Why Every China Watcher Must Be on WeChat

WeChat (微信 Weixin) is not just another messaging app in China – it’s essentially “the operating system for daily life” in the country. With over 1.3 billion users worldwide (covering almost 80% of China’s population), WeChat has grown from a simple chat app into a ubiquitous “everything app.” In fact, it has become so deeply woven into Chinese society that businesses and individuals often ask for a WeChat ID instead of a phone number or email when exchanging contacts. For anyone involved in China news, research, or analysis, not using WeChat is a nearly insurmountable handicap in staying connected.

This article builds on a controversial, short tweet that I wrote so long ago that I can’t locate it anymore, explains why WeChat is indispensable for understanding China, and addresses common objections, especially about data security.

WeChat = China’s Default Communication Platform

It’s hard to overstate WeChat’s dominance in Chinese communication. WeChat is the primary way people communicate in China, eclipsing traditional calls, texts, or emails. Early messaging platforms like QQ, Tencent’s predecessor to WeChat, trained an entire generation to chat in apps instead of emails. Chinese users have since jumped straight into mobile instant messaging. Today, Chinese professionals and officials conduct even business chats via WeChat – it’s common to see everything from work conversations to sending a formal document done over WeChat. “Private traffic” – essentially direct outreach via WeChat – has become an email-free equivalent of email marketing for Chinese brands.

For foreign journalists or researchers, this means that expecting Chinese contacts to reply to emails is often futile. Many Chinese people outside a few highly internationalized circles just don’t check email regularly. While the rest of the world tries to ‘kill email,’ in China, it’s always been dead. Chinese counterparts might even struggle to recall their email password on the spot – but they’ll instantly offer their WeChat QR code. In practice, WeChat has supplanted SMS and phone calls for day-to-day communication. People schedule meetings, share files, voice calls, and video conferences all from within WeChat. Phone numbers are used chiefly for signing up for services – the real conversation happens on WeChat. Indeed, phone numbers or email addresses are rarely exchanged in China nowadays; the WeChat ID is the standard contact info.

Competing messaging apps? Virtually none. Global services like WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, or Telegram are blocked in China. Even if a Chinese user has access to them (via VPN or travel), they are not part of the daily routine, and few contacts use them. WeChat holds a near-monopoly and de facto indispensable. For anyone wanting to reach people in China, WeChat is essentially the only game in town. Whether you’re trying to contact an academic in Beijing, message a local source in Chengdu, or chat with friends you met in Shanghai – if you’re not on WeChat, you’re effectively cut off from how Chinese communicate in 2025.

Bottom line: If you need to communicate with people in mainland China, WeChat is absolutely essential. Relying on email alone will leave you isolated, because outside of a small internationally-savvy subset, the Chinese informational bloodstream flows through WeChat, not Outlook or Gmail.

Beyond Messaging: The “Everything App” Ecosystem

WeChat’s importance goes far beyond chats. Over the past decade, WeChat has evolved into a “super-app” or “mega platform”, often described as China’s “Swiss Army knife” of apps. It integrates functions that in other countries might be spread across a dozen different applications. Imagine combining WhatsApp, Facebook, PayPal, Uber, Yelp, Amazon, and more – that’s WeChat. In practice, WeChat has become an all-encompassing digital ecosystem hosting social networking, media, services, and payments all in one place.

For a China reporter, scholar, or analyst, this means WeChat is not just for chatting with sources – it’s a gateway into a huge portion of China’s online content and services. Some of the key components of the WeChat ecosystem include:

WeChat blogs (公众号, officially known as Official Accounts, which in my opinion is a misleading translation): These are often compared to blogs or email newsletters – effectively China’s version of Substack-style publishing platforms, delivered inside WeChat instead of via email. Individuals, media outlets, companies, and government agencies all run official accounts that publish articles and updates. Users “follow” an account and receive its posts in a feed (or folder). A subscription account can publish daily posts that look akin to a rich-media newsletter issue. Major news outlets have WeChat accounts, as do independent writers and influencers. As a result, WeChat has become one of China’s primary news and content distribution channels. There is little doubt that WeChat has overtaken Chinese legacy media as the source of information, with countless independent content creators (KOLs, or “self-media”) attracting massive followings through WeChat blogs. By now, virtually every organization of note in China – from government bureaus to universities, think tanks, corporations, and NGOs – maintains a WeChat official account to push out news and announcements. In short, if you’re not on WeChat, you miss a vast universe of articles, analyses, and reports that never cross the open web. It’s as if an American researcher refused to read email newsletters or blogs – they’d be blind to vast swaths of discourse. (By the way, that’s precisely what many, if not most, America watchers in China do.)

WeChat Channels (视频号): Launched in 2020, WeChat’s “Channels” feature is a built-in short video and livestreaming platform – essentially a TikTok-like video feed within WeChat. While it started later than rivals like Douyin (TikTok’s Chinese version), Channels has grown explosively by leveraging WeChat’s user base. Users post short videos, do live broadcasts, and interact much like they would on Douyin/Kuaishou. For the China watcher, Channels offers a window into the viral videos and grassroots content trending in China – without leaving WeChat. For example, when major events or public debates happen, often short video commentary and street interviews spread on Channels. If you’re not on WeChat, you might only see such videos if someone re-uploads them elsewhere, which is rare due to the walled garden). With WeChat, you have immediate access to this fountain of TikTok-style content inside the same app where you’re chatting and reading news. It’s possible that Channels content can be less censored than WeChat text, giving glimpses of public sentiment.

Mini-Programs and Services: WeChat also contains untold numbers of “mini-programs,” which are lightweight apps within the app – covering everything from e-commerce stores, food delivery, ride-hailing (e.g. DiDi, the Chinese Uber, is accessible via WeChat), ticket booking, banking and insurance services, to government public services. This means WeChat serves as an interface to much of China’s digital economy. As a researcher, having WeChat lets you directly see how people use these services. Want to understand China’s cashless society? Using WeChat Pay in daily life is illustrative – you’ll quickly notice that in China cash and credit cards have been leapfrogged by mobile payments, especially WeChat Pay and Alipay. Indeed, many stores or taxis might prefer you pay by scanning a WeChat QR code. WeChat’s integration of payment and service functions has made it so convenient that many Chinese barely need any other app – they can order meals, hail cabs, pay bills, buy train tickets, book doctors, and even file police reports all via WeChat. For someone studying Chinese society or economy, using WeChat provides a hands-on understanding of these phenomena. You experience first-hand how a “super-app” shapes user behavior. It’s one thing to read about how ubiquitous QR code payments are – it’s another to actually spend a day in China using WeChat for everything from metro fare to grocery shopping.

In summary, WeChat functions as China’s hybrid of WhatsApp + Facebook + Instagram + PayPal + Uber + Apple Pay + Amazon +… (you name it) all rolled into one. By being on WeChat, you effectively plug yourself into a huge portion of the Chinese cyber life. You gain access to the articles people are reading, the videos they’re watching, the services they use daily. This is invaluable context for journalists and researchers. Likewise, many viral memes or societal discussions propagate via WeChat chats and Moments (more on that below), which an external observer would miss entirely.

Not using WeChat thus means excluding yourself from what is arguably the central hub of Chinese digital discourse and information flow. A foreign correspondent in China who isn’t on WeChat would be like a political reporter not using Twitter – you’d miss so many leads, conversations, and bits of news that everyone else is seeing. It’s the portal to China’s “walled garden” – step inside, and you have a rich view of the landscape; stay outside, and you’re peering through cracks at best.

Inside the Walled Garden: Information Flows & Exclusive Content

One of the strongest reasons you must be on WeChat is that an enormous amount of Chinese information and media is locked inside WeChat’s walled garden, often exclusively. Put simply: many Chinese entities now release information primarily or solely on WeChat, and WeChat content is not indexed on open web search engines like Google, Bing, Baidu, or, more recently, Large Language Models like ChatGPT. If you’re not in the garden, you won’t even know what you’re missing – and by the time news trickles out elsewhere, you’ll be late to the party.

Consider how Chinese organizations disseminate updates today. Government agencies, state media, companies, think tanks, universities, even individual experts and bloggers – nearly all have WeChat official accounts and they frequently post news there first. Press releases, policy announcements, research reports, data releases, event notifications, commentary articles – much of this goes out on WeChat. Sometimes it might later appear on a website, but often WeChat is the priority channel. If you’re not plugged into WeChat, you could miss critical pieces of news or context until they’re summarized by someone else (if at all).

The problem is compounded by WeChat’s closed nature. WeChat’s content exists behind login and is deliberately walled-off from external indexing. In fact, Tencent (WeChat’s parent) has historically treated its platform as a closed garden – even Chinese search engines cannot freely index WeChat content. Only Sogou, a Tencent-invested search engine, had partial access to index public posts. But Sogou’s is little known, and its WeChat search feature remains underdeveloped. For the most part, a WeChat article will not show up on Google or Bing search results. In late 2021, a temporary “loophole” briefly made some WeChat public posts visible in Google/Bing searches, prompting speculation that the walled garden might open – but Tencent swiftly “fixed” the glitch and removed that access. Chinese regulators have pressured tech firms to be more open, but as of now, WeChat remains largely closed off to outside search.

WeChat’s internal search function does allow users to search within WeChat for articles, Moments, mini-programs, etc.. But that is only available to WeChat users. If you’re not on the app, you cannot access those search results.

The implication: As a researcher on the outside, you could Google a policy or topic and find nothing, unaware that perhaps a detailed explainer or crucial data point was published inside WeChat. For instance, an outspoken retired official gives a speech whose transcript is posted on a think tank’s WeChat account – you’d likely never hear of it unless someone shares it. Increasingly, being outside WeChat means getting information later, second-hand, or not at all. Increasingly, firsthand materials in the China analysis field now often come in the form of WeChat screenshots or forwarded posts.

Even when WeChat content does leak out, it’s usually via someone on the inside sharing it. How many times have we seen analysts on Twitter share screenshots of a trending WeChat article or translate bits of a WeChat essay? Those analysts could do so because they were on WeChat to begin with. If you rely on those crumbs without being on WeChat yourself, you’re always a step behind.

To put it starkly: choosing to avoid WeChat creates a blind spot in your China knowledge. Whole realms of discourse – from official propaganda to social gossip – live on WeChat. It’s not publicly archived on the open web. Even Chinese web search (like Baidu) doesn’t capture it. There is no alternative one-stop source to retrieve that info. The only way in is to be in the ecosystem.

Micro-Level Social Pulse: Moments, Groups, and Trends

Another unique advantage of WeChat is the ability to “feel the pulse” of Chinese society on a micro level – through features like WeChat Moments, group chats, and comment sections. These offer a window into what people are talking about, sharing, and feeling in real time, in a way that formal news stories or English-language sources often cannot capture.

WeChat Moments (朋友圈) is essentially a social feed similar to Facebook’s timeline or Twitter, but private within your network. Each user can post status updates, photos, articles, or videos to their Moments, which are visible to their friends (contacts). The vast majority of WeChat users post or browse Moments. When you, as a researcher, have a decent number of Chinese contacts on WeChat, scrolling through Moments becomes an enlightening daily routine. You start to see what topics people care about, what news articles they share, what memes or jokes are circulating, and even subtle signals of opinion. For example, during a big event (say a controversial government announcement or a celebrity scandal), your WeChat contacts’ Moments might be filled with related posts – or conspicuously silent, which is itself telling. Moments gives you a personalized, ground-level view of discourse. These signals are invaluable for taking stock of the social mood. Without WeChat, you miss this grass-roots perspective entirely. You’d be stuck reading second-hand reports or English analysis that might not grasp how average Chinese netizens are reacting.

Moreover, WeChat Group Chats are where a lot of niche information and discussion circulates. Group chats (群) can include up to 500 members by default, and there are WeChat groups for everything. In recent years, group chats have become a key channel for information flow – sometimes more so than public social media – because they’re semi-private and somewhat under the radar. Don’t count on joining the group chats that changed America or China, but being invited into a high-quality WeChat group can dramatically broaden your insight. For example, there are groups of China-based journalists and academics who informally share tips and rumors; groups of policy advisors or businesspeople that occasionally drop insider tidbits; even local neighborhood groups that discuss daily issues. As an outsider, you won’t get into most sensitive groups, but even being in a few relevant ones can be eye-opening. It’s common that news of an upcoming policy or an incident might surface in group chat chatter before it’s officially reported. Essentially, WeChat groups function like mini-forums or Slack channels for various Chinese communities. If you’re not on WeChat, you’re obviously not going to be in these groups – meaning you lose out on that real-time flow of information and discussion among engaged China insiders. It’s worth noting, of course, that groups of hundreds of people can also have noise, but the active participants in any good group make it worthwhile. Usually, a core of members shares info while many others “lurk” and learn.

Even the Comments sections within WeChat’s ecosystem offer insight. Under each WeChat official account article or video, users (with China-registered accounts) can leave comments, which are often moderated but still can number in the hundreds for hot topics. Reading these comments can give a sense of public reaction – albeit filtered through censorship – to a piece of news. Similarly, when a short video on Channels goes viral, the comments and likes it gets can indicate what resonates with viewers. These nuances are largely invisible if you are outside WeChat.

One more subtle benefit: Using WeChat immerses you in the same information environment as domestic Chinese users. That is a learning experience in itself. You see what the popular trending topics are within WeChat on a given day (the app often highlights hot topics or popular articles). You might notice, say, a particular patriotic song being shared widely, or a health scare rumor making the rounds. Over time, this helps you calibrate your understanding of what Chinese netizens are seeing and caring about, beyond what’s reported in English. It adds texture to your research – you’re not just reading official statements, you’re observing how those statements get digested (or ignored) by the public online.

Finally, because WeChat touches so many aspects of life, being on it lets you observe everyday practices and challenges in Chinese society. For instance: WeChat has built-in features for ride hailing, food delivery, investments, insurance purchases, etc. Using or even exploring those features shows you how advanced (or sometimes clunky) Chinese digital services are. Curious about censorship? You might firsthand experience a message that fails to send in a chat because it had a sensitive keyword – that silent blocking tells you something about red lines. Essentially, WeChat is a microcosm of Chinese digital society. Diving in is the quickest way to get a feel for the rhythms of daily life and social currents in modern China.

Addressing the Elephant in the Room: Data Security and Privacy

A frequent objection, especially among foreign professionals, is concern about WeChat’s security: “If I install WeChat, am I putting my data (or even my entire device) at risk of Chinese government surveillance?” This deserves a clear-eyed response.

First, there is a lot of censorship built into WeChat. For example, when you share a link, sentence, or file via WeChat, it’s possible that it wasn’t delivered because somehow it triggered a censorship mechanism that is never explained.

Second, despite an ex-prosecutor saying Chinese law enforcement was unable to access WeChat history via Tencent, which I believe to be a truthful account (that’s why I published it), there are credible anecdotes showing communications on WeChat are not private. WeChat also does not offer end-to-end encryption like Signal or WhatsApp.

This may make many of you uncomfortable, but in my usual style of plain-speaking, one Chinese expert with an excellent reputation abroad and numerous Western contacts once lamented to me, many Westerners working on China think too much of themselves when they imagine themselves to be some Chinese government surveillance target. Although I believe personal consequences are unlikely for most foreigners, the safest thing to do is to exercise a certain level of self-censorship.

The third concern is whether WeChat compromises your device as a whole – i.e., is the app essentially spyware that can access unrelated data on your phone or computer? It is a heavily scrutinized app (given its size), and if it were regularly rooting phones or stealing all your files, there should have been many reports. However, just like most apps these days, WeChat requests access to your contacts, messages, microphone, camera, location, etc., because it needs many of those to function (sending audio messages, finding friends, mobile payments, etc.). As a result, on a phone where you grant WeChat those permissions, the app could glean a lot of information. Western governments have played up these risks: for example, one Western government banned WeChat from government-issued mobile devices in 2023 despite stating ”we have no evidence that government information has been compromised.“

To put it differently, the primary risks lie in what you do through the app, not that WeChat will siphon off other data from your device.

If you are especially concerned, limit WeChat’s permissions on your device to the bare minimum. Another approach is to use WeChat on a secondary device dedicated to it. If you absolutely don’t want WeChat anywhere near your primary phone, you can get a cheap separate smartphone and install WeChat there, essentially sandboxing it. But remember to check it regularly, otherwise you are just wasting it.

Nowadays, many China professionals do carry a burner phone when traveling to China or for using Chinese apps. It’s inconvenient, but that’s just the world we live in.

In summary, yes, WeChat entails surveillance risks, but these can be managed. The benefits of being on the platform, in my opinion, far outweigh the risks – provided you’re aware and cautious. If WeChat is absolutely critical to your work (and I argue it is for China work), and you remain very worried about device security, then the suggestion of using a dedicated device for WeChat stands.

Conclusion: Embrace WeChat or Be Left Out

Some time ago, I posted a tweet – since lost – on Twitter that basically says not using WeChat is a massive obstacle to understanding China. The tweet racked up over 100,000 views and sparked intense debate. Clearly, this struck a nerve. Some people – often those who for various reasons avoid WeChat – pushed back, arguing that they could follow China news via other means. But I stand by my statement. After all the above discussion, the logic is clear: WeChat is an irreplaceable tool for anyone serious about China. Choosing not to use it is choosing to work with a blindfold on.

To put it provocatively: a researcher on China who refuses to use WeChat is akin to a Chinese analyst of the West who refuses to use email (there are many of them!). Sure, you can still get some information via other ways, but you’ll miss a colossal amount. In fact, I often gauge a Chinese acquaintance’s international engagement by how much they use email – if they hardly use it, I’ll take what they say with a massive pinch of salt. The same in reverse: if a non-Chinese claims to be a China specialist but doesn’t use WeChat, it’s a telltale sign they’re out of the loop with the Chinese domestic discourse, including Chinese perceptions of international affairs, though not necessarily the international discussion about China.

None of this is to glorify WeChat itself – it’s simply the reality of China’s digital ecosystem today. You have to meet it on its own terms. The great network effect of WeChat means its value to you grows as you add more contacts and follow more accounts. Admittedly, there’s a hurdle at the beginning: if you join WeChat but only have a couple of contacts and follow no accounts, it might seem quiet or useless. And WeChat doesn’t appear to make foreigners’ registration easier by frequently requiring verification from other WeChat users. Don’t let that deter you. Proactively add contacts (exchange WeChats with Chinese colleagues, sources, friends whenever you can) and follow relevant official accounts (media outlets, government orgs, topic-specific blogs). With time, your WeChat feed will flourish with information. It’s an investment – in building a digital network that mirrors, as much as possible, the information network a Chinese peer would naturally have. And that is incredibly enriching for your work.

There will always be concerns – censorship, surveillance, addiction to yet another app, etc. Using it doesn’t mean endorsing it; it means you’re responsibly engaging with the primary medium through which Chinese people communicate and consume content.