As the US tackles the upheavals unleashed by the Trump administration, many Chinese feel they can relate to what many Americans are experiencing.
They say they feel something like a cultural revolution known as “a decade of chaos.” Young aide Elon Musk reminded the Chinese government of the red security guards who the US government enlisted to destroy bureaucracy at the peak of the Cultural Revolution. Hearing President Trump meditated on serving in his third term, they joked that China's leader Xi Jinping must be saying, “I know how to do that.”
The US helped modernize and expand China in hopes that it would become like America. Today, to some Chinese, the US is increasingly appearing like China.
“As from an authoritarian state, I know that a dictatorship is not just a system, but a pursuit of power at its core,” journalist Wang Zian wrote in the X-Post criticizing Trump. “I also know that the Cultural Revolution was about dismantling the institutions to expand control.”
For these Chinese people striving for democratic values, but fighting authoritarian states, their role model is torn apart from itself. They have raised alarms in interviews, articles and social media comments, ranging from disappointment and anger to Saadnick.
“Beacon of Democracy, 1776-2025” wrote a commenter on a post by the Wybo social media account of the US Embassy in China.
They witnessed something they thought could only happen in China. In other words, the threats of media and top entrepreneurs who are fighting for favors from leadership, not to mention the president known as the King.
“I'm overwhelmed by the sense of familiarity. It feels like China,” Zhang Wenmin, an investigative journalist known for her pen name, Jiang Xue, told me. Chang was forced to leave China for her job and moved to the US in 2023.
Of course, the two countries are fundamentally different.
China is a one-party state that lacks the pillars of the three American system: freedom, democracy and the rule of law. Millions of Chinese people died during the Cultural Revolution and tens of millions were persecuted. What's happening in the US is far from there. “That's not a parallel at all,” told me Ian Johnson, an American journalist who has been writing about China for decades. “However, history is never accurate because history is not actually repeated,” he said, the American system is torn apart without external pressure, and this is similar to what the Communist Party did at the peak of the 1966 Cultural Revolution.
After the Cultural Revolution, which destroyed almost every institution in China, the country tried to build something like an American foundation. Despite official restrictions, lawyers, journalists and entrepreneurs built a budding civil society that sought to hold accountable to the government.
These are the Chinese who suffered most when suffocating their efforts to make China a more open and democratic society, and they are also the most disappointed in what is happening in the US.
They were shocked by the sudden change in US policies under President Trump. Most impressive is the language government agencies use in their social media posts. This tone sounds like propaganda from the Chinese Communist Party.
“Even at the CCP embassy, even all the publicity, doesn't spend every day obsessively praising Xi Jinping,” former police officer Deng Haiyan became a critic of the Chinese government.
“You'd think People's Daily has moved to the US Consulate,” he wrote, referring to the official Chinese Communist Party newspaper.
Wybo's official account of the US embassy in China, with 3.5 million followers, was once a platform for the US government to spread American values and reliable information. Chinese people who share these values may originate about their government using the comments section of their account.
R. Nicholas Burns, who was China's US ambassador until January, spoke about the importance of using social media to interact with the Chinese people. “One of the main preconceptions of our mission,” he said in a 2023 speech, “It's about trying to tell the truth about American society, American history, and US-China relations with Chinese people.”
He added that the true narrative was intended to counter the distorted version of the United States from official Chinese media. The Weibo account was intended as a Chinese message board on American values.
Over the past month, many of the embassy Weibo posts overlapped with some of the posts on the X account, and were flooded with angry comments from Chinese users expressing their disappointment.
“Shame!” Many Weibo users with IP addresses in China commented on posts about US policy towards Ukraine.
In a post about Trump's comments on human rights, one user wrote: “And do you think it's worth talking about human rights? You betrayed Ukraine!”
Changes to both the content and style of your Weibo account have led to one commenter bullying the account's social media editor. The embassy press declined to comment.
For many Chinese, the Washington turmoil is driven by a familiar impulse.
“The only way to dismantle America's 'deep state' is through the 'cultural revolution',” wrote Zhang Qianfan, a law professor at Peking University, in a widely circulated article on the erosion of American democracy. “A cultural revolution does not bring about honesty or efficiency. It's just the destruction of the rule of law, which is essential to the survival of everyone.”
The characteristics of authoritarian leaders, such as being surrounded by loyalists and trying to control the media, are not unique to China.
During the Cultural Revolution, Mao Zedong promoted semi-peasants to the duties of deputy prime minister and to the low-level executives at textile mills, becoming his lieutenant at the age of 38.
During his third term, Xi Jinping was surrounded by loyalty, many of whom did not go to elite Chinese universities. Also, unlike the members of the previous two Chinese regimes, he has no long experience working for the central government.
Last week, when the US Embassy in China posted on its Weibo account, the White House chose media that was allowed to participate in the presidential press pool, a user from Junggin, in Nanxi city, commented, “We will allow certain media outlets to choose to conduct interviews.”
One of the most surprising aspects of the Chinese is how quickly Trump is building a cult of personality.
After showing off his hat saying “Trump is right about everything,” X's user wrote in Chinese: Long Live Great Leader Trump President – Long Live, Long Live, Long Live! ”
Beijing-based journalist Li Weiao posted a video clip to Weibo. This shows that Trump enjoys standing ovation at the first cabinet meeting of his second term. “I think I really underestimated the dark side of human nature,” he wrote to Weibo.
“I feel that this rhythm of applause is very familiar,” the lawyer commented on Lee's post. Another commenter mentioned China, “like North Korea and its friends.”
In comments on my Chinese podcast episode, YouTube viewers wrote a parody of the White House announcement in the style of Communist Party propaganda.
“The entire Republican Party and the whole of America are united even closer around the White House Central Committee where President Trump is at his core, raising the great flag of American-style capitalism,” the user wrote. “We must fully implement Trump's new era of American capitalist thinking, continue to unite with purpose, innovate, preserve traditions, build resolve, and fight tirelessly to achieve the goals of the great Magazine!”
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