Jimmy Yang – Tariffs

I’ve been having a lot of conversations with Americans on RedNote about the issue of tariffs. Most of them are against Trump’s tariffs as well, and many admitted they used to have major misconceptions about China—seeing it as a closed-off, isolated country where people live under constant surveillance, with limited freedoms and repressed lives. But after spending time on this Chinese platform and engaging with more local content, their perspectives have changed dramatically.

I told them, “That’s completely understandable. Most of your impressions about China come from your own media. But when a country’s media engages in ‘cognitive warfare’ against another country—by spreading fake news, exaggerating facts, selectively taking things out of context, and consistently portraying it in a negative light—it inevitably shapes how the general public perceives that country.”

That’s why I encouraged them to visit China and see it for themselves. After all, if you’ve never been there, don’t speak Chinese, and can’t directly access Chinese content, then most of what you learn about China through English-language media is likely coming through a heavily filtered—and often distorted—lens.