A charismatic leader comes to power on a wave of populist rage against elites, dismissive of pesky ideas about civil liberties and free speech, and supported by a cadre of yes-men who rally around bright-red imagery.
Sound familiar?
As the New York Times reports, Chinese people inside and outside the communist country are comparing the beginning of Donald Trump's second administration to the so-called Cultural Revolution, the decade-long period of unrest that ushered longtime chairman of the Chinese Communist Party Mao Zedong into power nearly 60 years ago.
"Coming from an authoritarian state, we know that dictatorship is not just a system — it is, at its core, the pursuit of power," Wang Jian, a Chinese journalist based in Japan, wrote in a since-deleted X post cited by the newspaper. "We also know that the Cultural Revolution was about dismantling institutions to expand control."
Zhang Wenmin, another Chinese reporter, now lives in exile in the US after being forced to flee China in 2023 amid a years-long crackdown on investigative journalism. In an interview with the NYT, Wenmin — who also goes by Jiang Xue, her pen name — said she feels like she got "out of the frying pan and into the fire."
"I’m overwhelmed with a sense of familiarity," the journalist said. "It feels so much like China."
Though the two countries have major differences — China is under the single-party rule of the Chinese Communist Party, while the US still has a two-party system and remains democratic, at least for now — the similarities have become so jarring that one detractor jokingly suggested that Trump is outdoing the country's current leader, Xi Jinping.
"To be honest, the media of the Chinese Communist Party’s embassies abroad, which have been deeply rooted in people’s minds and hearts, do not go out of their way to praise Xi Jinping every day," opined Deng Haiyan, an ex-cop who later became critical of the government and eventually left for the US, in a Chinese language X post. "But the US Embassy in China really does praise President Trump every day and in every article."
Perhaps most biting, however, was a joking comparison to Mao made in response to the unveiling of the US president's hats that read "Trump was right about everything."
"Mao Zedong of America has been born!" the account, which has fewer than 600 followers, tweeted. "Long live the great leader Chairman Trump — long live, long live, long long live!"
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