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As January 19th nears, TikTok comes closer and closer to being banned in the United States. The reasons are numerous, but economist Christopher Clarke offers a brief summary of the most important one below:

In short, TikTok is an app that not only spies on American citizens on behalf of the Chinese Communist Party, but it is also an app that acts as a propaganda apparatus to fulfill the diplomatic goals of the CCP.

But instead of spelling doom for one of the CCP’s most effective intelligence gathering and espionage efforts, this impending ban has caused droves of users to flock toward an even more censorious and compromised app: RedNote. Pronounced in Mandarin as Xiaohongshu, the app is named “Little Red Book,” after the work published by Mao Zedong which helped fuel the Cultural Revolution which caused the deaths of millions.

Seemingly out of protest, users have embraced the new app with open arms, actively taking steps to ensure that as much of their data and money flows to China as possible:

To be sure, the same law which forced the sale or ban of TikTok will eventually make its way to RedNote and other associated apps. These are not long-term risks. But what is concerning is the view by so many that the Chinese Communist Party is somehow their friend; that the American government is only banning TikTok because they’re scared of losing control over the masses and that the Chinese government are wrongly demonized.

Let’s be clear: the Chinese Communist Party is anything but a friend to the American people.

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China is a geopolitical foe, not your friend

I could write pages upon pages about how the CCP is a group of murderous thugs with a stranglehold on the people of China and its neighbors. I could write about the Tienanmen Square massacre, the Uyghur genocide, the famines and executions of the Great Leap Forward, and so much more. But sadly, I don’t believe that the moral arguments I could make by diving into these events would be enough to convince any skeptics who might read this that the CCP is evil.

Rather, I’m going to list just a handful of examples from the past year of how the Chinese government is actively working to make the lives of American people worse and more dangerous:

• Chinese companies are required by law to spy on foreign citizens on behalf of the ruling Chinese Communist Party

• Chinese hackers breached the Treasury Department’s Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S., which helps prevent U.S. military bases from being spied on

• Chinese hackers gained access to our telecommunications networks to geolocate and record the phone calls of American citizens

• A Chinese-flagged ship cut internet cables in the Baltic Sea meant to connect internet traffic between America and allied countries like Germany, Lithuania, and Sweden

• Chinese hackers spent 5 years on the inside of U.S. network infrastructure, setting themselves up to “launch destructive cyber-attacks” on critical American infrastructure

• China-based drone maker DJI has removed geofencing restrictions that previously kept drones from flying over U.S. military posts and airports, creating security and safety risks for Americans

• Taiwan has reported a significant rise in Chinese espionage, including attempts to work with local gangs and retired military personnel to sabotage the island country ahead of a Chinese invasion

• Chinese companies regularly pry trade secrets and proprietary technology from American companies on behalf of Chinese competitors, from textiles and airplanes to computer chips and electric vehicles

This is all in addition to 224 other reported instances of Chinese espionage and over 1200 cases of intellectual property theft directed against the United States by the CCP and its associates.

We are losing an ideological battle

The people of the Western world live lives of relative freedom. We are able to criticize our government, to petition for redress of grievances, and to participate in ideological slug-matches online.

It used to be clear to us that this is the blessing of living in a free country. When we would duke it out over politics and culture, we could at least go to sleep at night grateful that we are able to do so. The lack of discourse and dissent coming from countries like China was an eerie symbol of a repressed people.

But now, far too many of us look at the surface-level peace with some sort of envy. Not realizing that the China we are shown in TikTok and Rednote are digital Potemkin villages, many younger Americans now look at the lack of discourse and dissent coming from China as sign of unity.

We have failed time and time again to discuss the stakes of China’s quest for domination. We have failed to highlight the human cost of the Chinese government regime on the people of China, of Hong Kong, of Taiwan, of Tibet, of India, and of so many more countries. We have failed to educate each coming generation of the terror and tyranny enabled by the Chinese system of government. And this failure has created a very grave threat to the future of American freedom.

When our youth turns to Chinese platforms for perceived refuge from the American government, something has gone seriously wrong.

It is not enough to simply ban these apps. We must begin to engage in the war of ideas that China has been fighting for decades now. We have been asleep at the wheel, for reasons economic and diplomatic. But it is now clear that the CCP is keen to continue waging this new digital Cold War, and it is not one that we can afford to surrender.’