Chinese-Americans say Trump's potential WeChat ban would be 'heartbreaking' and destroy international lines of family communication

• President Trump announced two executive orders on Thursday targeted at effectively banning TikTok and WeChat in the US.
• WeChat is a major app in China and a crucial line of communication for people in the US to communicate with loved ones across the world.
• While the legality and enforceability of Trump's executive order still remain unclear, the threat of a US WeChat ban is still a daunting possibility for those communicating with loved ones in China given that messaging alternatives are few and far between.
• "It is heartbreaking for any family — for anyone who needs to go through this," said Carol Duan, 33, who is Chinese and moved to the US in 2011.

When President Trump signed an executive order on Thursday night that could ban the use of Chinese app WeChat in the US, Carol Duan immediately panicked. The 33-year-old has lived in Boston since she came to the US for graduate school in 2011. The rest of her family is in China.

She opened the app on her iPhone and called her parents, who live in Beijing. Most other social-media apps are restricted or banned in China, limiting options for alternatives, so Duan's parents suggested they could switch to email for daily communication with their daughter when the ban could go into effect in less than two months.

"Their reaction just really made me collapse," Duan, who now works for Boston University, told Insider through tears. She said she and her parents discussed that their whole family in China would likely need to buy Apple devices in order to communicate via iMessage and FaceTime. "It is heartbreaking for any family — for anyone who needs to go through this."

Many Chinese-Americans and Chinese citizens working in the US say that the app is a lifeline for communication with family and friends in China.

Losing WeChat would make quick communication between people in the US and China significantly more difficult

The executive order, which was paired with one aimed at TikTok that would prohibit any US transactions related to the apps, has already created chaos and confusion. The actions follow weeks of threats at TikTok on the basis of security concerns related to its Chinese ownership.

Some argue that Chinese-owned apps like TikTok are no worse than, say, Facebook, in terms of how they collect and share data, but WeChat has come under fire for privacy and censorship concerns in the past. Despite these allegations,, it's unclear whether the order is even legal or enforceable. Still, even the threat of a WeChat ban is daunting for those who rely on the app to communicate with family or friends in China.

WeChat is more than just a messaging app, particularly in China itself. It serves as a hub for dating, games, making doctor's appointments, buying movie tickets, sending money, and more. Its messaging function is a crucial feature, and while the app hasn't caught on in the US to anywhere near the degree that it's integrated itself into Chinese society, it's still foundational to members of the Chinese diaspora, The New York Times reported.

"A lot of our elderly relatives just spent so long trying to figure out WeChat, and we finally feel like they've gotten to the point where it's usable, and we can communicate with them — and now they have to learn a new system if we do transition off of WeChat," said Joseph Chen, 24, a sales engineer who lives in California's Bay Area and was born and raised in the US. Chen's parents moved to California from southern China when they were children, but many of their relatives are still in China.

WeChat's importance in the Chinese-American community goes beyond its use in communicating with family outside the US. It's woven into the domestic culture of many Chinese families in the US, where the app has been downloaded 19.3 million times since 2014, according to Sensor Tower.

Wan Qi Kong, whose family is Chinese and Malaysian, grew up in Brooklyn, New York, and uses the app to communicate with her sister and parents, all of whom are in the US. Her parents use WeChat to communicate with relatives in Malaysia, so rather than having a family group text, they use WeChat. "For my parents, it would actually have a difference for their daily lives," Kong, 23, who lives in New Orleans, told Insider. Another 22-year-old Chinese woman, a permanent US resident who lives in New York and asked to remain anonymous for professional reasons, said she and her Chinese-American friends use WeChat as their preferred communication method for the same reason.

Beyond the implications on the daily lives of anyone in the US with Chinese family and friends, Chen said that he fears where the US is headed if it follows through with this ban — and that it contradicts the very reasons that lead to Chinese citizens immigrating to the US. "It seems very strange to us, because that seems very much like the government intervention that we've kind of gotten used to from the Chinese government," Chen said. "It's kind of a step in a weird direction — or, I guess, the wrong direction — in a lot of our minds."

Duan echoed that sentiment. "It just made me doubt if this is the country that so many people dreamed about and wanted to go to explore," she said of the executive order. "It just made me question that."

The New York Times reported that targeting WeChat signifies a change in the US' approach to China's Great Firewall, with reporters Paul Mozur and Raymond Zhong writing that "restricting WeChat and TikTok could be the first steps in an eye-for-an-eye reprisal."

The language of the order itself positions the US as a purveyor of freedom and opportunity vis-à-vis China, saying that the app "captures the personal and proprietary information of Chinese nationals visiting the US, thereby allowing the Chinese Communist Party a mechanism for keeping tabs on Chinese citizens who may be enjoying the benefits of a free society for the first time in their lives." That kind of positioning fails to acknowledge the deep impact that banning WeChat would have on members of the Chinese diaspora who rely on the app.

Chinese people living in the US fear this executive order could increase anti-Chinese xenophobia

As the COVID-19 pandemic has continued to spread throughout the world, so has xenophobic sentiment against China and its people. Human Rights Watch, a nongovernmental organization that advocates for human rights, reported that anti-Asian racism has surged globally during the pandemic. "Racism and physical attacks on Asians and people of Asian descent have spread with the Covid-19 pandemic, and government leaders need to act decisively to address the trend," John Sifton, the agency's Asia advocacy director, said in a May press release. "Governments should act to expand public outreach, promote tolerance, and counter hate speech while aggressively investigating and prosecuting hate crimes."

The US government has not followed that guidance. Trump himself has repeatedly referred to the virus, which experts believe first spread to humans in Wuhan, China, by racist nicknames, including the "Kung Flu" and the "China Virus."

Duan, who is the only member of her immediate family living in the US, said she's afraid of how anti-China discrimination could become even worse as a result of Trump's executive order. "I think there's a fear in everyone's heart," said Duan, who often feels "isolated" in the US. Duan added that given the rise of xenophobia in the US, she wonders if the Trump administration's measures against China are truly about anti-Communist "ideology," or if they're meant to hurt Chinese people. "This would plant some seeds" of discrimination against the Chinese, Duan said.

Duan said she is afraid that having an "Asian face" will put her in danger when she walks down the street. But she feels lucky to live in a community where she feels welcomed and accepted, and she does not regret moving to the US.

That warm community is what she's holding onto. Despite the emotional turmoil she's experiencing, Duan said she doesn't want this executive order, and anti-Chinese discrimination, to "ruin" her experience here, which she said she cherishes. The "support and love from people here" is what she hopes to take away from her time living in the US, however long she may stay.

"That's the part I want to remember — whether I continue to work here or whether I leave this country," she said. "This is the memory I want to bring with me."

• Read more:
• Trump just issued 2 executive orders aimed at Chinese-owned apps, barring US companies from doing business with TikTok parent company ByteDance and messaging app WeChat
• Trump has a penchant for calling the coronavirus the 'Chinese Virus' or 'Kung Flu.' Experts on Asian culture said the racist implications of the term divert attention from the disastrous US response.
• Trump says the US has 'all the cards' on a potential TikTok sale as he doubles down on demand that the government get a 'very big' cut
• TikTok creators are worried about losing their followings as the Trump administration considers banning the app