An Interview with Xi Van Fleet, Author of Mao’s America: A Survivor’s Warning

In your new book, Mao’s America: A Survivor’s Warning, you make a passionate case that history is eerily repeating itself. While sharing your own experiences of surviving the horrors of the Chinese Cultural Revolution and communism, you alert us to the dire warning that a similar revolution is unfolding here and now. We’d love to hear more…

How did you step into the world of political activism? 

I felt compelled to warn Americans of the dangers of Marxism and Communism by sharing with them with my own experience of living through the Chinese Cultural Revolution, but I did not know where to start or even how to go about doing it. After seeing an episode of Dan Bongino’s show in which he urged people to take action by joining their local conservative groups, I did exactly that. I joined the Loudoun County Republican Committee and, later, the Loudoun County Republican Women’s Club. I answered the club’s call for parents to go and speak at the Loudoun County school board. My speech went viral. That’s how I stepped into the world of political activism. I am an accidental activist. I never dreamed of becoming an activist nor a public speaker.

You begin our book with the statement that 2020 was a watershed moment in American history. How so?

In 2020 when I saw BLM, Antifa, and radical progressives burning and terrorizing our cities in the name of social and racial justice, memories of the chaos of the Chinese Cultural Revolution came back to me. I had not the slightest doubt that what I saw happening in America was exactly what I witnessed in China more than 50 years ago: a Marxist Culture Revolution. Mao’s Cultural Revolution destroyed China. From personal, “lived” experience I know both how the story begins and how it can possibly end. I feel the Woke Revolution will destroy America. 

Can you describe what the Chinese Cultural Revolution looked like through your eyes?

If I have to use one word to describe it, it was CHAOS. It was indeed a world turned upside down full of insanity and violence. Things we had taken for granted were condemned as bourgeois and counter-revolutionary and needed to be canceled or destroyed. We were asked to question everything that was traditional. And we were told there were enemies of Mao (oppressors) in the mist of us which could even include friends, neighbors, family members, even our own parents and that we needed to expose and report them if discovered. Everyone was frantically trying to align themselves with the “correct” side (oppressed) to avoid ending up as the target of the Red Guards.

Acclimating to life in America was a process—you note it took years to unlearn the mindset of Mao’s China. What were some of the first differences you saw?

One of the first differences I noticed that there was such a diversity of ideas and opinions. Growing up in Mao’s China, I was so used to one way of thinking, the correct way of thinking approved and governed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Unfortunately, more than 30 years later, I see that America is becoming more like the China I left. We are told through Wokeism that there is only one correct way of thinking. If you question it, you will be called a racist, a bigot, or an extremist.

You write: “I consider it unique, maybe even privileged, that in my lifetime I have experienced not just one but two of the most important cultural revolutions in human history, Mao’s Great Proletariat Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) and the American Cultural Revolution of the 2020s.” How is the cultural revolution you are seeing today giving you warnings reminiscent of what you experienced in China?

The revolution in China and the revolution taking place here are both cultural Marxist revolutions. Both aim at dismantling the society and its tradition. Both impose a Cancel Culture. Both use identity politics to divide people and set them against each other. Both weaponize youth to carry out the revolution by indoctrination. Both share the same goal: achieve absolute power for a few to rule over the many.

True or false: “freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction.” Should we heed this warning today?

I wish I understood this earlier. I had taken freedom for granted, like many Americans. I thought I had escaped Communism for good after coming to America. I thought freedom was automatic. Now I know better. Freedom is indeed fragile. It requires that we safeguard it with constant vigil. We are at the point of losing our freedom to totalitarianism if we don’t fight to defend it.

What is one thing our readers can do today to influence change and prevent history from repeating itself?

Wake up others by sharing what you’ve learned.

Xi Van Fleet

About the Author

Xi Van Fleet was born in China, lived through the Cultural Revolution, and was sent to work in the countryside at the age of 16. After Mao’s death, she was able to go to college to study English and has lived in the United States since 1986. In 2021, she delivered a school board speech in Loudoun County, Virginia, against against Critical Race Theory that went viral and ignited national media attention. She now devotes her time and energy full time to warning about the parallels between Mao’s Cultural Revolution in China and what’s unfolding in America today. Since going public with her message, Xi Van Fleet has appeared on Fox News, Newsmax, and radio shows and podcasts across the country.

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