Some international students in China have taken to social media platform RedNote (Xiaohongshu) to complain about being excluded from obtaining free educational accounts for Quark AI, an LLM tool widely used by their Chinese university classmates. Using the hashtag #WeStudyInChina, these students have also set up an online “message wall” to lobby for inclusion in the popular AI tool.
Chinese online reactions to the students’ pleas ranged from sympathy to amusement, Schadenfreude to national pride. Some commenters highlighted the perceived privileges enjoyed by exchange students in China, while others pointed to the clamor for Quark AI as a sign that Chinese AI tools have finally become cutting edge. Others noted the similarities between these recent “Quark AI refugees” and the millions of so-called “TikTok refugees” who joined RedNote earlier this year when a U.S. ban on TikTok seemed imminent. (After U.S.-China bilateral trade talks in Spain this weekend, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said that the two nations had reached a framework deal to divest TikTok’s ownership from Chinese parent company Bytedance.)
In a recent WeChat article titled “As International Students in China Are Reduced to ‘Quark AI Refugees,’ Should We Gloat, or Feel Proud?” blogger Xiang Dongliang discusses various aspects of the controversy, including China’s educational subsidies for foreign students, on-campus segregation of Chinese and international students, and the rise of xenophobic attitudes in Chinese society. In the end, Xiang suggests that neither smug nationalism nor petty Schadenfreude is an appropriate reaction to the travails of exchange students in China:
I came across this particularly interesting trending topic: “Quark AI has forgotten us!”
Humorously tearful posts from RedNote account Leo说中文 (“Leo speaks Chinese”) feature the hashtags #QuarkHasForgottenUs and #WeStudyInChina. The Chinese text at bottom right reads: “Can British people living in China get it, too?! Harry from the U.K. also wants to try a Quark AI membership. My Chinese friends say it’s great! And the scanning feature would be really useful!”
A post in Chinese and French includes the following plea: “Quark, how can you treat me like this? My Chinese classmates can get free membership through the ‘Education Plan,’ but I can’t, because I don’t have a CHSI (China Higher Education Student Information Network) account. We take the same classes, the same tests, and even grouse about the same homework! Please show some love to us international students, too.”
A group of foreign students studying in China posted complaints on RedNote (Xiaohongshu), saying that Quark AI, which Chinese university students use, discriminates against international students. All Chinese university students qualify for free Quark “SVIP” membership, but international students attending the same universities can only stand by helplessly as they are “left behind” by Quark.
A post in Chinese and Arabic features a Sponge Bob Squarepants meme (Left: “Me” / Right: “Chinese people with Quark AI memberships”) and the Chinese phrase “Who can understand the plight of exchange students?” The Arabic text at bottom describes the student’s excitement about returning to Shanghai for the new semester and meeting new classmates and new challenges, but mentions that only Chinese students qualify for free Quark AI access under the “Education Plan.”
Another international student bemoans being “left out” of Quark AI access.
Some of these exchange students even created a dedicated online message wall, as is habitual on the overseas internet. Called “We Study in China,” the website allows international students in China to voice their concerns and appeal to Quark AI for equal treatment and access to membership benefits.
A screenshot of the “We Study in China” message wall explains its mission of lobbying Quark AI to expand free membership access to international students studying in China, and invites students to leave comments or share the website URL with others.
This scenario is reminiscent of the “TikTok refugees” who flocked to RedNote when TikTok was [in danger of being] shut down in the U.S. Both cases involved foreigners who wanted to use Chinese internet services but were unable to do so.
This may seem a minor matter, but it has extraordinary significance. It’s the first time that I can recall the international student community in China ever collectively speaking out in this way.
At the spectacle of foreign students extolling the virtues of Chinese AI tools and even “begging” for access to them, Chinese netizens responded with delight, filling [social-media] comment sections with expressions of national pride and Schadenfreude.
This should come as no surprise. Chinese society has long harbored resentment over the preferential treatment afforded to international students. Now that we are seeing international students being disadvantaged and discriminated against, is it any wonder that some people are exulting, taking the opportunity to vent their frustrations?
A portion of a commentary from the nationalistically inclined online media outlet Guancha.
Top: While this outcry by international students may look like a “protest,” it’s more like a chorus of inadvertent recognition: China’s AI apps and services have gotten so good that foreigners are turning green with envy!
Bottom: Guancha headline: “Why are foreign students up in arms about Quark AI? Because what’s ‘premium tier’ overseas is just ‘standard issue’ in China.”
Guancha, which represents this type of thinking, published a triumphalist op-ed that gleefully proclaimed: “What’s ‘premium tier’ overseas is just ‘standard issue’ in China.”
Yes, China’s AI has indeed made progress, and [domestic] AI tools are performing quite well in various applications and daily-life scenarios. After all, the “application layer” has always been the Chinese internet’s strong suit.
However, the fact that Quark AI excluded international students from its membership giveaway reveals, yet again, a longstanding problem in Chinese society: enormous sums of money are being spent to attract and train international students, but rarely does this investment achieve any concrete results.
Statistics show that as of 2025, there were over 500,000 international students in China.
Many people are under the impression that African students make up the largest proportion of exchange students in China, but in fact, a larger proportion are from other Asian countries such as Pakistan (understandable), South Korea (whose academic competition is even fiercer than China’s), and Thailand (many of whom are ethnic Chinese). When I was an undergraduate, there were several Vietnamese students at my college, but they didn’t stand out much due to their appearance.
Despite the many hundreds of thousands of international students in China, as a group, they exhibit very little “presence” in Chinese society. Even when they occasionally make the news due to a negative incident, their voices are rarely heard—it’s mostly Chinese netizens arguing among themselves.
On one hand, Chinese universities actively promote a kind of “soft segregation” by providing separate dorms, cafeterias, and even special classes exclusively for international students. As such, there isn’t much on-campus interaction between international and Chinese students. On the other hand, because international students have few opportunities to remain in China and work after graduation, they lack the motivation to fully integrate into Chinese society: they’re preoccupied with getting their degrees and moving on.
The results are counterproductive: while China has long provided generous subsidies to support and train exchange students, the paucity of cultural exchange and social integration means that China is neither importing overseas talent nor exporting cultural influence (once those students return to their home countries after completing their studies).
Given these missed opportunities on both ends, isn’t our investment just going to waste?
And while Quark AI’s exclusion of international students from the benefits of free membership might appear to be a decision by a single company, it reflects the collective mentality of our entire society.
Of course, this represents but a miniscule slice of the day-to-day existence of international students in China. The only reason it became a trending topic is because it offers such a dramatic study in contrasts.
The question truly worthy of our attention is this: What attitude should Chinese society adopt toward international students and other foreigners who come to China?
A decade ago, Chinese society’s attitude toward foreigners was predominantly respectful and friendly. Today, that attitude has shifted to a combination of “looking up to” and “looking down on” foreigners. Disrespect and contempt seem to be in the ascendant, and hostile rhetoric has become commonplace. None of these, in short, are healthy attitudes.
When overseas users first began flocking to RedNote, the Chinese public’s concerns about an “influx of foreigners” was on full display. But now, how many of those overseas accounts are even still on RedNote?
Returning to this article’s title, the surface phenomenon is that Quark AI “forgot” about international students, but the underlying essence is that Chinese society has never viewed international students or foreigners as equals.
My constructive suggestion is not to look up to them, nor to look down on them, either.
Until we can view foreigners as equals and accept international students into our schools and society with an open and egalitarian mindset, we will not be truly composed or confident. [Chinese]
