NYT Equates Trump Admin With Mao’s Regime. Survivors Disagree

The New York Times published an article claiming President Donald Trump’s administration is pushing a Chinese-style “Cultural Revolution in America.” But survivors of the Chinese Cultural Revolution told The Federalist they disagree — and suggested the Times is pushing communist propaganda.

“They are evil — evil,” said Xi Van Fleet, a survivor of Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution. “The New York Times is personifying the People’s Daily, the CCP mouthpiece.”

Mao’s communist government killed up to 2 million people and sent thousands of its opponents to prison during the Chinese Cultural Revolution from 1966 to 1976. This followed the death of 30 million people in a famine caused by Mao’s so-called Great Leap Forward. 

Van Fleet was born in China, survived the Chinese Cultural Revolution, and “was sent to work in the countryside at the age of 16.” She escaped China at age 26 and has lived in America since 1986. She wrote the book Mao’s America, warning the United States about the potential for a cultural revolution in America.

The New York Times claimed that “[t]he young aides Elon Musk has sent to dismantle the U.S. government reminded some Chinese of the Red Guards whom Mao Zedong enlisted to destroy the bureaucracy at the peak of the Cultural Revolution.” In reality, however, the Red Guards were the violent enforcers of communism.

“The hallmark of Mao’s Cultural Revolution is the destruction of the ‘Four Olds’” — old ideas, old customs, old culture, and old habits of mind. “He wants to replace everything with his own supreme ideology, which is Maoism,” Van Fleet said. “In order to do that, he has to destroy everything. And how do they do that? Young people, the Red Guards.”

Van Fleet gave the Times the “benefit of the doubt,” but said members of the outlet should read her book to learn the true history.

“I have the grace to give them the benefit of the doubt. Read my book,” she said. “Otherwise I call them communists. They are communists, but I have the grace to say they just don’t know history.”

The New York Times cited a professor from Peking University who wrote an article “Contra Trump.” The Chinese professor implied Trump was advancing a “cultural revolution” by attacking the “deep state” — described as “a professional, rule-of-law bureaucracy.” 

Lily Tang Williams, another survivor of the Chinese Cultural Revolution, told The Federalist the Times’ article was “B.S.” She said it was “repeating CCP propaganda.”

“I survived it, Xi Van Fleet survived it, there are lots of Chinese Cultural Revolution survivors in this country, but The New York Times has no courage and no objectivity to talk to us,” said Tang Williams. “And they’re quoting a professor from Peking University who works for the CCP. Oh, that’s great journalism — congratulations New York Times.”

Tang Williams was born in China’s western Sichuan province to “poor working-class parents.” She grew up during Mao’s Cultural Revolution and experienced “extremely poor living conditions, food rationing, social chaos and oppressive Communist restrictions and indoctrination.” 

Helen Raleigh, a senior contributor for The Federalist, was also born and raised in communist China. She came to America as a college student with less than $100, but she has since become a successful political commentator and author. She wrote a book called Confucius Never Said about her family’s suffering under the communist regime.

“It’s so offensive for them to compare two vastly different scenarios and try to make a moral equivalency,” Raleigh said. “Trump is democratically elected; DOGE is cutting government waste. That’s totally different from the kind of social, cultural, and totally lawless destruction that the Cultural Revolution has done. … They use this very painful history and totally different scenario to deceive American readers …”

Raleigh said she grew up in China with “no press freedom,” and opposing Mao meant “you’re going to labor camp. You could be executed.”

The New York Times has shown a soft spot for communism in the past. As Raleigh reported for The Federalist, the paper published radical takes like “Women Had Better Sex Under Socialism.” The publication also asserted that communism taught “Chinese women to dream big.” The author of the article accusing Trump of initiating an American cultural revolution — Li Yuan — previously argued about Covid that “[t]he Wuhan virus outbreak was a tragedy — until Beijing changed the narrative.” And despite the country’s violent and draconian lockdowns, Yuan claimed China was “enjoy[ing] its own kind of freedom.” 

True Cultural Revolution

Van Fleet referred to Trump as an “anti-communist” and pointed out that “Mao was the grandfather of Marxist identity politics” — the same tactic the modern left uses. 

“He did that in China with class. He was able to classify people into two major classes: Black class and Red class. One is enemy, another is allies of the revolution,” Van Fleet said. “The only way to be … redeemed is to accept, conform, and obey. Just like today, ‘You’re white, you’re always a racist,’ but there is a way out — to become woke.”

“This is what The New York Times stands for. This is what the communist Democratic Party stands for. This is what the left stands for,” Van Fleet added. “And how dare they? How dare they compare the Trump administration, which is the exact opposite …”

Van Fleet said the Red Guards came “from the government schools, from the schools that Mao controlled and the CCP controlled that did nothing but indoctrination.” She said these schools produced “indoctrinated and ignorant and passionate and blindly loyal kids,” similar to “today’s BLMers, Antifa, and Hamas supporters, and Zelensky supporters.”

“That’s what Mao tried to do, to make all these young people revolutionaries,” Van Fleet said. “Here, they make the young people activists.”

Tang Williams fled China in 1988, coming to America and studying as a graduate student.

“They were trying to destroy American ideals, which brought me to this country,” Tang Williams said. “America is going through a cultural revolution. That’s why I got active in politics, because they are using the same tactics and same cultural revolution and strategies to destroy the culture.”

In the past, Tang Williams has pointed out the various similarities between America’s radical left and the Chinese Cultural Revolution.

Tang Williams pointed to the obvious — if Trump were a dictator, he would not have faced so much persecution as president and while running for reelection.

“If Trump was dictator, he would not be framed, impeached, canceled as a sitting president. He would not be indicted, fined, arrested, raided and shot when he was running for president. Who is dictator? Not him,” she said. “It is the left[ist] Marxists [who] started the cultural revolution in the U.S. from Obama to Biden; Trump’s America First movement is a counter cultural revolution.”

In November, Tang Williams unsuccessfully ran for Congress as a Republican in New Hampshire. But she gained publicity with a stunning performance while debating her opponent.

After she went on a speaking tour with the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, the Chinese Communist Party put her on a “blacklist” in 2019, she said. Tang Williams recently received a threat over X that the People’s Liberation Army would “crush your doggy head.” She said she has not seen her family in China for 10 years.

Tang Williams challenged The New York Times to a debate. “I challenge them — find five survivors of Mao’s Cultural Revolution from their side and I find the five from our side. All debate each other — great show.”

Logan Washburn is a staff writer covering election integrity. He is a spring 2025 fellow of The College Fix. He graduated from Hillsdale College, served as Christopher Rufo’s editorial assistant, and has bylines in The Wall Street Journal, The Tennessean, and The Daily Caller. Logan is from Central Oregon but now lives in rural Michigan.