This study addresses a critical gap in understanding how queer and feminist counterpublics countered homophobic nationalism in China’s censored internet, as exemplified by the #WesternizedDaughter hashtag on Sina Weibo. Combining corpus-based critical discourse analysis (CDA) and van Dijk’s sociocognitive framework, we uncover both convergent and divergent resistance strategies: while both movements critique gender norms, Confucian values, and state censorship through evasive language, satire, collective identity appeals, and recontextualization, their tactical intensities starkly differ. Queer discourses prioritize lexical camouflage to exploit state ambivalence, whereas feminist discourses weaponize satirical hyperbole. These dynamics reveal a survivalist dialectic we term “co-opetition”: movements simultaneously compete for visibility in attention economies and collaborate to circumvent state erasure. This challenges the agonistic model of counterpublics as purely competitive spheres, instead reframing their relations under state censorship as strategically entangled. Our analysis complicates the “us-them” binary in both movements’ rhetoric—framing a “backward China” against a “progressive West”—by revealing underlying decolonial tensions. While strategic mirroring critiques dominant narratives, it also risks reinforcing Orientalist hierarchies. These insights highlight the need for inclusive advocacy in China, where effective resistance relies on tactical hybridity.