As the US grapples with the upheaval unleashed by the Trump administration, many Chinese language persons are discovering they’ll relate to what many People are going by way of.
They’re saying it feels one thing just like the Cultural Revolution, the interval often called “the last decade of turmoil.” The young aides Elon Musk has despatched to dismantle the U.S. authorities reminded some Chinese language of the Crimson Guards whom Mao Zedong enlisted to destroy the paperwork on the peak of the Cultural Revolution. Upon listening to President Trump’s musing about serving a 3rd time period, they joked that China’s chief, Xi Jinping, should be saying, “I understand how to do it” — he secured one in 2022 by engineering a constitutional change.
America helped China modernize and develop its economic system within the hope that China would change into extra like America — extra democratic and extra open. Now for some Chinese language, the US is trying increasingly more like China.
“Coming from an authoritarian state, we all know that dictatorship is not only a system — it’s, at its core, the pursuit of energy,” Wang Jian, a journalist, wrote in an X publish criticizing Mr. Trump. “We additionally know that the Cultural Revolution was about dismantling establishments to develop management.”
For these Chinese language, who attempt for democratic values however deal with an authoritarian state, their function mannequin is tearing itself down. They’re expressing their alarm in interviews, articles and social media feedback that vary in emotion from disappointment and anger to sardonic.
“Beacon of democracy, 1776-2025,” wrote a commenter on a publish by the official Weibo social media account of the U.S. Embassy in China.
They’re witnessing issues they thought may occur solely in China: sycophantic official bulletins, intimidation of the media and prime entrepreneurs vying for favor from the management, to not point out a president who calls himself a king.
“I’m overwhelmed with a way of familiarity — it feels a lot like China,” Zhang Wenmin, an investigative journalist recognized by her pen title, Jiang Xue, instructed me. Ms. Zhang was compelled to go away China due to her work and moved to the US in 2023. “I’ve simply gotten out of the frying pan and into the hearth,” she stated.
In fact, the 2 international locations are essentially totally different.
China is a one-party state missing in three pillars of the American system: liberty, democracy and the rule of legislation. Tens of millions of Chinese language died in the course of the Cultural Revolution, and tens of tens of millions had been persecuted. What’s taking place in the US is way from that. “It’s not precisely parallel,” Ian Johnson, an American journalist who has been writing about China for many years, instructed me. “However historic parallels are by no means actual as a result of historical past doesn’t actually repeat itself.” The American system is tearing itself aside with no outdoors strain, he stated, and that is much like what the Communist Occasion did on the peak of the Cultural Revolution in 1966.
After the Cultural Revolution, which destroyed almost all establishments in China, the nation tried to construct one thing like these American foundations. Regardless of official restrictions, legal professionals, journalists and entrepreneurs constructed a budding civil society that attempted to carry the federal government accountable.
These are the Chinese language who suffered probably the most when Mr. Xi smothered efforts to make China a extra open and democratic society, and so they’re additionally probably the most disenchanted at what’s taking place in the US.
They’ve been shocked by the abrupt modifications in U.S. coverage underneath President Trump. Most placing is the language authorities businesses have utilized in social media postings. The tone, individuals say, appears like Chinese language Communist Occasion propaganda.
“Even the CCP’s embassy posts, with all its propaganda, doesn’t spend each single day obsessively praising Xi Jinping,” Deng Haiyan, a former police officer turned critic of the Chinese language authorities, wrote on X.
“You’d assume Folks’s Day by day had moved into the U.S. Consulate,” he wrote, referring to the official newspaper for the Chinese language Communist Occasion.
The official Weibo account of the U.S. Embassy in China, which has 3.5 million followers, was a platform for the U.S. authorities to spread American values and dependable info. Chinese language who share these values would typically use the remark sections of the account to vent about their very own authorities.
R. Nicholas Burns, who was the U.S. ambassador in China till January, talked concerning the significance of utilizing social media to work together with the Chinese language public. “One of many main preoccupations of our mission,” he stated in a speech in 2023, “is to attempt to inform the reality about American society, American historical past, U.S.-China relations to the Chinese language individuals.”
That fact telling, he added, was meant to counter a distorted model of the US from the Chinese language official media. The Weibo account was supposed as a Chinese language-language bulletin board about American values.
Previously month, lots of the embassy’s Weibo posts, which overlap with a few of the posts on its X account, had been flooded with offended feedback from Chinese language customers expressing disappointment.
“Disgrace on you!” many Weibo customers with IP addresses in China commented on posts concerning the U.S. insurance policies towards Ukraine.
On a publish about remarks Mr. Trump made about human rights, one person wrote: “And also you assume you’re worthy of speaking about human rights? You betrayed Ukraine!”
The modifications of each content material and elegance on the Weibo account led one commenter to tease the account’s social media editor: “Blink twice for those who’ve been kidnapped.” The embassy press workplace declined to remark.
For a lot of Chinese language, the chaos in Washington is pushed by a well-recognized impulse.
“The one approach to dismantle America’s ‘deep state’ is thru a ‘Cultural Revolution,’” Zhang Qianfan, a professor of legislation at Peking College, wrote in a extensively circulated article concerning the erosion of American democracy. “The Cultural Revolution brings neither honesty nor effectivity — solely the demolition of the rule of legislation important to everybody’s survival.”
The traits of authoritarian leaders, akin to surrounding themselves with loyalists and attempting to manage the media, are usually not distinctive to China.
Throughout the Cultural Revolution, Mao promoted a semiliterate peasant to the workplace of vice premier and a low-level cadre at a textile mill to be his deputy on the age of 38.
For his third time period, Mr. Xi has surrounded himself with loyalists, lots of whom didn’t go to elite Chinese language universities. Neither have they got prolonged expertise working within the central authorities, in contrast to members of the earlier two Chinese language administrations.
Final week, when the U.S. Embassy in China posted on its Weibo account that the White Home would pick the media shops allowed to take part within the presidential press pool, a person within the southwestern metropolis Chongqing commented, “Selectively permitting sure media shops to conduct interviews — such a well-recognized tactic.”
For Chinese language, one of the crucial astonishing features is how briskly Mr. Trump appears to be constructing a cult of persona.
After he confirmed off hats that stated “Trump was proper about every part,” a person on X wrote in Chinese language: “Mao Zedong of America has been born! Lengthy dwell the nice chief Chairman Trump — lengthy dwell, lengthy dwell, lengthy lengthy dwell!”
Li Weiao, a Beijing-based journalist, posted a video clip on Weibo that reveals Mr. Trump having fun with a standing ovation at his first cupboard assembly in his second time period. “I believe I actually underestimated the darkish facet of human nature,” he wrote on Weibo.
“The rhythm of this applause feels so acquainted,” a lawyer commented on Mr. Li’s publish. One other commenter wrote: “Identical to North Korea and its pal,” referring to China.
In a comment on an episode of my Chinese language-language podcast, a YouTube viewer wrote a parody of a White Home announcement within the model of Communist Occasion propaganda.
“Your entire Republican Occasion and all of America should unite much more carefully across the White Home Central Committee with President Trump at its core, holding excessive the nice banner of American-style capitalism,” the person wrote. “We should totally implement Trump’s New Period American Capitalism Thought, keep united in goal, uphold custom whereas innovating, forge forward with willpower, and combat tirelessly to realize the nice MAGA purpose!”
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