ChinaTalk23 Maj 2025

MAGA-Mao Connections with Orville Schell

What can Mao Zedong teach us about Donald Trump? To find out, ChinaTalk interviewed the legendary sinologist Orville Schell, who visited China during the Cultural Revolution and is currently at the Asia Society. We discuss… Mao Zedong’s psychology and political style, Similarities and differences between Mao and Trump, How Mao-era traumas reverberate in modern China, including how the Cultural Revolution has influenced the Xi family, How Zhou Enlai and Deng Xiaoping survived the Cultural Revolution, and which of their tactics could be useful in modern America, What civil society can do to defend democracy over the next four years. Co-hosting is Alexander Boyd, associate editor at China Books Review and former ChinaTalk intern. Read Orville's article, "Trump's Cultural Revolution," here. Read the Asia Society piece on religion and political power here. Orville's crazy Asia Society event, From Pontius Pilate to Chairman Mao: Religion and Politics https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opw9vqpPBqQ&ab_channel=AsiaSociety Book recommendations: Joseph Torigian - The Party's Interests Come First: The Life of Xi Zhongxun, Father of Xi Jinping Perry Link - The Anaconda in the Chandelier - ⁠excerpt⁠ from ChinaFile William Shirer - The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich Victor Klemperer - I Will Bear Witness: A Diary of the Nazi Years, 1933-1941 Outro music: Bach's Partita No. 1 for Solo Violin in B Minor, BWV 1002: VIII. Double, Gidon Kremer https://open.spotify.com/track/3x1Rdpgy6QGSlW9tItHYdm?si=20fa2051dc5d4f91 Aria from J.S. Bach Cantata 'Schwingt freudig euch empor' https://open.spotify.com/track/5pIy4Gll1YywqKX25EbbOb?si=520327db35f54201 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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