo to <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/indiehamlet\/status\/2031555083557597211\">share <\/a>his experiences in China while promoting <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/film-tv\/article\/69326\/1\/josh-safdie-marty-supreme-one-dream-interview-timothee-chalamet-2025\"><em><span>Marty Supreme<\/span><\/em><\/a><span>.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>\u201cIShowSpeed, in particular, single-handedly did a lot to improve ideas of China with young people in America,\u201d says <a href=\"https:\/\/vincentgarton.com\/\">Vincent Garton<\/a>, a researcher whose work spans aesthetics, technology and Chinese philosophy, and whose writing <a href=\"https:\/\/www.urbanomic.com\/document\/china-ai\/\">appears<\/a> in <em>Machine Decision Is Not Final<\/em>. The streamer achieved this on \u201cmultiple levels\u201d, Garton adds, from his interactions with \u201crandom people\u201d in local <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/DTtgDqvDFG8\/\">restaurants<\/a> or the bustling streets of Shanghai after dark, to the \u201cfuturistic cityscapes\u201d that formed the backdrop of his livestreams, reinforcing the western idea of China as a cyberpunk utopia (a seductive, albeit reductive fantasy that\u2019s proliferated via pop culture since Deng Xiaoping\u2019s modernising reforms in the 1980s).<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Around the same time as these widely broadcast visits hit the internet, western content creators also shared footage of Chinese-created media like <\/span><em><span>Road to Empress <\/span><\/em><span>(2025) and <\/span><em><span>Black Myth: Wukong <\/span><\/em><span>(2024) \u2013\u00a0video games based on ancient Chinese history and myth. \u201c<\/span><span>Young gamers were like, \u2018Holy shit, these Chinese studios are doing amazing stuff,\u2019\u201d says Ireland.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content has-tweet\" data-embed-type=\"media-twitter\" data-script-depends=\"twitter-widgets\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Thank You China &amp; Mongolia\ud83c\udde8\ud83c\uddf3\ud83c\udded\ud83c\uddf0\ud83c\uddf2\ud83c\uddf3 <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/pEGTeb2PCR\">pic.twitter.com\/pEGTeb2PCR<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Speed\u2b50\ufe0f (@ishowspeedsui) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ishowspeedsui\/status\/1911123362484814166?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">April 12, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<p><span>Unsurprisingly, many of the streamers and influencers whose attention has turned to China in the last 12 months have been criticised for overlooking some of the more serious accusations levelled at the CCP under Xi Jinping,\u00a0who assumed office in 2013, and became \u201cpresident for life\u201d after <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/world-asia-china-43361276\"><span>abolishing<\/span><\/a><span> China\u2019s two-term limit in 2018. These include the party\u2019s alleged use of \u201c<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/extra\/85qihtvw6e\/the-faces-from-chinas-uyghur-detention-camps\"><span>detention camps<\/span><\/a><span>\u201d for Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities in Xinjiang, its culture of censorship and mass surveillance, and its (much-disputed) \u201c<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/thediplomat.com\/2020\/11\/is-china-a-new-colonial-power\/\"><span>neocolonialism<\/span><\/a><span>\u201d in Africa.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Some critics have suggested that western influencers are willingly promoting Chinese government propaganda, while others say they\u2019re spreading anti-western messaging as <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/life-culture\/article\/69290\/1\/2025-year-of-peak-ragebait-sydney-sweeney-donald-trump-wuthering-heights\">engagement bait<\/a>. In some cases, the latter might be true. As Garton says: \u201cInfluencers have their own set of incentives&#8230; to wind people up and clickbait.\u201d But, in his 15 years of experience, more insidious, organised forms of propaganda are \u201cpretty rare\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>If the level of external propaganda is overblown, the Chinese state\u2019s intervention in people\u2019s daily lives is similarly exaggerated, Garton suggests. \u201cYouth culture in China is a lot more open than people realise.\u201d This can be seen via viral trends like the \u2018lying flat\u2019 or <em>tang ping<\/em> movement, which rejects social pressures to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/life-culture\/article\/68154\/1\/is-it-finally-time-to-decentre-work-hustle-culture-graduate-jobs\">overwork<\/a> (see: the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/world-asia-china-58381538\">technically illegal<\/a> 996 schedule, where work hours run from 9am to 9pm, six days a week). Sparked by a 2021 <a href=\"https:\/\/theanarchistlibrary.org\/library\/anonymous-tangpingist-manifesto\">manifesto<\/a> that was heavily censored by the Chinese government, <em>tang ping <\/em>thrived via memes that evolved faster than censors could keep up, demonstrating how youth subcultures can critique the state and express their disillusionment.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Chinese youth culture is also \u201cmore in sync with the western internet\u201d than many westerners might expect, Garton explains. Memes travel back and forth, and catch on fast. This is a notable shift from 15 years ago, around the time he began talking to people from mainland China, largely thanks to the widespread proliferation of VPNs that bypass the Great Firewall in the early 2010s. With this technology in hand, a new generation of net-savvy Chinese youth also began voraciously consuming western media \u2013 and, particularly, its music. Now, over a decade on, this deluge of influences has given birth to a new Chinese youth culture movement that forms an unlikely counterpoint to the Chinamaxxing trend in the west: the \u2018Nu China\u2019 rap scene.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"src-youtube video-container embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"media-youtube\" data-id=\"wd8hoXQ_R9A\"><span class=\"preserve-aspect-ratio\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" allowfullscreen frameborder height=\"900\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/wd8hoXQ_R9A\" webkitallowfullscreen width=\"1600\"><\/iframe><\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<p><span>Counting names like Billionhappy, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/music\/article\/66520\/1\/jackzebra-is-the-auto-tuned-voice-of-post-industrial-china\">Jackzebra<\/a> and Chalky Wong among its ranks, the Nu China scene is deeply inspired by western music \u2013 from the misfit-uniting rise of Swedish superstars <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/yung-lean\">Yung Lean<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/drain-gang\">Drain Gang<\/a> to the maximalist EDM-rap fusions of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/2hollis\">2hollis<\/a> \u2013 but its resonance is hyper-specific to the issues facing Chinese young people today. \u201cNow, a lot of kids [in China] have graduated [university] and they don\u2019t have a job,\u201d Billionhappy told Dazed <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/music\/article\/69940\/1\/billionhappy-is-the-king-of-the-nu-china-rap-scene-shanghai-spring-2026\">earlier this year<\/a>. \u201cEither they don\u2019t want to work, or they can\u2019t find work. A lot of teenagers are hopeless [so] they just choose to do weird stuff and have fun.\u201d It\u2019s a sentiment that echoes the <em>tang ping<\/em> trend, with Billionhappy\u2019s Shabby Club collective (itself a pun on the vulgar Chinese word <em>shabi<\/em>, meaning stupid) preaching a sort of happy-go-lucky nihilism that arises in direct response to overwork and dwindling future prospects.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Crucially, however, Billionhappy acknowledged that the Nu China scene is built on faulty and selective readings of western youth culture. Much like how western influencers\u2019 fascination with TCM and drinking warm water seems to speak more to a \u201cnegative moment\u201d in their own lives than any critical engagement with Chinese social reality, the Nu China scene\u2019s warped imitations of western musical subcultures has been deployed to articulate a very Chinese kind of disillusionment \u2013 one that is entirely absent from the Chinamaxxing discourse abroad.<\/span><\/p>\n<hr>\n<p><span>Games like <\/span><em><span>Black Myth: Wukong <\/span><\/em><span>introduced many western gamers to Chinese history and mythology, but they also contributed to the \u201cslow unravelling\u201d of another kind of myth: that China isn\u2019t as technologically advanced as the west. (As a popular maxim among political commentators states: \u201cAmerica innovates, China imitates\u201d.) The China-based AI chatbot DeepSeek also dealt a blow to this narrative when it <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/life-culture\/article\/65964\/1\/deepseek-r1-did-china-just-win-the-ai-arms-race-1-trillion-us-stock-openai\"><span>was released<\/span><\/a><span> in January last year, performing better than many US competitors in benchmark tests despite using far fewer resources. At the time, the announcement wiped <\/span><span>$1 trillion off US stocks, in what Trump described as a \u201cwake up call\u201d for industries in the west.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Today, when Western power centres like Washington DC or Silicon Valley talk about Chinese technology, a strange paradox arises. On the one hand, China is still perceived as lagging behind its Western counterparts (and, admittedly, many of today\u2019s dominant technologies originated in the West before being copied, and often improved, by Chinese companies). On the other, we\u2019re constantly being fed images of China\u2019s advanced humanoid robots, facial recognition tech, or staggering energy output as evidence that they might be pulling ahead in a technological arms race.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Take electric vehicles, Garton says \u2013 from the electric supercars that can dance and jump over obstacles, to more consumer-friendly options. \u201cYou get this weird tension between people [saying], \u2018This is all copied, stolen tech, or really low quality\u2019. But also, \u2018We need to exclude them, because if people were given a free choice, they would all rush to buy them\u2019. It doesn\u2019t quite make sense.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content has-tweet\" data-embed-type=\"media-twitter\" data-script-depends=\"twitter-widgets\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Robotic Horses\ud83e\udd16\ud83d\udc0e<a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/98X3qiVCJ3\">pic.twitter.com\/98X3qiVCJ3<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Chinese Embassy in US (@ChineseEmbinUS) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ChineseEmbinUS\/status\/2032477084900110380?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">March 13, 2026<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<p><span>How can we understand this paradox, where the west proclaims its technological superiority and, at the same time, quivers at the sight of a robot landing a <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/virgosrecords\/status\/2031508404733128750\"><span>smooth backflip<\/span><\/a><span> in a <\/span><em><span>Marty Supreme<\/span><\/em><span> shirt? For Ireland, the answer lies in a kind of ideological indoctrination, where the \u201cwestern obsession with originality and invention\u201d is seen as the only true route to success. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>The last decade has seen thinkers like <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.urbanomic.com\/book\/question-concerning-technology-china\/\"><span>Yuk Hui<\/span><\/a><span> challenge this blinkered idea, but now that we\u2019re seeing so much Chinese development play out in real time, maybe the paradox is finally approaching a breaking point. This wouldn\u2019t necessarily be a bad thing, as Ireland points out: \u201cWhat\u2019s interesting is that it makes us realise that the way we see the world in the west is particular to us, rather than being an objective set of values, and that we don\u2019t have to hold onto those values any more. We can question them.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>In January 2025, the US government threatened to pull the plug on TikTok, a social media platform then owned by the Chinese company ByteDance, with 136 million active American users. Ironically, this sparked a brief <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/life-culture\/article\/65859\/1\/what-are-rednote-lemon8-top-tiktok-ban-alternatives-elon-musk-donald-trump\">user exodus<\/a> to more localised Chinese apps, including Xiaohongshu (AKA RedNote), where users from both nations began to interact and share jokes, including AI-generated videos of overweight American workers on factory production lines. This contributed to the shifting perspective on Chinese life, culture, and infrastructure when compared with western equivalents.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>\u201cFor millennials, China used to be framed as cheap, authoritarian, backwards, not cool,\u201d explains researcher <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/thesweetestmeat\/?hl=en-gb\"><span>Caroline Ying Ouellette<\/span><\/a><span> in a January 2026 <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/DTf-F6mkrvO\/?hl=en-gb\"><span>video<\/span><\/a><span> for the anthropology channel <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/anthrodorphins\/?hl=en-gb\"><span>Anthrodorphins<\/span><\/a><span>. \u201cNow this image has flipped. Online, China shows up as clean cities, functional public transit, dancing aunties in parks, late night food markets&#8230; little clips of social life that feel almost utopian compared to American burnout.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content has-tweet\" data-embed-type=\"media-twitter\" data-script-depends=\"twitter-widgets\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Chinese memes on American re-industrialization rolling in. lol the music. \ud83d\ude02 <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/GZE2jHDgWZ\">pic.twitter.com\/GZE2jHDgWZ<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Gabor Gurbacs (@gaborgurbacs) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/gaborgurbacs\/status\/1909348105675211192?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">April 7, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<p><span>In January 2026, ByteDance finally averted a TikTok ban by selling a majority stake of its US operations to a consortium of American investors, including Larry Ellison\u2019s Oracle. But again, this takeover resulted in a reputational own-goal when it turned out that the US-based leadership, which has been <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bdsmovement.net\/sites\/default\/files\/2025-03\/Oracle_Company_Complicity_Profile.pdf\"><span>criticised<\/span><\/a><span> for its pro-Zionist beliefs and links to the Israeli military, appeared to <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/life-culture\/article\/69490\/1\/tiktok-ice-censorship-trump-oracle-larry-ellison-upscroll-app\"><span>censor content<\/span><\/a><span> relating to Palestine, as well as ICE, Jeffrey Epstein and anti-Trump messages. This was met with significant backlash, including calls to reinstate Chinese leadership. In response, US TikTok <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/articles\/ckgjedpn8p8o\"><span>denied<\/span><\/a><span> claims that it was rolling out more draconian censorship policies than its Chinese predecessor, seemingly blaming \u201ctechnical issues\u201d for posts that failed to send or gather any engagement.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>\u201cThere\u2019s this condescending, liberal humanist critique of China as being techno-authoritarian and despotic, while we in the west are free,\u201d says Ireland. \u201cWe don\u2019t have social credit scores, and facial recognition in all the train stations, all of that&#8230;\u201d But recent events, <\/span>both online and off \u2013 from the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/life-culture\/article\/69153\/1\/inside-the-uks-crackdown-on-student-protests-leicester-university-palestine\">crackdown<\/a> on pro-Palestine demonstrations in the UK, to ICE<span>\u2019s authoritarian rampage in the US \u2013<\/span>\u00a0have eroded our sense that the west is a free, liberal alternative. Meanwhile, the idea of China as an authoritarian dystopia has been exposed as a \u201ccaricature\u201d.<\/p>\n<hr>\n<p><span>Flashy tech and functional cities, YouTube travel vlogs, and an uptick in cross-cultural communication have all helped mainstream the idea that China is the place where all our sci-fi dreams can come true (if they haven\u2019t already). But this idea \u2013 as it exists in the west \u2013 has its roots in more fringe communities of artists, writers, and musicians. In the 90s, it was a favourite subject of thinkers associated with the CCRU, a group of cultural theorists that formed at Warwick University, who laid the foundations for the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/life-culture\/article\/61411\/1\/doomer-vs-accelerationist-two-tribes-fighting-for-future-of-ai-openai-sam-altman\"><span>accelerationist philosophy<\/span><\/a><span> espoused by many members of the AI arms race today. As one controversial member of the collective, Nick Land, wrote in his 1995 essay <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ccru.net\/swarm1\/1_melt.htm\"><em><span>Meltdown<\/span><\/em><\/a><span>: \u201cNeo-China arrives from the future.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Steve Goodman (AKA Kode9) would later coin a term for the concept \u2013 \u201cSinofuturism\u201d \u2013 which was popularised by the artist Lawrence Lek via his 2016 video essay <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.lawrencelek.com\/works\/sinofuturism\"><em><span>Sinofuturism (1839 \u2013 2046 AD)<\/span><\/em><\/a><span>. In the film, Lek plays with stereotypes of China to explore how Chinese cosmology, cultural clich\u00e9s, and emerging technology come together in modern-day. \u201cIt is a science fiction that already exists,\u201d reads the voiceover.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>When he made <em>Sinofuturism <\/em>in the 2010s, Lawrence Lek was well aware of the complex history of orientalism and exoticisation that still informs our outlook on China today, referencing thinkers like Edward Said. But the film doesn\u2019t necessarily seek to tear it down, or see beyond it to find the \u2018real\u2019 China. \u201cHe takes this orientalized image of China and goes, \u2018Okay what are the productive possibilities of it? What if we just accept the caricature and see where it goes?\u2019\u201d Ireland says. \u201cAnd he comes up with this really creative, amazing manifesto, out of leaning into that.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<blockquote>\n<p><span>\u201cYoung kids on the internet fetishising [China] are building a way to think outside of western prejudices\u201d \u2013 Amy Ireland<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<p><span>Today\u2019s obsession with Chinamaxxing raises similar questions. When young westerners post online about \u201cbecoming Chinese\u201d are they engaging with the \u2018real\u2019 China, or just fetishising a distant reality? Even if it is just a fantasy, can it help us navigate the fragmentation and fragility of the west, just as the Nu China scene builds its identity on selective readings of western culture?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Ireland thinks so. \u201cIt stops us from thinking that the Western approach to technology, temporality, history, and the sense of the future is objective and universal,\u201d she says. \u201cYoung kids on the internet fetishising [China] are building a way to think outside of western prejudices.\u201d Plus, our engagement with China doesn\u2019t have to end the memes we see online. \u201cIf you fetishise China for long enough, and become enough of a committed Sinofuturist, eventually you come out the other side, into the actual complexity of today\u2019s China, and recognise that there are a lot of different things going on, especially in Chinese cyber-culture and youth movements.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>We might not even end up <\/span>wanting <span>to \u201cbecome Chinese\u201d when we\u2019re faced with the full, complicated reality of what that actually means \u2013 but we might have a clearer sense of where we <\/span><em><span>do <\/span><\/em><span>want the future to lead.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"article-series header article-series tags\"><span class=\"heading\">More on these topics:<\/span><a class=\"series\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/life-culture\">Life &amp; Culture<\/a><a class=\"series\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/longread\">Longread<\/a><a class=\"series\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/tag\/china\">China<\/a><a class=\"series\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/tag\/ishowspeed\">ishowspeed<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"image-navigation\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/news\/\" class=\"image-navigation__img one\"><\/p>\n<div class=\"image-navigation__wrapper\">\n<h3 class=\"image-navigation__title\">News<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<p><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/fashion\/\" class=\"image-navigation__img two\"><\/p>\n<div class=\"image-navigation__wrapper\">\n<h3 class=\"image-navigation__title\">Fashion<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<p><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/music\/\" class=\"image-navigation__img three\"><\/p>\n<div class=\"image-navigation__wrapper\">\n<h3 class=\"image-navigation__title\">Music<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<p><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/film-tv\/\" class=\"image-navigation__img four\"><\/p>\n<div class=\"image-navigation__wrapper\">\n<h3 class=\"image-navigation__title\">Film &amp; TV<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<p><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/life-culture\/article\/70095\/1\/china-death-of-west-amy-ireland-vincent-garton-machine-decision-ishowspeed#features\" class=\"image-navigation__img five\"><\/p>\n<div class=\"image-navigation__wrapper\">\n<h3 class=\"image-navigation__title\">Features<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<p><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/beauty\/\" class=\"image-navigation__img six\"><\/p>\n<div class=\"image-navigation__wrapper\">\n<h3 class=\"image-navigation__title\">Beauty<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<p><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/life-culture\/\" class=\"image-navigation__img seven\"><\/p>\n<div class=\"image-navigation__wrapper\">\n<h3 class=\"image-navigation__title\">Life &amp; Culture<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<p><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/art-photography\/\" class=\"image-navigation__img eight\"><\/p>\n<div class=\"image-navigation__wrapper\">\n<h3 class=\"image-navigation__title\">Art &amp; Photography<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<p><\/a><\/div>\n<\/article>\n<div class=\"article-body wrapper\">\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<p><span>From late 2025 to the early months of 2026, social media has been flooded with videos of young people from the US and Europe at \u201ca very <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/china\">Chinese<\/a> time in their lives\u201d. American girls, living in Paris, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/beauty\/article\/69431\/1\/everyone-is-chinese-now-in-a-respectful-non-colonising-way-tiktok-trend-2026\"><span>making breakfast<\/span><\/a><span> with stock ingredients from Traditional Chinese Medicine. British TikTokers <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/music\/article\/69785\/1\/fakemink-londons-saviour-terrified-interview-uk-ug-underground-spring-2026-issue\"><span>drinking warm water<\/span><\/a><span>, wearing house slippers, and boiling apples for their gut health. Europeans yearning for the glittering metropolises of Chongqing, Shenzhen and Shanghai. Suddenly, everyone seems to be Chinamaxxing, but it\u2019s more than just a short-lived trend. The meme has broken containment, revealing a new affinity for the world\u2019s \u201cnext superpower\u201d that runs much deeper than a craving for bubble tea and <\/span><em><span>xiaolongbao<\/span><\/em><span>.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>In Britain, there was a <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/yougov.com\/en-gb\/articles\/53934-what-do-britons-think-about-the-uks-relationship-with-china-at-the-start-of-2026\"><span>significant uptick<\/span><\/a><span> in the number of people who see China in friendly terms between October 2025 and late January 2026, with the only other notable shift being US relations (down 17 points). A <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/bfpg.co.uk\/2025\/07\/2025-annual-survey-of-uk-public-opinion-on-foreign-policy\/\"><span>separate poll<\/span><\/a><span> from 2025 reveals a stark generational divide, with young people much more inclined to trust China than their older counterparts. And this swing was already taking place before Keir Starmer became the first UK leader to accept an invite from the CCP since 2018, ending a so-called diplomatic \u201c<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/articles\/cm2j04lk83zo\"><span>ice age<\/span><\/a><span>\u201d (and, more importantly, locking down plans for <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/articles\/cgm4kyw482eo\"><span>seven<\/span><\/a><span> new Labubu stores in the UK).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>These figures alone would suggest that Chinamaxxing was, and still is, more than just a passing trend, but they\u2019re just one example of a sweeping renegotiation of the west\u2019s relationship with China under president Xi Jinping. Earlier in January, Canadian PM Mark Carney also declared a \u201c<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.pm.gc.ca\/en\/news\/news-releases\/2026\/01\/16\/prime-minister-carney-forges-new-strategic-partnership-peoples\"><span>new strategic partnership<\/span><\/a><span>\u201d with China, and European leaders likewise entered a new era of diplomacy as the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/life-culture\/article\/69545\/1\/fire-horse-alice-sparkly-kat-2026-chinese-new-year-snake-astrology\"><span>year of the Fire Horse<\/span><\/a><span>\u00a0began, resulting in major trade deals and <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/articles\/c875d3d3x34o\"><span>visa-free<\/span><\/a><span> travel.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"instagram-container embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"media-instagram\" data-script-depends=\"instagram-embeds\">\n<script async src=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<p><span>This diplomatic shift comes amid a widely noted \u201c<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.weforum.org\/stories\/2026\/01\/davos-2026-special-address-by-mark-carney-prime-minister-of-canada\/\"><span>rupture<\/span><\/a><span>\u201d in the old world order. The former superpower <\/span><em><span>du jour<\/span><\/em><span>, the USA, has tanked its global reputation with \u201c<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/ecfr.eu\/article\/trumps-strikes-on-iran-are-an-illegalwar-of-choice-and-europeansshould-say-so\/\"><span>illegal<\/span><\/a><span>\u201d wars and <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/life-culture\/article\/69378\/1\/bjork-slams-trump-denmark-and-colonialism\"><span>threats of invading<\/span><\/a><span> allied territories; some commentators <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ft.com\/content\/658e3fc5-4a43-4dd5-8942-cf2f7fe3a686\"><span>argue<\/span><\/a><span> that Donald Trump has single-handedly driven the west into China\u2019s arms. But it\u2019s not really such a simple case of cause-and-effect. After all, the political disruption of early 2026 only accelerated a process that was already underway. So where <\/span><em><span>did<\/span><\/em><span> it originate? Are young westerners under the spell of a strategic \u201csoft power\u201d campaign cooked up by China\u2019s greatest minds, spanning social media, music, video games, and more? A series of subconscious TikTok <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/life-culture\/article\/58042\/1\/were-entering-an-age-of-psyop-realism-but-what-does-that-mean\"><span>psy-ops<\/span><\/a><span>? Or is the west simply charmed by snapshots of life, culture, and technology we get to see through the Great Firewall, from <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/reel\/DSaSaezkuJz\/?hl=en\"><span>aunties dancing<\/span><\/a><span> in the park, to <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/cyberrobooo\/status\/2023378370592174272\"><span>backflipping robots<\/span><\/a><span>?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Maybe it\u2019s not so much about China at all \u2013 arguably, our obsession actually says more about our own dreams about the future, or lack thereof. In 2026, living in the UK and Europe can feel like living through the \u201cdeath throes of empire\u201d, says <a href=\"https:\/\/www.urbanomic.com\/contributor\/ireland-amy\/\">Amy Ireland<\/a>, writer, theorist, and editor of <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.urbanomic.com\/book\/machine-decision-is-not-final\/\"><em><span>Machine Decision is Not Final<\/span><\/em><\/a><span>. This is by no means a unique feeling, either: polls say that young people\u2019s pride in Britain was down to a meagre <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.kcl.ac.uk\/news\/uks-sense-of-division-reaches-new-high-as-culture-war-tensions-grow-study-finds\"><span>29 per cent<\/span><\/a><span> in 2025, and faith in current forms of democracy is <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/society\/2025\/jul\/04\/young-europeans-losing-faith-in-democracy-poll-finds\"><span>gradually fading<\/span><\/a><span> across Europe. \u201cWe\u2019re going through this negative moment, where we\u2019re feeling a sense of loss and decline, and we\u2019re looking for something to fill that void,\u201d Ireland adds.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<hr>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<p><span>Almost a year ago, the Ohio-born streamer <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/life-culture\/article\/62752\/1\/ishowspeed-twitch-youtube-streamer-summer-2024-cover-interview\"><span>IShowSpeed<\/span><\/a><span> touched down in Shanghai for a two-week trip through several major cities, including Beijing, Chongqing, Chengdu and Shenzhen. This livestreamed journey exposed tens of millions of viewers to a side of China that\u2019s \u201crarely highlighted\u201d by western mainstream media, as noted in glowing <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.scmp.com\/news\/china\/diplomacy\/article\/3304034\/china-hails-us-youtube-star-who-racks-10-million-views-beijing-shanghai-streams\"><span>praise<\/span><\/a><span> from CCP officials. In November 2025, the popular streamer <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/life-culture\/article\/65723\/1\/hasan-piker-i-think-the-overton-window-is-shifting-on-palestine-interview\">Hasan Piker<\/a> also visited the country, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.scmp.com\/news\/us\/diplomacy\/article\/3343845\/hasan-piker-talks-about-his-controversial-china-trip-and-thinking-chinese-thoughts\"><span>telling<\/span><\/a><span> the <\/span><em><span>South China Morning Post<\/span><\/em><span>: <\/span><span>\u201cMy motivation was to show that China isn\u2019t this hermit kingdom the way it\u2019s often presented&#8230; Americans have been taught to hate China, this country that we heavily rely on. And I find that to be not only hypocritical, but also very stupid.\u201d More recently, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/timothee-chalamet\"><span>Timoth\u00e9e Chalamet<\/span><\/a><span> joined Chinese social sites RedNote and Weibo to <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/indiehamlet\/status\/2031555083557597211\">share <\/a>his experiences in China while promoting <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/film-tv\/article\/69326\/1\/josh-safdie-marty-supreme-one-dream-interview-timothee-chalamet-2025\"><em><span>Marty Supreme<\/span><\/em><\/a><span>.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>\u201cIShowSpeed, in particular, single-handedly did a lot to improve ideas of China with young people in America,\u201d says <a href=\"https:\/\/vincentgarton.com\/\">Vincent Garton<\/a>, a researcher whose work spans aesthetics, technology and Chinese philosophy, and whose writing <a href=\"https:\/\/www.urbanomic.com\/document\/china-ai\/\">appears<\/a> in <em>Machine Decision Is Not Final<\/em>. The streamer achieved this on \u201cmultiple levels\u201d, Garton adds, from his interactions with \u201crandom people\u201d in local <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/DTtgDqvDFG8\/\">restaurants<\/a> or the bustling streets of Shanghai after dark, to the \u201cfuturistic cityscapes\u201d that formed the backdrop of his livestreams, reinforcing the western idea of China as a cyberpunk utopia (a seductive, albeit reductive fantasy that\u2019s proliferated via pop culture since Deng Xiaoping\u2019s modernising reforms in the 1980s).<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Around the same time as these widely broadcast visits hit the internet, western content creators also shared footage of Chinese-created media like <\/span><em><span>Road to Empress <\/span><\/em><span>(2025) and <\/span><em><span>Black Myth: Wukong <\/span><\/em><span>(2024) \u2013\u00a0video games based on ancient Chinese history and myth. \u201c<\/span><span>Young gamers were like, \u2018Holy shit, these Chinese studios are doing amazing stuff,\u2019\u201d says Ireland.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content has-tweet\" data-embed-type=\"media-twitter\" data-script-depends=\"twitter-widgets\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Thank You China &amp; Mongolia\ud83c\udde8\ud83c\uddf3\ud83c\udded\ud83c\uddf0\ud83c\uddf2\ud83c\uddf3 <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/pEGTeb2PCR\">pic.twitter.com\/pEGTeb2PCR<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Speed\u2b50\ufe0f (@ishowspeedsui) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ishowspeedsui\/status\/1911123362484814166?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">April 12, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<p><span>Unsurprisingly, many of the streamers and influencers whose attention has turned to China in the last 12 months have been criticised for overlooking some of the more serious accusations levelled at the CCP under Xi Jinping,\u00a0who assumed office in 2013, and became \u201cpresident for life\u201d after <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/world-asia-china-43361276\"><span>abolishing<\/span><\/a><span> China\u2019s two-term limit in 2018. These include the party\u2019s alleged use of \u201c<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/extra\/85qihtvw6e\/the-faces-from-chinas-uyghur-detention-camps\"><span>detention camps<\/span><\/a><span>\u201d for Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities in Xinjiang, its culture of censorship and mass surveillance, and its (much-disputed) \u201c<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/thediplomat.com\/2020\/11\/is-china-a-new-colonial-power\/\"><span>neocolonialism<\/span><\/a><span>\u201d in Africa.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Some critics have suggested that western influencers are willingly promoting Chinese government propaganda, while others say they\u2019re spreading anti-western messaging as <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/life-culture\/article\/69290\/1\/2025-year-of-peak-ragebait-sydney-sweeney-donald-trump-wuthering-heights\">engagement bait<\/a>. In some cases, the latter might be true. As Garton says: \u201cInfluencers have their own set of incentives&#8230; to wind people up and clickbait.\u201d But, in his 15 years of experience, more insidious, organised forms of propaganda are \u201cpretty rare\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>If the level of external propaganda is overblown, the Chinese state\u2019s intervention in people\u2019s daily lives is similarly exaggerated, Garton suggests. \u201cYouth culture in China is a lot more open than people realise.\u201d This can be seen via viral trends like the \u2018lying flat\u2019 or <em>tang ping<\/em> movement, which rejects social pressures to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/life-culture\/article\/68154\/1\/is-it-finally-time-to-decentre-work-hustle-culture-graduate-jobs\">overwork<\/a> (see: the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/world-asia-china-58381538\">technically illegal<\/a> 996 schedule, where work hours run from 9am to 9pm, six days a week). Sparked by a 2021 <a href=\"https:\/\/theanarchistlibrary.org\/library\/anonymous-tangpingist-manifesto\">manifesto<\/a> that was heavily censored by the Chinese government, <em>tang ping <\/em>thrived via memes that evolved faster than censors could keep up, demonstrating how youth subcultures can critique the state and express their disillusionment.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Chinese youth culture is also \u201cmore in sync with the western internet\u201d than many westerners might expect, Garton explains. Memes travel back and forth, and catch on fast. This is a notable shift from 15 years ago, around the time he began talking to people from mainland China, largely thanks to the widespread proliferation of VPNs that bypass the Great Firewall in the early 2010s. With this technology in hand, a new generation of net-savvy Chinese youth also began voraciously consuming western media \u2013 and, particularly, its music. Now, over a decade on, this deluge of influences has given birth to a new Chinese youth culture movement that forms an unlikely counterpoint to the Chinamaxxing trend in the west: the \u2018Nu China\u2019 rap scene.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"src-youtube video-container embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"media-youtube\" data-id=\"wd8hoXQ_R9A\"><span class=\"preserve-aspect-ratio\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" allowfullscreen frameborder height=\"900\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/wd8hoXQ_R9A\" webkitallowfullscreen width=\"1600\"><\/iframe><\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<p><span>Counting names like Billionhappy, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/music\/article\/66520\/1\/jackzebra-is-the-auto-tuned-voice-of-post-industrial-china\">Jackzebra<\/a> and Chalky Wong among its ranks, the Nu China scene is deeply inspired by western music \u2013 from the misfit-uniting rise of Swedish superstars <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/yung-lean\">Yung Lean<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/drain-gang\">Drain Gang<\/a> to the maximalist EDM-rap fusions of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/2hollis\">2hollis<\/a> \u2013 but its resonance is hyper-specific to the issues facing Chinese young people today. \u201cNow, a lot of kids [in China] have graduated [university] and they don\u2019t have a job,\u201d Billionhappy told Dazed <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/music\/article\/69940\/1\/billionhappy-is-the-king-of-the-nu-china-rap-scene-shanghai-spring-2026\">earlier this year<\/a>. \u201cEither they don\u2019t want to work, or they can\u2019t find work. A lot of teenagers are hopeless [so] they just choose to do weird stuff and have fun.\u201d It\u2019s a sentiment that echoes the <em>tang ping<\/em> trend, with Billionhappy\u2019s Shabby Club collective (itself a pun on the vulgar Chinese word <em>shabi<\/em>, meaning stupid) preaching a sort of happy-go-lucky nihilism that arises in direct response to overwork and dwindling future prospects.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Crucially, however, Billionhappy acknowledged that the Nu China scene is built on faulty and selective readings of western youth culture. Much like how western influencers\u2019 fascination with TCM and drinking warm water seems to speak more to a \u201cnegative moment\u201d in their own lives than any critical engagement with Chinese social reality, the Nu China scene\u2019s warped imitations of western musical subcultures has been deployed to articulate a very Chinese kind of disillusionment \u2013 one that is entirely absent from the Chinamaxxing discourse abroad.<\/span><\/p>\n<hr>\n<p><span>Games like <\/span><em><span>Black Myth: Wukong <\/span><\/em><span>introduced many western gamers to Chinese history and mythology, but they also contributed to the \u201cslow unravelling\u201d of another kind of myth: that China isn\u2019t as technologically advanced as the west. (As a popular maxim among political commentators states: \u201cAmerica innovates, China imitates\u201d.) The China-based AI chatbot DeepSeek also dealt a blow to this narrative when it <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/life-culture\/article\/65964\/1\/deepseek-r1-did-china-just-win-the-ai-arms-race-1-trillion-us-stock-openai\"><span>was released<\/span><\/a><span> in January last year, performing better than many US competitors in benchmark tests despite using far fewer resources. At the time, the announcement wiped <\/span><span>$1 trillion off US stocks, in what Trump described as a \u201cwake up call\u201d for industries in the west.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Today, when Western power centres like Washington DC or Silicon Valley talk about Chinese technology, a strange paradox arises. On the one hand, China is still perceived as lagging behind its Western counterparts (and, admittedly, many of today\u2019s dominant technologies originated in the West before being copied, and often improved, by Chinese companies). On the other, we\u2019re constantly being fed images of China\u2019s advanced humanoid robots, facial recognition tech, or staggering energy output as evidence that they might be pulling ahead in a technological arms race.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Take electric vehicles, Garton says \u2013 from the electric supercars that can dance and jump over obstacles, to more consumer-friendly options. \u201cYou get this weird tension between people [saying], \u2018This is all copied, stolen tech, or really low quality\u2019. But also, \u2018We need to exclude them, because if people were given a free choice, they would all rush to buy them\u2019. It doesn\u2019t quite make sense.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content has-tweet\" data-embed-type=\"media-twitter\" data-script-depends=\"twitter-widgets\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Robotic Horses\ud83e\udd16\ud83d\udc0e<a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/98X3qiVCJ3\">pic.twitter.com\/98X3qiVCJ3<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Chinese Embassy in US (@ChineseEmbinUS) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ChineseEmbinUS\/status\/2032477084900110380?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">March 13, 2026<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<p><span>How can we understand this paradox, where the west proclaims its technological superiority and, at the same time, quivers at the sight of a robot landing a <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/virgosrecords\/status\/2031508404733128750\"><span>smooth backflip<\/span><\/a><span> in a <\/span><em><span>Marty Supreme<\/span><\/em><span> shirt? For Ireland, the answer lies in a kind of ideological indoctrination, where the \u201cwestern obsession with originality and invention\u201d is seen as the only true route to success. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>The last decade has seen thinkers like <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.urbanomic.com\/book\/question-concerning-technology-china\/\"><span>Yuk Hui<\/span><\/a><span> challenge this blinkered idea, but now that we\u2019re seeing so much Chinese development play out in real time, maybe the paradox is finally approaching a breaking point. This wouldn\u2019t necessarily be a bad thing, as Ireland points out: \u201cWhat\u2019s interesting is that it makes us realise that the way we see the world in the west is particular to us, rather than being an objective set of values, and that we don\u2019t have to hold onto those values any more. We can question them.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>In January 2025, the US government threatened to pull the plug on TikTok, a social media platform then owned by the Chinese company ByteDance, with 136 million active American users. Ironically, this sparked a brief <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/life-culture\/article\/65859\/1\/what-are-rednote-lemon8-top-tiktok-ban-alternatives-elon-musk-donald-trump\">user exodus<\/a> to more localised Chinese apps, including Xiaohongshu (AKA RedNote), where users from both nations began to interact and share jokes, including AI-generated videos of overweight American workers on factory production lines. This contributed to the shifting perspective on Chinese life, culture, and infrastructure when compared with western equivalents.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>\u201cFor millennials, China used to be framed as cheap, authoritarian, backwards, not cool,\u201d explains researcher <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/thesweetestmeat\/?hl=en-gb\"><span>Caroline Ying Ouellette<\/span><\/a><span> in a January 2026 <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/DTf-F6mkrvO\/?hl=en-gb\"><span>video<\/span><\/a><span> for the anthropology channel <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/anthrodorphins\/?hl=en-gb\"><span>Anthrodorphins<\/span><\/a><span>. \u201cNow this image has flipped. Online, China shows up as clean cities, functional public transit, dancing aunties in parks, late night food markets&#8230; little clips of social life that feel almost utopian compared to American burnout.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content has-tweet\" data-embed-type=\"media-twitter\" data-script-depends=\"twitter-widgets\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Chinese memes on American re-industrialization rolling in. lol the music. \ud83d\ude02 <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/GZE2jHDgWZ\">pic.twitter.com\/GZE2jHDgWZ<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Gabor Gurbacs (@gaborgurbacs) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/gaborgurbacs\/status\/1909348105675211192?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">April 7, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<p><span>In January 2026, ByteDance finally averted a TikTok ban by selling a majority stake of its US operations to a consortium of American investors, including Larry Ellison\u2019s Oracle. But again, this takeover resulted in a reputational own-goal when it turned out that the US-based leadership, which has been <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bdsmovement.net\/sites\/default\/files\/2025-03\/Oracle_Company_Complicity_Profile.pdf\"><span>criticised<\/span><\/a><span> for its pro-Zionist beliefs and links to the Israeli military, appeared to <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/life-culture\/article\/69490\/1\/tiktok-ice-censorship-trump-oracle-larry-ellison-upscroll-app\"><span>censor content<\/span><\/a><span> relating to Palestine, as well as ICE, Jeffrey Epstein and anti-Trump messages. This was met with significant backlash, including calls to reinstate Chinese leadership. In response, US TikTok <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/articles\/ckgjedpn8p8o\"><span>denied<\/span><\/a><span> claims that it was rolling out more draconian censorship policies than its Chinese predecessor, seemingly blaming \u201ctechnical issues\u201d for posts that failed to send or gather any engagement.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>\u201cThere\u2019s this condescending, liberal humanist critique of China as being techno-authoritarian and despotic, while we in the west are free,\u201d says Ireland. \u201cWe don\u2019t have social credit scores, and facial recognition in all the train stations, all of that&#8230;\u201d But recent events, <\/span>both online and off \u2013 from the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/life-culture\/article\/69153\/1\/inside-the-uks-crackdown-on-student-protests-leicester-university-palestine\">crackdown<\/a> on pro-Palestine demonstrations in the UK, to ICE<span>\u2019s authoritarian rampage in the US \u2013<\/span>\u00a0have eroded our sense that the west is a free, liberal alternative. Meanwhile, the idea of China as an authoritarian dystopia has been exposed as a \u201ccaricature\u201d.<\/p>\n<hr>\n<p><span>Flashy tech and functional cities, YouTube travel vlogs, and an uptick in cross-cultural communication have all helped mainstream the idea that China is the place where all our sci-fi dreams can come true (if they haven\u2019t already). But this idea \u2013 as it exists in the west \u2013 has its roots in more fringe communities of artists, writers, and musicians. In the 90s, it was a favourite subject of thinkers associated with the CCRU, a group of cultural theorists that formed at Warwick University, who laid the foundations for the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/life-culture\/article\/61411\/1\/doomer-vs-accelerationist-two-tribes-fighting-for-future-of-ai-openai-sam-altman\"><span>accelerationist philosophy<\/span><\/a><span> espoused by many members of the AI arms race today. As one controversial member of the collective, Nick Land, wrote in his 1995 essay <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ccru.net\/swarm1\/1_melt.htm\"><em><span>Meltdown<\/span><\/em><\/a><span>: \u201cNeo-China arrives from the future.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Steve Goodman (AKA Kode9) would later coin a term for the concept \u2013 \u201cSinofuturism\u201d \u2013 which was popularised by the artist Lawrence Lek via his 2016 video essay <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.lawrencelek.com\/works\/sinofuturism\"><em><span>Sinofuturism (1839 \u2013 2046 AD)<\/span><\/em><\/a><span>. In the film, Lek plays with stereotypes of China to explore how Chinese cosmology, cultural clich\u00e9s, and emerging technology come together in modern-day. \u201cIt is a science fiction that already exists,\u201d reads the voiceover.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>When he made <em>Sinofuturism <\/em>in the 2010s, Lawrence Lek was well aware of the complex history of orientalism and exoticisation that still informs our outlook on China today, referencing thinkers like Edward Said. But the film doesn\u2019t necessarily seek to tear it down, or see beyond it to find the \u2018real\u2019 China. \u201cHe takes this orientalized image of China and goes, \u2018Okay what are the productive possibilities of it? What if we just accept the caricature and see where it goes?\u2019\u201d Ireland says. \u201cAnd he comes up with this really creative, amazing manifesto, out of leaning into that.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<blockquote>\n<p><span>\u201cYoung kids on the internet fetishising [China] are building a way to think outside of western prejudices\u201d \u2013 Amy Ireland<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<p><span>Today\u2019s obsession with Chinamaxxing raises similar questions. When young westerners post online about \u201cbecoming Chinese\u201d are they engaging with the \u2018real\u2019 China, or just fetishising a distant reality? Even if it is just a fantasy, can it help us navigate the fragmentation and fragility of the west, just as the Nu China scene builds its identity on selective readings of western culture?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Ireland thinks so. \u201cIt stops us from thinking that the Western approach to technology, temporality, history, and the sense of the future is objective and universal,\u201d she says. \u201cYoung kids on the internet fetishising [China] are building a way to think outside of western prejudices.\u201d Plus, our engagement with China doesn\u2019t have to end the memes we see online. \u201cIf you fetishise China for long enough, and become enough of a committed Sinofuturist, eventually you come out the other side, into the actual complexity of today\u2019s China, and recognise that there are a lot of different things going on, especially in Chinese cyber-culture and youth movements.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>We might not even end up <\/span>wanting <span>to \u201cbecome Chinese\u201d when we\u2019re faced with the full, complicated reality of what that actually means \u2013 but we might have a clearer sense of where we <\/span><em><span>do <\/span><\/em><span>want the future to lead.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"article-series header article-series tags\"><span class=\"heading\">More on these topics:<\/span><a class=\"series\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/life-culture\">Life &amp; Culture<\/a><a class=\"series\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/longread\">Longread<\/a><a class=\"series\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/tag\/china\">China<\/a><a class=\"series\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/tag\/ishowspeed\">ishowspeed<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>[analyse_source url=&#8221;https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/life-culture\/article\/70095\/1\/china-death-of-west-amy-ireland-vincent-garton-machine-decision-ishowspeed&#8221;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[analyse_image type=&#8221;featured&#8221; src=&#8221;https:\/\/images-prod.dazeddigital.com\/1200\/265-63-1953-1302\/azure\/dazed-prod\/1440\/3\/1443427.png&#8221;] Via YouTube DateInMeta\u00a0 16,\u00a0 2026 Life &amp; Culture \/ Longread We\u2019re Chinamaxxing our way through the death of the west Young westerners are now dreaming of \u2018becoming Chinese\u2019 \u2013 are we just fetishising an imaginary way of life? Or could our obsession with China really save us? April\u00a0 16,\u00a0 2026 Life &amp; [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[226,76],"class_list":["post-1885322","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-crawlmanager","tag-dazeddigital-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1885322","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1885322"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1885322\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1885322"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1885322"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1885322"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}