It is difficult in China to discuss the horrors of the Cultural Revolution openly. The dark period from 1966 to 1976, when millions of people were persecuted, many of them to death, by fanatical gangs unleashed by Mao Zedong, is skated over in official histories. Under Xi Jinping the subject is even more taboo. He describes reflection on Mao-era atrocities as “historical nihilism”—a threat, as he sees it, to the Communists’ grip on power. Yet in online discussion of American politics, censors provide leeway. When mocking or lamenting the Trumpian world, Chinese netizens often refer to the Cultural Revolution. Their comments are revealing.
Differences between America today and 1960s China are far more numerous, and more profound, than any superficial similarities. There is nothing about life under Donald Trump that compares with the terror of that time, nor do online commentators in China suggest there is. To them, the Cultural Revolution is usually a shorthand for chaos unleashed by a strongman who, with the help of his ardent followers, attacks established institutions that he sees as restraints on his power. On that level they find enough analogies to play with, and appear to relish the chance.
Their views reflect a broad spectrum of political beliefs. There are cheerleaders for the Communist Party. “The us is currently in a state similar to the wg,” said a user with nearly 200,000 followers on Weibo, a microblog. (wg stands for Wen Ge, or Cultural Revolution; the initials are commonly used to evade filters that block forbidden terms). He predicted a side-effect in China: a complete collapse of belief in liberalism.
Various features of Mr Trump’s rule recall the Maoist mayhem. One is the appointment of an outsider, Elon Musk, to lead the assault on the federal bureaucracy, just as Mao’s wife, Jiang Qing, was put in charge of his “Cultural Revolution Leading Small Group”, tasked with “bombarding the headquarters”. Mr Musk’s young helpers are compared to the gangs of Red Guards; Mr Trump’s ill-qualified Cabinet members to Mao’s neophyte picks for the Politburo. “He who saves his Country does not violate any Law,” tweeted Mr Trump on February 15th. As some note, that was like Mao’s rallying of Red Guards in 1966 with what became the Cultural Revolution’s catchphrase: “To rebel is justified.”
Some voices are more liberal. “What’s called the ‘American Cultural Revolution’ is just the corrective mechanism in the American system at work,” argued a blogger on WeChat, a social-media platform. Comment sections on the Chinese-language Weibo account of the American Embassy in Beijing brim with anti-Trump sentiment. Some of it contains sadness about what commenters describe as America’s decline as a beacon of democracy. Elsewhere online, however, Mr Trump’s anti-wokeness is admired, with some denouncing the political correctness of the Democratic Party as an actual “cultural revolution”.
At the other end of the political spectrum, even members of China’s neo-Maoist fringe acknowledge Mao-like features of Mr Trump’s leadership style. “The centre of the mass democratic revolution has shifted from China to the United States,” enthused Zhang Hongliang, a prominent Mao-worshipper. “The ideological flowers of the Cultural Revolution in China in the 20th century are bearing rich revolutionary fruits” in America, he wrote, seemingly without irony. In his crystal sarcophagus, Mao might be turning at the thought. ■
Subscribers can sign up to Drum Tower, our new weekly newsletter, to understand what the world makes of China—and what China makes of the world.