4B in China, feminism under state surveillance

Speaking out about feminism in China can become an act of resistance. As the government tightened restrictions on feminist organising, the internet has become both a venue for feminist discussions and a place for surveillance and censorship. In such a context, ideas from South Korea’s 4B movement have found their way into Chinese digital feminist networks. But Chinese feminists have not simply copied the movement but instead translated, adapted, and fashioned it as needed in a society oppressed by censorship, demographic pressure, and state-control of womanhood.

Around 2018, South Korea’s radical feminist movement 4B emerged. This radical feminist movement stood against gender inequality, misogyny, gender-based violence, and expectations of marriage and motherhood. Its four core promises rejected heterosexual dating, sex, marriage, and childbirth. The movement later evolved into 6B4T, rejecting sexist consumption and support between women, as well as extreme beauty standards, hypersexualised images of women, organised religion, and idol culture. Though relatively underrepresented in South Korean society, some of its ideas began to circulate among Chinese feminists through social media and translation.

Obviously, it has appeal in China due to the country’s gender and demographic pressures. Chinese women continue to be pressured to marry, have children, and take care of families, while the state has been increasing its focus on family and childbirth with declining birth rates and an ageing population. At the same time, young people have come up with ideas like “lying flat” and dissatisfaction with expectations of work, marriage, and social success. Such a context can render the 4B and 6B4T rejection of marriage and reproduction far beyond a choice of lifestyle. For some Chinese women, refusing these expectations is a way of recovering their autonomy.

But feminist expression in China has been very different from South Korea. Although the Chinese state officially promotes gender equality, independent feminist activism has been subject to increasing restrictions. After crackdowns on feminist activists and organisations, much feminist discussion has moved to the internet. Websites like Weibo, Douyin, and Douban have allowed women to share experiences, create feminist vocabulary, and create communities—and are also subject to moderation and censorship. In my research on Chinese 6B4T communities, I found that Douban’s private-group functions enabled feminists to create communities while leaving them susceptible to platform governance and state censorship.

This tension was particularly palpable in the history of 6B4T on Chinese social media. In 2021, Douban removed “6b4t” from its site, banned several feminist groups, and called the ideology extremist and radical. This displayed the fragility of online feminists: even conversations far from political protest could get censored. But this action did not eliminate discussion about feminist issues. Instead, it encouraged users to adopt coded language, move across platforms, and use indirect means of communication.

Translating also played a political role in the Chinese adaptation of 4B/6B4T. Chinese feminists have not simply translated Korean terminology word for word, but have interpreted its meaning through their own experiences. The most public controversy surrounding the Korean term bidopbi came when some Chinese online discussions translated the word as “do not help married women.” The translation made a big ideological difference. Instead of emphasising the mutual support among women, it introduced a distinction between married and unmarried women.

This controversy showed that the Chinese version of 6B4T was not just a replication of the Korean movement. Translation was a way of negotiating what feminism should mean in China. Studies have described this as feminist knowledge retold through translation, where activists take or alter ideas based on their political and cultural contexts. The debate over bidopbi also showed divisions within Chinese online feminism, particularly between women who saw marriage and motherhood as oppressive, and those who felt women should be united regardless of their life choices.

Chinese feminists have also created their own language to describe these experiences. Terms like “love brain,” “sex-tied brain,” or “marriage donkey” are used in online feminist communities as shorthand for relationships and gender expectations that are dictated by patriarchy. These terms are not simply derived from another culture but are part of the process of generating feminist knowledge in China’s digital space through reading groups, translations, personal stories, glossaries, and discussion to learn and negotiate feminist concepts.

What makes 4B in China important, then, is not just its rejection of marriage, sex, or childbirth. What is important is how this resistance changes in an authoritarian digital environment. 6B4T may be a powerful statement of the emancipation of Koreans from patriarchy but is more muted in China, where direct feminist action could be less risky. Refusing marriage or reproduction may also be an individual act, as well as an indirect attempt to challenge the demands of society and state.

Transnational feminist movements do not travel alone. 4B and 6B4T came to China through digital media, but Chinese feminists transformed them through translation, local language, demographics, censorship, and their own lived experience. These communities are fragile, yet their existence demonstrates that surveillance does not erase feminist thought; it can push resistance in quiet ways: coded language, private communities, translation, mutual learning, and daily life. In China, the story of 4B is not really about importing a South Korean movement, but about how women refashion feminist ideas to survive, communicate, and resist a surveillance society.

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