China’s biggest apps are inviting the West closer into its insular internet economy

For decades, China’s internet economy has been a gated-off party.

Now, some of its biggest companies are cracking the door open to outsiders.

While China has long since invited foreign businesses to set up shop within its borders, its internet has been closed off.

Dominated by a handful of local players — such as Tencent’s messaging app WeChat, ByteDance’s TikTok-equivalent Douyin, the X-like Weibo, and the lifestyle content app Xiaohongshu — the country’s internet has been difficult for non-Chinese users to access.

Many of these platforms have historically been Mandarin-first and presented registration, verification, and other hurdles for foreign users.

Because China’s digital payment ecosystem is integrated into these social media apps, payment in the country is a challenge for foreigners, too.

But recent developments have pointed to a trend of China finally opening its doors and letting foreigners take small steps into its internet economy.

China has for years been largely cash-free in its major cities, and is known for its seamless payment ecosystem, which includes major players like Alipay and Weixin Pay.

Now, one big player is helping tourists make payments more easily while traveling in the country.

On August 11, PayPal announced that US PayPal users can use the service to make in-store QR payments at Weixin Pay merchants across China, without needing to download additional apps or set up a Chinese bank account.

Weixin, also known as WeChat, is owned by the Chinese tech conglomerate Tencent.

Tencent’s cross-border payment platform, TenPay, provides the underlying payment services used by Weixin Pay. “Through our collaboration, international visitors will be able to use their home wallets to make QR code payments at tens of millions of Weixin Pay merchants in the Chinese mainland, offering them a familiar and convenient way to pay,” TenPay CEO Wenhui Yang said in the PayPal press release.

Jeffrey Towson, the founder of US- and China-based retail consultancy TechMoat Consulting, told Business Insider that it was “almost impossible to be a tourist in China” without WeChat Pay or Alipay, and PayPal and WeChat Pay’s integration largely solves that problem.

Allison Malmsten, a public research director at Daxue Consulting, a China-focused strategy consultancy, said that for decades, China had developed its own banking system and firewall, which made it seem like “China’s digital universe existed separately from the rest of the world’s digital universe.” She told Business Insider that the integration of PayPal into WeChat, among other examples, shows that China is playing a bigger role globally.

China’s social media is inviting foreigners in, too.

The latest example is Bilibili, China’s youth-focused content platform known for its popularity among anime, comics, and gaming enthusiasts, which has just begun its international expansion.

Bilibili started an X account this month.

It announced in a Wednesday X post that it had just launched its international app, with access for “more countries” coming soon.

Semafor reported on Thursday, citing new job listings and marketing materials distributed to creators, that Bilibili is courting non-Chinese creators and recruiting staff in Japan, the US, and Europe.

Bilibili is the latest Chinese video-sharing platform to court non-Chinese users, following TikTok’s overseas launch in 2017 and RedNote — known in China as Xiaohongshu — gaining a large international audience in 2025.

RedNote became popular last year, during a period when TikTok’s future in the US was uncertain, as the app faced a “divest-or-ban” mandate.

Many Americans flocked to RedNote instead, some calling themselves “TikTok refugees.” Towson said that TikTok proved that Chinese mobile apps could succeed outside the country, and now, every Chinese company he talks to has an international plan.

This is partly because domestic consumption is stagnating and, in some sectors, slowing, prompting companies to seek new growth across borders. “Every company I know is talking about international.

Bilibili, I was not talking about this seven years ago.

So, that’s definitely a big trend,” Towson said.

PayPal and Bilibili’s developments come amid the backdrop of Chinese tech companies, in fields like AI, robotics, and electric vehicles, competing with the US for global domination.

Chinese startup Moonshot AI made waves in the global tech sphere with its latest Kimi K3 open-weight AI model, which promises “frontier intelligence” for tasks such as coding, knowledge work, and reasoning at a lower cost.

As AI costs become a major concern for businesses, capable open-weight models like Kimi K3 are becoming highly sought after.

Jacob Cooke, the CEO of Beijing-based e-commerce consulting firm WPIC Marketing + Technologies, said he sees a trend of Chinese tech and internet companies having globally competitive offerings, “whether it’s Kimi K3’s frontier AI or Bilibili’s unique content ecosystem.” “In Kimi K3 case, you have frontier AI available via open weights to build customized applications, and it’s a fraction of the cost of Western models.

That’s a very attractive offering for Western enterprises,” Cooke said. “These firms are making aggressive, intentional forays into foreign markets to tap into foreign demand,” he added.