The postcolonial route of WeChat: technological mimicry, excess, and orientalism

Abstract

With more than 1 billion monthly active users recorded since 2018, WeChat (Weixin) is the primary digital platform for Mandarin speakers globally. This paper ‘traces back’ the development of WeChat through its connections to the Anglo social platforms and analyses the unfavourable sentiment that WeChat has received from the West. The analysis is informed by ‘postcolonial technoscience’ – a theory and methodology that unveils the mobilisation of science and technological ideas between the West and the non-West, which are otherwise treated apart or perceived through certain hierarchies, in the technosphere dominated by the West. The paper argues that WeChat was developed through mimetic practices to the Western corporate social media and later engages in its mimetic excess – imitating and exceeding the West; the further innovation and expansion of WeChat intensify techno-orientalism that triggers fear, anxiety, and platform otherisation especially in the United States and Australia. The analysis presents valuable applicability for understanding non-Western technologies in the fabric of contemporary postcolonial technosphere dominated by the West.