I live in Canada. My girlfriend is Chinese (also living in Canada), and while we are able to communicate via SMS, her mobile carrier isn’t the best, and so there have often been issues for us with regular texting. She expressed a strong preference to use WeChat, at least as a backup option for when texting fails us. While I have some pretty significant reservations, it’s not the hill I want to die on. So my question is: what can be done to use WeChat without compromising my whole phone? I’m okay with it if our conversations aren’t private, but I’d like to know that I’m not giving unfettered access to all of my phone’s systems and data to the CCP. What can be done to limit the reach of this ubiquitous app on my device?
Personally I’d be way more concerned with using OEM Android in the West than using wechat anywhere but if it’s really an issue for you then I’d say insist on trying session or signal… One of those are probably your best options if you’re worried about being spied on…
If she’s unwilling to try them or doesn’t like them then I guess you have to settle for wechat or traditional SMS (although without RCS I find SMS to be a trip to a previous decade lol)
Devil’s advocate here, session and signal do not work in China without a VPN