'I missed you very much': China's social media darling returns

A Chinese influencer, with a huge global following and the approval of the Communist Party, has returned to the internet after a three-year hiatus.

Famous for idyllic videos of life with her grandmother in a village in Sichuan province, the 34-year-old has released three videos since Tuesday - and they have millions of views already.

Li first rose to fame in 2016 when China's fast-growing social media users found comfort in her slow-paced videos about cooking and traditional handicraft.

Her return, welcomed by fans around the world, comes amid a government crackdown on influencers whose content they deem "inappropriate".

Li's hiatus followed a dispute with the agency that managed her accounts. In late 2021, she filed a lawsuit against the company over rights to her brand and stopped uploading new videos. They settled in 2022, but Li didn't return to the internet until Tuesday.

In recent months, several influencers disappeared from Chinese internet as officials stepped up efforts to "rectify" online culture by targeting those accused of tax evasion, spreading disinformation and flaunting wealth.

But Li is among those who has survived official censure. Her huge following on YouTube and TikTok, which are banned in China, has led to questions about whether her videos are akin to soft propaganda.

She certainly appears to have the approval of the Party. State-run Xinhua news agency released an interview with her the day after her return. It's rare for state media to interview influencers.

In the interview, Li said she had spent the past three years "catching up on sleep" and taking her grandmother to see the "outside world". Now she has "a higher goal", she added, and would "try her best".

Li has always been a darling of state media. Xinhua called her the "vlogger who amazes the world with China's countryside life" and China Daily praised her for "spreading Chinese culture to the world".

For Beijing, Li's rose-tinted videos encourage tourism and echo President Xi Jinping's call for a Chinese culture renaissance. A Chinese soup noodle dish known for its distinctive smell became a hit after it was featured in a video.

Her videos also offer a distraction from the realities of rural China, which is poorer and older than the country's bustling cities.

Li shot to fame internationally during the pandemic, when China's relationship with the West began to sour. Locked in their homes, millions of people abroad were fascinated with her videos. China's lockdowns, while harsh and sweeping, were largely enforced in the cities.

As Li's brand thrived, she began selling food and sauces under her name on the Chinese e-commerce platform Taobao. In 2020, local media reported that sales of her products exceeded 1.6bn yuan ($220m; £172m).

By 2021 then she had become the most popular Chinese-language vlogger on YouTube, where she has more than 20 million followers. Another three million follow her on TikTok.

On Tuesday, she announced her return with a 14-minute video on all her social media accounts - including Chinese platforms Weibo, Douyin, Xiaohongshu, as well as YouTube and TikTok.

The video, which shows her making a wardrobe for her grandmother using the traditional lacquering technique, has been viewed more than 10 million times on YouTube and more than three million times on TikTok.

"I missed you very much," she told her fans in a post.

And they felt the same: "When the world needed her [the] most, she returned. Welcome back," a top-liked YouTube comment reads.

Another comment liked more than 13,000 times on Weibo says: "We need the slow-paced Li Ziqi in this age of information explosion."

"Did anyone else literally cry happy tears?," says another comment. "I'm so glad to see her gran doing so well! So happy to see you back."