Latest news with #RedGuards
Nikkei Asia
3 days ago
- Nikkei Asia
Chongqing cemetery serves as serene Cultural Revolution warning
CHONGQING -- At a locked cemetery in Chongqing lives the memories of China's Red Guards, paramilitary groups established during the Cultural Revolution. It is said to be the only one of its kind, an important monument to a dark time in the country's history. The vast cemetery is closed to the public for most of the year. One exception is during Qingming Festival, also known as "tomb-sweeping day." At this year's festival in early April, a man in his late 30s was visiting the cemetery.
New York Post
27-05-2025
- Politics
- New York Post
The fight for liberty starts in the classroom — how one state is joining the battle
The purpose of public education in America was never just to teach basic literacy or vocational skills — it was to shape citizens capable of sustaining a free republic. Thomas Jefferson, the most forceful advocate for public education among the Founders, argued that knowledge was the first line of defense against tyranny. 'Educate and inform the whole mass of the people,' he wrote, 'They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty.' Advertisement Today, that mission has been betrayed. Instead of teaching students to resist despotism and preserve liberty, much of our education system has been captured by ideologues who program young people against our country's history and principles — causing disaster in our colleges and our streets. Advertisement It is the duty of every free citizen who cares about our country to stand against this perversion of our educational system. After communism's economic collapse, Marxist theorists didn't disappear, but simply changed strategies. Instead of class warfare between workers and owners, today's neo-Marxists divide society along cultural and identity lines: race, gender, sexuality. They've successfully infiltrated key institutions — universities, corporations and government agencies — where they now push radical theories that paint America as inherently oppressive. Advertisement The tactics are more subtle than those of the old Soviet Union, but the ideology remains just as hostile to individual liberty and the merit-based values that built American prosperity. Over decades, Marxist theorists recast education as a form of political activism. Their influence can be seen clearly in the rise of critical race theory within school curricula. In 2021, the head of Detroit's public schools admitted: 'Our curriculum is deeply using critical race theory, especially in social studies, but you'll find it in English language arts and the other disciplines. We were very intentional about embedding it.' Advertisement Yet our students are taught little to nothing about Mao's China, where over a million landlords were slaughtered and forced collectivization triggered the deadliest famine in history — so extreme that desperate families resorted to cannibalism. Up to 55 million people perished, a death toll larger than the combined populations of Florida and Texas. How many students ever hear about how Stalin's communists seized Ukrainian farmers' food, leaving millions to die gnawing on tree bark and grass? Or about North Korea's modern gulags, where prisoners lose limbs to frostbite after grueling 16-hour shifts on starvation rations? No: Instead of exposing atrocities, schools sanitize communism, repackaging it in euphemisms like 'equity' and 'social justice.' But history shows what those words meant in practice: in China, for instance, 'equity' meant dividing up food from seized farms equally, destroying incentives and causing famine. To Mao's Red Guards, 'social justice' meant making family members torture each other in 'struggle sessions.' If students were taught that this — and not free health care and housing in Scandinavia — is socialism, would they still sympathize with Marxist ideas? Advertisement Keep up with today's most important news Stay up on the very latest with Evening Update. Thanks for signing up! Enter your email address Please provide a valid email address. By clicking above you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Never miss a story. Check out more newsletters Moreover, we can't just teach students about gulags and famines, but also about the evolution of communist ideas to the present day. That will arm them with the knowledge and critical judgment to resist passively accepting whatever some future sociology professor tells them. That's why we're proud to have helped create and fund 'Liberty Over Communism,' a new high school program produced by the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute. Advertisement This comprehensive curriculum — combining historical analysis, survivor testimonies and modern-day applications — is teaching students both the brutal realities of communism and how its ideas have morphed into seemingly benign modern movements. Nothing in our Constitution requires taxpayers to fund communist indoctrination in our schools. But many schools and teachers are unlikely to teach this material voluntarily — and some even sympathize with these destructive ideologies. So legislation is essential. Lawmakers in Texas — led by Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, Sen. Donna Campbell and Rep. Jeff Leach — recently passed a bill I'm proud to have helped develop through the Cicero Institute. Advertisement It requires Texas schools to teach the truth about communism: the mass killings, the famines, the propaganda, and how those same ideas are showing up today under new, attractive branding. Students, starting in 4th grade, will learn how communist regimes crushed freedom — and how those tactics are still being used to silence dissent and push collectivist ideologies in America. And they won't just learn the 20th-century history: The bill requires content about current-day threats to the United States and its allies posed by communist regimes and activists, the evolution of communism from economic and class-based theories into broader cultural movements dividing our society, and modern methods used to spread them. Advertisement The battle for liberty begins at home — and in the classroom. As Jefferson warned, no nation can remain simultaneously ignorant and free. Joe Lonsdale is the co-founder of Palantir and managing partner of 8VC. Adapted from the Joe Lonsdale Substack.
Mint
24-05-2025
- Business
- Mint
Behind Xi's strongman image, a demanding father always loyal to the party
When President Trump paused his tariff fight against Beijing this month, prominent voices in China praised their leader Xi Jinping as having fended off American pressure with resilience and resolution. Beijing had taken a tough stance toward Trump's tariffs, retaliating with economic countermeasures and vowing to 'never kneel down" before foreign bullies. This defiance burnished Xi's self-styled image as a leader with absolute authority, one imbued with the fortitude and spirit of sacrifice needed to guide China's resurgence as a great power. These qualities, some historians say, have roots in Xi's formative years as a son of the revolutionary hero Xi Zhongxun, whose harsh parenting and unwavering loyalty to the Communist Party—throughout a tumultuous career rocked by years of persecution—seem to have inspired Xi Jinping to show the toughness his father demanded. Party lore celebrates the elder Xi as a stoic figure who fought bravely for the Communist revolution and stayed true to the cause despite being wrongfully purged under Mao. 'While some may wonder why Jinping would remain so devoted to an organization that severely persecuted his own father, perhaps the better question is, How could Jinping betray the party for which his father sacrificed so much?" historian Joseph Torigian writes in the first English-language biography of Xi Zhongxun, which offers fresh vignettes and insights into the father's influence on the Chinese leader. Many within the party elite misread Xi Jinping when he took power in 2012, expressing expectations that he would emulate his father's reputation as a reformer who helped open up China's economy and managed religious and ethnic minorities with a softer touch. Instead Xi used iron-fisted tactics to centralize power, squelch dissent and tighten party control over the economy and society. Xi's hard-line approach belies a deeper degree of continuity with his father, whose 'absolute devotion" to the Communist Party may have inspired his son's own commitment to it and its long-term rule, Torigian argues in 'The Party's Interests Come First." Xi Zhongxun joined the Communist Party as a teenager in 1928 and won Mao's trust as a revolutionary fighter. After the Communist victory in 1949, he took on roles as a regional leader, propaganda minister and vice premier, but was purged in 1962 for alleged 'anti-party" activities. Stunned by his downfall, the elder Xi told a friend that he felt like 'a person who fell off an eighteen-floor building," according to the biography. He was sent away from Beijing to work in a factory and separated from his family. During Mao's 1966-1976 Cultural Revolution, which began as Xi Jinping entered his teens, militant Red Guards abused Xi Zhongxun at public-shaming rallies and, according to party accounts which don't offer details, 'persecuted" one of his daughters to death. But Xi Zhongxun 'never abandoned his emotional attachment to Mao," writes Torigian, who describes how the patriarch—while still in political disgrace—made Xi Jinping memorize some of Mao's speeches. During a brief reunion in 1976, the father watched his son recite the speeches by heart while they both sat in their underwear, according to the book. 'Although the party betrayed Xi Zhongxun, Xi Zhongxun never betrayed the party," Torigian writes. The elder Xi was rehabilitated after Mao's death in 1976, serving as a provincial chief, a member of the party's elite Politburo and a senior lawmaker before being sidelined after the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests. A father of four daughters and three sons across two marriages, the patriarch died in 2002 at the age of 88. Xi Jinping is the elder of the two sons he had with his second wife, Qi Xin. Historians and people who knew Xi Zhongxun say he molded his son's character by imposing brutal discipline at home—including strict rules on frugality enforced with physical beatings—and by recounting tales of his revolutionary exploits. During the Mao era, Xi Jinping often faced persecution as a child of a disgraced official—experiences he later credited for hardening his character and schooling him on the vagaries of power. Xi Jinping 'does seem to have learned quite a bit from his father about the nature and dynamics of Chinese politics, which even insiders struggle to navigate successfully—including Xi's own father," said Jonathan Czin, a fellow at the Washington-based Brookings Institution and a former director for China on President Joe Biden's National Security Council. Xi Jinping showed reverence for his father, publicly and privately. Torigian recounts how the son would kowtow to his father at Lunar New Year gatherings, wait for the patriarch's go-ahead before taking his seat, and on one occasion even finished a piece of food that his father had started eating but found too difficult to chew. 'The ways in which Xi has gone out of his way to almost perform respect and obedience to his father…is striking," said Kerry Brown, director of the Lau China Institute at King's College London, who has written books on Xi. 'Xi [Zhongxun] respected toughness—Jinping was his favorite son precisely because of a belief that Jinping had the most 'mettle,'" writes Torigian. Xi Jinping has sought to demonstrate that mettle as China's leader. He has pursued a more assertive style of diplomacy to advance Beijing's interests and called on the Chinese people to show grit in adversity such as the Covid-19 pandemic and the current trade war with the U.S. The younger Xi's forcefulness in cleansing corruption and disloyalty within the party echoes his father's approach. Notwithstanding his reputation as being relatively liberal, Xi Zhongxun was zealous in implementing Mao's brutal purges, according to Torigian. During the 1942-1945 Yan'an rectification drive, a purge that Mao launched to consolidate power, Xi Zhongxun directed an 'aggressive hunt for spies" that led to many wrongful persecutions, according to the book. Suspects often made false confessions to avoid torture, sometimes while Xi watched. Entire classes of school children were denounced as enemy agents, Torigian writes. In the early 1950s, as a senior official overseeing northwestern China, Xi fervently enforced a Mao campaign to hunt counterrevolutionaries, saying that 'it is necessary to remember that the more bad people whom we kill, the more they will be afraid." 'Studying his father enables us to understand how Xi [Jinping] would have gained a view on how vicious elite-level politics in China was, and what would need to be done to stay in power," said Steve Tsang, director of the SOAS China Institute in London and co-author of a book on Xi's political ideas. Write to Chun Han Wong at
CNN
12-05-2025
- Politics
- CNN
In China, some see the ghost of Mao as Trump upends America and the world
Ding Xueliang spent his early teenage years in China as a fervent believer and practitioner of Chairman Mao Zedong's revolutionary ideals — but he never imagined those memories would one day be stirred by a sitting US president. In 1966, at just 13 years old, the son of poor farmers became one of Mao's Red Guards. He joined millions of young people across China to participate in the Cultural Revolution, a decade-long upheaval set off by an aging Mao to reassert his absolute control over the ruling Communist Party – with the stated goal of preserving communist ideology. Nearly six decades later, Ding is a distinguished scholar of Chinese politics based in Hong Kong, with a PhD from Harvard and a career teaching about the catastrophic movement he embraced. But in recent months, he has begun to see uncanny echoes of Mao's Cultural Revolution in an unexpected place: Donald Trump's America. To be clear, there are profound, incomparable differences between the deadly violence and chaos unleashed by a dictator in a one-party state, and an elected president's divisive attempts to expand executive power within a mature democracy. 'It's not identical,' Ding said. 'But there are certainly parallels.' As Trump upends the very institutions, alliances, and free trade order that have underpinned America's global dominance since World War II, some in China are reminded of their own former leader — one who wielded revolutionary zeal to tear down the old world more than half a century ago. In articles and social media posts, Chinese scholars and commentators have drawn comparisons between Trump and Mao. Some referenced the Cultural Revolution – at times obliquely to avoid censorship; others highlighted Trump's apparent appetite for chaos, and the rising signs of authoritarianism and personality cult within his administration. Since returning to the White House, Trump has upended the federal bureaucracy – dismantling agencies, purging officials and slashing civil service jobs. He has waged a war on ideology that conservatives deem 'woke' and attacked elite universities – including Ding's alma mater Harvard – for 'liberal indoctrination,' threatening to cut their federal funding. He's also pledged to bring manufacturing jobs back to the US and 'put American workers first.' And in the US president, Ding noticed what he said were striking similarities with the late Chinese chairman whom he once worshiped as a young Red Guard: despite their vast differences, they both share a deep contempt for intellectual elites, a strong mistrust of the bureaucratic apparatus, and a populist appeal aimed at farmers and blue-collar workers. During the Cultural Revolution, Mao's Red Guards declared war against the 'Four Olds' – old customs, old culture, old habits and old ideas – to erase remnants of China's pre-communist past. (It led to the widespread destruction of some of the country's most valuable historical and cultural artifacts.) That campaign stemmed from Mao's long-held belief in 'first destroy, then establish' – the idea that old systems, ideologies, or institutions must be demolished before new ones can be erected in their place. Coming from an impoverished family, Ding eagerly took part in public humiliation rallies against teachers, intellectuals, government officials and others labeled as enemies of Mao's vision. 'I was especially enthusiastic about the Cultural Revolution because I was born into a family of three generations of poor farmers — one of the 'five red categories.' At the time, I felt the Cultural Revolution was extremely important for us, it was wonderful,' he said. But as China learned over a harrowing decade, it's far easier to tear things down than to rebuild them. Mao's violent mass movement shut down schools, paralyzed the government, shattered the economy, destroyed religious and cultural relics – turmoil that only subsided after the leader's death in 1976. Historians estimate somewhere between 500,000 and two million people lost their lives. Now, some Chinese are looking at that tumultuous chapter of their own history to make sense of the change Trump is unleashing in America. Among Mao's most ardent admirers, there's a sense of pride that the US president appears to be borrowing from the revolutionary playbook of their esteemed supreme leader. One blogger likened Trump's February tweet — 'He who saves his Country does not violate any Law' — to Mao's iconic slogan: 'To rebel is justified.' 'Trump is adept at imitating Chairman Mao. Trump is China's true opponent,' the blogger concluded. Other Mao fans cheered Trump for cozying up to Vladimir Putin's Russia while snubbing Ukraine and Europe, said Wu Qiang, an independent analyst in Beijing who is studying Chinese perceptions of Trump. Ever since his first term, Trump has earned the nickname 'Chuan Jianguo,' or 'Trump, the nation builder' among Chinese nationalists — a mocking suggestion that he is making China stronger by undermining America. For some Chinese liberals, however, Trump's sweeping expansion of executive power and attacks on press freedom, academic independence and the rule of law in the first 100 days of his second term have sparked disbelief, frustration and disappointment. On Chinese social media, users voiced their disillusionment in the comment sections of US Embassy accounts, lamenting that America no longer resembles the ideal they once believed in. 'I always thought the US was a beacon to the world, standing for justice and fairness. But its recent actions have been completely disillusioning … Many Chinese people's faith in America has been shattered!' said a comment on the US Embassy's WeChat account. Others made oblique references to Mao. Underneath the embassy's post celebrating Trump's first 100 days in office, a Chinese user wrote: 'Sailing the seas depends on the helmsman.' That's the title of a revolutionary song eulogizing Mao, which became the popular anthem of the Cultural Revolution. Another wrote: 'The American people also have their own sun,' complete with a smirking dog emoji. Mao was extolled as the 'red sun of China' at the height of his personality cult during the mass movement. For years, Chinese liberals have quietly warned of a creeping return to the Cultural Revolution under Xi Jinping, the most powerful leader since Mao. A devoted student of the 'Great Helmsman,' Xi has steered China closer to strongman rule and curtailed individual freedoms in ways critics say are reminiscent of that era. And so, it was all the more striking for some Chinese liberals to witness an authoritarian turn seemingly unfolding in Washington, which under former President Joe Biden had framed the US competition with China as 'democracy versus authoritarianism.' Less than a month into Trump's second term, Zhang Qianfan, a constitutional law professor in Beijing, was already alarmed by the emergence of what he called an 'American-style Cultural Revolution.' 'The Cultural Revolution was essentially a power struggle,' he said. Mao was insecure about his authority, eroded by three years of famine caused by his disastrous 'Great Leap Forward' industrialization campaign; he was also suspicious of the establishment built by himself, claiming that 'representatives of the bourgeoisie' had sneaked into the party, the government, the army and the cultural spheres. Similarly, Trump believes the 'deep state' is out to get him. And like Mao, he turned to loyalists outside the establishment to reshape the system and bend it to his will, Zhang said. 'Mao unleashed the Red Guards to 'smash' the police, prosecutors, and courts, so that loyal revolutionaries could seize control of state machinery,' he said. 'Trump brought Elon Musk and six young Silicon Valley executives into the White House under the banner of eliminating corruption, waste, and inefficiency — akin to the 'Cultural Revolution Leadership Group' entering the party's central leadership.' Zhang was equally unsettled by the growing signs of a personality cult in Washington. Last month, when he saw a social media photo of a gold pin in the shape of Trump's profile worn on the chest of Brendan Carr, chairman of the US Federal Communications Commission, he initially thought it was fake news or a parody. In China, such a badge carries heavy political symbolism. During the Cultural Revolution, Mao's badges were worn ubiquitously by Red Guards and others as a public display of loyalty to the chairman and devotion to the revolution. 'During Trump's presidential inauguration speech, Republican lawmakers all stood up and applauded with such fervor that it rivaled North Korea. These are deeply troubling signs,' Zhang said. 'People are seeing all kinds of sycophancy in the US that would have once been unimaginable.' Trump has even publicly flirted with the idea of seeking an unconstitutional third term, saying he was 'not joking' and claiming that 'a lot of people want me to do it.' Mao ruled China until his death. Xi is serving a third term after abolishing presidential term limits in 2018 in a move praised by Trump. 'He's now president for life, president for life. And he's great,' Trump said at the time in closed-door remarks obtained by CNN. 'And look, he was able to do that. I think it's great. Maybe we'll have to give that a shot someday.' All the parallels aside, the first 100 days of Trump's second term are radically different from Mao's Cultural Revolution, which devastated China, saw millions of people persecuted and resulted in more than 1.7 million deaths, according to the party's own count. Unlike Mao, Trump did not mobilize youths across America to form a nationwide, self-organized political movement. 'The January 6 attack on the US Capitol was somewhat similar, but it didn't take off – it did not become a national rebellion in the US,' said Ding, the former Red Guard. To Ding, the two leaders also differ dramatically in their global ambitions. 'Whereas Mao's Cultural Revolution had a grand goal for China to replace the Soviet Union and become the sole guiding force for the global proletarian revolution, Trump's movement lacks such an ambitious, internationalist vision,' he said. 'Instead, Trump has utterly damaged America's image, credibility, and influence within the global camp of liberal democracies.' In many ways, Trump is reshaping the global order. He has disrupted the transatlantic alliance – a cornerstone of Western security for decades – and pushed Asian allies to pay more for US protection. He also narrowed the focus of his global tariff war squarely on China, effectively cutting off trade between the world's largest economies – until both sides announced a 90-day reduction in tariffs on Monday. Wu, the political analyst in Beijing, believes Trump has a substantial base of support in China – larger than many might expect. 'The enthusiasm for Trump — from intellectuals and elites to ordinary people — reflects a deeper dissatisfaction with China's current political system,' he said. For many Maoists, Trump has sparked their renewed yearning for a political movement that can bring China closer to what they see as the social equality and ideological purity of the Mao era, Wu noted. Some in the business community believe Trump's radical approach can finally push China to enact the painful reforms it needs. To Wu, their support of Trump signals a symbolic gesture: a longing for change. 'What they share is a desire to see a Trump-like movement, or even a Cultural Revolution-style political shakeup, take place in China — a way to break from the status quo,' he said. Zhang, the law professor in Beijing, said similarly, Trump's reelection reflected widespread political discontent in the US. 'In this context, America's 'Cultural Revolution' can be seen as a desperate response to the failure of democracy,' he said. But Zhang believes there's no need to be overly pessimistic. After Mao's final decade of turmoil and destruction, China moved away from the fervor of ideological and class struggles to focus on economic growth. It opened up to the world and embraced the global order that the US helped create, and the rest is history. 'After all, every country makes mistakes — what matters is whether it can correct them in time,' Zhang said. 'Right now in the United States, the breakdown and the repair of its social contract are locked in a race. If America can mend that contract before Trump and his MAGA movement inflict lasting damage…then there is still hope. The 'beacon of democracy' can shine again.'
CNN
12-05-2025
- Politics
- CNN
In China, some see the ghost of Mao as Trump upends America and the world
Ding Xueliang spent his early teenage years in China as a fervent believer and practitioner of Chairman Mao Zedong's revolutionary ideals — but he never imagined those memories would one day be stirred by a sitting US president. In 1966, at just 13 years old, the son of poor farmers became one of Mao's Red Guards. He joined millions of young people across China to participate in the Cultural Revolution, a decade-long upheaval set off by an aging Mao to reassert his absolute control over the ruling Communist Party – with the stated goal of preserving communist ideology. Nearly six decades later, Ding is a distinguished scholar of Chinese politics based in Hong Kong, with a PhD from Harvard and a career teaching about the catastrophic movement he embraced. But in recent months, he has begun to see uncanny echoes of Mao's Cultural Revolution in an unexpected place: Donald Trump's America. To be clear, there are profound, incomparable differences between the deadly violence and chaos unleashed by a dictator in a one-party state, and an elected president's divisive attempts to expand executive power within a mature democracy. 'It's not identical,' Ding said. 'But there are certainly parallels.' As Trump upends the very institutions, alliances, and free trade order that have underpinned America's global dominance since World War II, some in China are reminded of their own former leader — one who wielded revolutionary zeal to tear down the old world more than half a century ago. In articles and social media posts, Chinese scholars and commentators have drawn comparisons between Trump and Mao. Some referenced the Cultural Revolution – at times obliquely to avoid censorship; others highlighted Trump's apparent appetite for chaos, and the rising signs of authoritarianism and personality cult within his administration. Since returning to the White House, Trump has upended the federal bureaucracy – dismantling agencies, purging officials and slashing civil service jobs. He has waged a war on ideology that conservatives deem 'woke' and attacked elite universities – including Ding's alma mater Harvard – for 'liberal indoctrination,' threatening to cut their federal funding. He's also pledged to bring manufacturing jobs back to the US and 'put American workers first.' And in the US president, Ding noticed what he said were striking similarities with the late Chinese chairman whom he once worshiped as a young Red Guard: despite their vast differences, they both share a deep contempt for intellectual elites, a strong mistrust of the bureaucratic apparatus, and a populist appeal aimed at farmers and blue-collar workers. During the Cultural Revolution, Mao's Red Guards declared war against the 'Four Olds' – old customs, old culture, old habits and old ideas – to erase remnants of China's pre-communist past. (It led to the widespread destruction of some of the country's most valuable historical and cultural artifacts.) That campaign stemmed from Mao's long-held belief in 'first destroy, then establish' – the idea that old systems, ideologies, or institutions must be demolished before new ones can be erected in their place. Coming from an impoverished family, Ding eagerly took part in public humiliation rallies against teachers, intellectuals, government officials and others labeled as enemies of Mao's vision. 'I was especially enthusiastic about the Cultural Revolution because I was born into a family of three generations of poor farmers — one of the 'five red categories.' At the time, I felt the Cultural Revolution was extremely important for us, it was wonderful,' he said. But as China learned over a harrowing decade, it's far easier to tear things down than to rebuild them. Mao's violent mass movement shut down schools, paralyzed the government, shattered the economy, destroyed religious and cultural relics – turmoil that only subsided after the leader's death in 1976. Historians estimate somewhere between 500,000 and two million people lost their lives. Now, some Chinese are looking at that tumultuous chapter of their own history to make sense of the change Trump is unleashing in America. Among Mao's most ardent admirers, there's a sense of pride that the US president appears to be borrowing from the revolutionary playbook of their esteemed supreme leader. One blogger likened Trump's February tweet — 'He who saves his Country does not violate any Law' — to Mao's iconic slogan: 'To rebel is justified.' 'Trump is adept at imitating Chairman Mao. Trump is China's true opponent,' the blogger concluded. Other Mao fans cheered Trump for cozying up to Vladimir Putin's Russia while snubbing Ukraine and Europe, said Wu Qiang, an independent analyst in Beijing who is studying Chinese perceptions of Trump. Ever since his first term, Trump has earned the nickname 'Chuan Jianguo,' or 'Trump, the nation builder' among Chinese nationalists — a mocking suggestion that he is making China stronger by undermining America. For some Chinese liberals, however, Trump's sweeping expansion of executive power and attacks on press freedom, academic independence and the rule of law in the first 100 days of his second term have sparked disbelief, frustration and disappointment. On Chinese social media, users voiced their disillusionment in the comment sections of US Embassy accounts, lamenting that America no longer resembles the ideal they once believed in. 'I always thought the US was a beacon to the world, standing for justice and fairness. But its recent actions have been completely disillusioning … Many Chinese people's faith in America has been shattered!' said a comment on the US Embassy's WeChat account. Others made oblique references to Mao. Underneath the embassy's post celebrating Trump's first 100 days in office, a Chinese user wrote: 'Sailing the seas depends on the helmsman.' That's the title of a revolutionary song eulogizing Mao, which became the popular anthem of the Cultural Revolution. Another wrote: 'The American people also have their own sun,' complete with a smirking dog emoji. Mao was extolled as the 'red sun of China' at the height of his personality cult during the mass movement. For years, Chinese liberals have quietly warned of a creeping return to the Cultural Revolution under Xi Jinping, the most powerful leader since Mao. A devoted student of the 'Great Helmsman,' Xi has steered China closer to strongman rule and curtailed individual freedoms in ways critics say are reminiscent of that era. And so, it was all the more striking for some Chinese liberals to witness an authoritarian turn seemingly unfolding in Washington, which under former President Joe Biden had framed the US competition with China as 'democracy versus authoritarianism.' Less than a month into Trump's second term, Zhang Qianfan, a constitutional law professor in Beijing, was already alarmed by the emergence of what he called an 'American-style Cultural Revolution.' 'The Cultural Revolution was essentially a power struggle,' he said. Mao was insecure about his authority, eroded by three years of famine caused by his disastrous 'Great Leap Forward' industrialization campaign; he was also suspicious of the establishment built by himself, claiming that 'representatives of the bourgeoisie' had sneaked into the party, the government, the army and the cultural spheres. Similarly, Trump believes the 'deep state' is out to get him. And like Mao, he turned to loyalists outside the establishment to reshape the system and bend it to his will, Zhang said. 'Mao unleashed the Red Guards to 'smash' the police, prosecutors, and courts, so that loyal revolutionaries could seize control of state machinery,' he said. 'Trump brought Elon Musk and six young Silicon Valley executives into the White House under the banner of eliminating corruption, waste, and inefficiency — akin to the 'Cultural Revolution Leadership Group' entering the party's central leadership.' Zhang was equally unsettled by the growing signs of a personality cult in Washington. Last month, when he saw a social media photo of a gold pin in the shape of Trump's profile worn on the chest of Brendan Carr, chairman of the US Federal Communications Commission, he initially thought it was fake news or a parody. In China, such a badge carries heavy political symbolism. During the Cultural Revolution, Mao's badges were worn ubiquitously by Red Guards and others as a public display of loyalty to the chairman and devotion to the revolution. 'During Trump's presidential inauguration speech, Republican lawmakers all stood up and applauded with such fervor that it rivaled North Korea. These are deeply troubling signs,' Zhang said. 'People are seeing all kinds of sycophancy in the US that would have once been unimaginable.' Trump has even publicly flirted with the idea of seeking an unconstitutional third term, saying he was 'not joking' and claiming that 'a lot of people want me to do it.' Mao ruled China until his death. Xi is serving a third term after abolishing presidential term limits in 2018 in a move praised by Trump. 'He's now president for life, president for life. And he's great,' Trump said at the time in closed-door remarks obtained by CNN. 'And look, he was able to do that. I think it's great. Maybe we'll have to give that a shot someday.' All the parallels aside, the first 100 days of Trump's second term are radically different from Mao's Cultural Revolution, which devastated China, saw millions of people persecuted and resulted in more than 1.7 million deaths, according to the party's own count. Unlike Mao, Trump did not mobilize youths across America to form a nationwide, self-organized political movement. 'The January 6 attack on the US Capitol was somewhat similar, but it didn't take off – it did not become a national rebellion in the US,' said Ding, the former Red Guard. To Ding, the two leaders also differ dramatically in their global ambitions. 'Whereas Mao's Cultural Revolution had a grand goal for China to replace the Soviet Union and become the sole guiding force for the global proletarian revolution, Trump's movement lacks such an ambitious, internationalist vision,' he said. 'Instead, Trump has utterly damaged America's image, credibility, and influence within the global camp of liberal democracies.' In many ways, Trump is reshaping the global order. He has disrupted the transatlantic alliance – a cornerstone of Western security for decades – and pushed Asian allies to pay more for US protection. He also narrowed the focus of his global tariff war squarely on China, effectively cutting off trade between the world's largest economies – until both sides announced a 90-day reduction in tariffs on Monday. Wu, the political analyst in Beijing, believes Trump has a substantial base of support in China – larger than many might expect. 'The enthusiasm for Trump — from intellectuals and elites to ordinary people — reflects a deeper dissatisfaction with China's current political system,' he said. For many Maoists, Trump has sparked their renewed yearning for a political movement that can bring China closer to what they see as the social equality and ideological purity of the Mao era, Wu noted. Some in the business community believe Trump's radical approach can finally push China to enact the painful reforms it needs. To Wu, their support of Trump signals a symbolic gesture: a longing for change. 'What they share is a desire to see a Trump-like movement, or even a Cultural Revolution-style political shakeup, take place in China — a way to break from the status quo,' he said. Zhang, the law professor in Beijing, said similarly, Trump's reelection reflected widespread political discontent in the US. 'In this context, America's 'Cultural Revolution' can be seen as a desperate response to the failure of democracy,' he said. But Zhang believes there's no need to be overly pessimistic. After Mao's final decade of turmoil and destruction, China moved away from the fervor of ideological and class struggles to focus on economic growth. It opened up to the world and embraced the global order that the US helped create, and the rest is history. 'After all, every country makes mistakes — what matters is whether it can correct them in time,' Zhang said. 'Right now in the United States, the breakdown and the repair of its social contract are locked in a race. If America can mend that contract before Trump and his MAGA movement inflict lasting damage…then there is still hope. The 'beacon of democracy' can shine again.'
