Words of the Week: “Xiaohongshu Balance-Sheet Comparisons” (小红书对账, Xiǎohóngshū duìzhàng)

Although an executive order signed by President Trump on Monday gave Bytedance-owned TikTok a 75-day reprieve from an impending U.S. ban, the future—and future ownership—of the popular short-video sharing platform remains uncertain. Seeking an alternative to TikTok, millions of American and U.S.-based “TikTok refugees” have joined Chinese-language social media platform Xiaohongshu, also known as RedNote. Their interactions with Chinese Xiaohongshu users—as well as their struggles with a new language and different platform-censorship rules—have continued to attract attention and commentary across Chinese social media.

CDT Chinese editors have archived nearly 20 articles and essays exploring various facets of the Xiaohongshu “TikTok refugee” phenomenon, as well as numerous netizen comments. “We all know this isn’t going to end well,” wrote one Weibo user, “so let’s enjoy this ‘global-village moment’ while we can.” One online commenter, referencing China’s ubiquitous online censorship and VPN use, posed the question, “Who, after all, is the world’s largest producer of internet refugees?” When a self-described “TikTok refugee” with a Singapore IP address expressed interest in buying some Chinese A-share stocks (A-shares are quoted in yuan and generally purchased by domestic investors, while B-shares are quoted in foreign currencies and are more widely available to foreign investors), a fellow Xiaohongshu user responded jocularly, “If you buy [A-shares], you will become a true refugee." The official Weibo account for Dahongshu (“Big Red Book,” a Xi Jinping Thought study app) seized the opportunity to welcome the new Tik-Tok refugees: “We welcome all friends—new and old, at home and abroad—to download and use Dahongshu to learn and improve together!” And when a new Xiaohongshu user asked, “What does collectivism mean in Chinese culture?” one of the most trenchant answers was, “It means sacrificing some people in order to preserve the interests of some other people.”

The popularity of salary and cost-of-living comparisons among Chinese and American Xiaohongshu users has given rise to the term “Xiaohongshu balance-sheet comparisons” (小红书对账, Xiǎohóngshū duìzhàng). Also called “Sino-American balance-sheet comparisons” (中美对账, Zhōng-Měi duìzhàng) or “online balance-sheet comparisons” (网络对账, wǎngluò duìzhàng), these involve users sharing details of their weekly, monthly, or annual incomes; housing costs and other expenses; income-tax rates; student-loan and auto-loan payments; and more. For many, it is an affirmation that economic struggles are universal, despite the variance in baseline salaries and living expenses. Others approach it as a competition, an affirmation, or a way of gauging China’s relative standing in the world.

Two recent articles discuss the ongoing “balance-sheet comparison” and what it says about economic life in China and the U.S. The first, from WeChat account “A single-family home,” poses the question: “Did We Win the Xiaohongshu Balance-sheet Comparison?” The article begins with some illustrative screenshots of exchanges between Xiaohongshu users on the subject of earnings, take-home pay, and working hours. In the end, the author concludes that this sort of exchange shouldn’t be about competition, but about recognizing that each place has its advantages, and that many of the cost advantages in China are contingent on a combination of government subsidies and an overworked, underpaid, and underappreciated labor force:

A screenshot shows a Xiaohongshu user in Jiangsu commiserating with a U.S.-based user who works 70-80 hours per week at two jobs—a swing shift at a hospital, and a night shift at a casino.


Another screenshot from Xiaohongshu shows a user in Jiangsu asking how much American construction workers get paid per day. A U.S.-based user answers that as a union member, he makes about $50 per hour plus benefits, which comes out to roughly $1200 per week after taxes. A commenter from Liaoning responds, “That’s not bad,” and another person from Hebei writes, “Omg. That’s a lot.”


This screenshot shows English posts—with Chinese translations and annotations—from U.S.-based Xiaohongshu users talking about their jobs. The first is from a woman who says she works in a hospital kitchen making $21 per hour, or $31.50 per hour for overtime. The second is from a man who says he makes $300,000 per year as a junior-level employee at a New York City investment bank. The third is from a person in San Francisco who works as a nurse and makes between $200,000 and $250,000 per year, and says they plan to retire at age 55.

[…] In this world, there is no such thing as a perfect country. Ordinary people in any country, including Chinese and Americans, do not enjoy an easy life. American envy of the low cost of goods and services in China upends any perceptions of China based solely on economic data. It’s fair to say that these online interactions and people-to-people exchanges are beneficial to enhancing friendship and mutual understanding between China and the U.S.

[…] Almost all of the “resource advantages” [enjoyed by middle-class Chinese] derive from other large groups of hardworking Chinese people.

For example, the high-quality, low-cost services we enjoy—including express delivery and take-out—are essentially predicated on the labor of a group of Chinese people who labor from morning to night for meager wages.

To cite another example, Chinese prices for utilities such as water, electricity, and internet—and for services such as public transportation—are the lowest in the world, at least among countries with similar levels of infrastructure. However, these low prices are mainly due to local subsidies for public services and infrastructure, and most of these subsidies are funded by land-use and land-transfer fees, which in turn are funded by the millions of ordinary people who purchase their homes with "six wallets." ["Six wallets" refers to couples who have to pool their own savings, and the savings of their parents and in-laws, to be able to afford to buy a home.]

On the one hand, we as Chinese people must make good use of the resource advantages we currently possess; value our hard-won economic achievements and peaceful, stable environment; and be grateful to the compatriots who have sacrificed on our behalf. On the other hand, we must be adroit enough to avoid the pitfalls […] so that someday we can live an even better life.

I don’t think that this "comparing of balance sheets" on Xiaohongshu should be turned into an argument about who is winning or who is losing. Everything we do is about making ourselves and our lives better, not about defeating others. Being overly concerned about winning or losing is to focus too much on our opponents, and is a clear sign of mistaken priorities.

Comparing our household "balance sheets" on Xiaohongshu should be an opportunity for us to better understand the world and rid ourselves of illusions about bright and shiny things. We shouldn’t have illusions about any individual or any country—as I pointed out in one of my past articles, even U.S. President Trump and Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, exhibit a very vulgar, and even outright shameful, side. [Chinese]

The second article, from WeChat account “A herd of a thousand sheep are burning,” asks readers, “No One Honestly Thinks We’ve Won the ‘Sino-American Balance-sheet Comparison,’ Do They?” The author criticizes pundits such as Chen Ping who make outrageous claims about the superior purchasing power or living standards of Chinese consumers, but also cautions against those who claim that China is lagging hopelessly behind or that the U.S. is some sort of paradise. The author urges readers not to give in to an “inferiority complex” by becoming hostile or defensive, and not to buy into the illusion that “the moon is rounder abroad”:

What I want to talk about is—although the wall hasn’t collapsed from the inside, and this sort of “balance-sheet comparison” isn’t a rarity—that the commonly held, long-ossified piece of conventional wisdom about the “gap between China and the U.S.” could be so easily overturned by just a few posts. Perhaps this phenomenon is worthy of more attention.

Today people might be marveling, “Wow, everything we read in our textbooks about the ‘evils of capitalism’ turned out to be true. Lucky for us our motherland managed to protect us so well, all these decades …”

But tomorrow’s version might well be very different. If some "public intellectuals" stir things up again, who knows—there might be a brand new "awakening."

As they say, being too wrapped up in winning the game, and worrying about how to win, is a sign of an inferior player—someone who tries to bolster their own sense of superiority by making invidious comparisons to others. The “Ah Q mentality” isn’t dead, and besides, there are many different ways to win.

[…] These “balance-sheet comparisons” didn’t just arise from our information cocoon or our cultural differences; they’re an inevitable consequence of our years of failing to educate people about basic logic.

[…] It is important to be able to see our own shortcomings, as well as the shortcomings of others. But it’s even more crucial to be able to see others’ strengths—for while the moon might be theirs, the humble sixpence belongs to us.

[…] There’s no shame in admitting that we still have a long way to go. [Chinese]

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