Across the Western world, young people of all ethnic stripes are becoming Chinese.
“Becoming Chinese,” aka, “Chinamaxxing,” is an absurdist social media trend which cropped up in the last year or so. Those journeying to become Chinese begin by adopting mundane Chinese habits: Drinking hot water or Tsingtao beer, walking with their hands clasped behind their back, wearing slippers indoors, and seeking traditional Chinese medicine remedies. (RELATED: China Tries Both Ways: A Diplomatic Balancing Act)
Practitioners of Chinamaxxing vary in their sincerity.
“It’s partly meme logic, but it’s also a sign of growing cultural cachet,” Shaoyu Yuan, a professor at New York University’s Center for Global Affairs, told The New York Times (NYT).
Singaporean journalist and activist Melissa Chen described the trend as a “psyop to convert young Westerners into communist sympathizers by exoticizing every day Chinese habits and aesthetics through viral trends on social media.”
“It also drives hyper-consumerism to generate demand for Chinese products at a time when the US-China tensions are heightened,” Chen wrote on X.
For some, adopting Chinese mannerisms and habits is a means of signaling their distaste for American culture.
“For me it feels like a way to resist — in a subtle way, it’s more of an undercurrent — and to protest a government that doesn’t care about keeping people healthy,” 33-year-old Renn Lazzerin told the NYT.
Hasan Piker, a popular far-left Twitch streamer, indulged in some “chinamaxxing” while on vacation.
This is a scam because Chinamaxxing is not possible.
Why? There are many areas that are “restricted” for security reasons, requiring additional permits beyond visas, curfews, checkpoints, and bans.
Please tell me if you can freely go to Tibet, Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia (see if… pic.twitter.com/xgPGscaZF4
— Melissa Chen (@MsMelChen) November 17, 2025
China is engaging in its own form of Chinamaxxing — or, rather, HanChinesemaxxing.
China is moving to approve an “ethnic unity” proposal, which looks designed to assimilate ethnic minorities into the majority Han Chinese culture.
“The people of each ethnic group, all organizations and groups of the country, armed forces, every Party and social organization, every company, must forge a common consciousness of the Chinese nation according to law and the constitution, and take the responsibility of building this consciousness,” the proposal reads, according to Politico.
The proposed law mandates the use of Mandarin Chinese in compulsory education. The legislation also outlines “mutually embedded community environments.”
“The intention is to encourage Han and other minorities to migrate into each other’s communities,” Minglang Zhou, a professor at the University of Maryland, told Politico. (RELATED: CIA Releases Video Encouraging Chinese Officers To Inform On CCP)
I don’t object to such assimilation measures. But I assume, given the undercurrent of anti-American sentiment among the most earnest Chinamaxxers, that they would feverishly protest any comparable “ethnic unity” law put forward by American lawmakers.
There’s a hilarity in minority-worshipping Westerners turning to China as a means of protesting the American establishment. It could be hypocrisy. Or it could be revealed preference. Lefties aren’t primarily concerned with the autonomy of ethnic minorities. They’re consumed by resentment towards the West, and are fond of any political or cultural movements which advance that resentment.
Follow Natalie Sandoval on X: @NatSandovalDC
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