Is Trump’s America at the start of a Soviet-style downfall?
Leading Chinese political scientist observes ‘unprecedented’ shifts in America and draws parallels to Mikhail Gorbachev’s reforms
America’s transformation under President Donald Trump has parallels with Mikhail Gorbachev’s reforms in the last years of the Soviet Union, and the effects will be felt throughout the democratic, regional and international orders, a prominent Chinese political scientist has warned.
In an article published last Friday in the Greater Bay Area Review, a social media account affiliated with the university, the political commentator said that deep structural tensions building in the United States during the post-Cold War era could only be resolved “either through radical reform or through an even more radical revolution”.
“Whether this revolution will unfold in a controlled manner, evolve into a genuine revolution or end halfway remains to be seen,” Zheng added. “What is certain, however, is that this revolution … must be profound.
“Otherwise, it will fail to address the structural crises confronting the US.”
Zheng said the collapse of major powers had historically reshaped at least four layers of order: the internal order of the state itself; the domestic order of states linked to it; the regional order governing relations between them; and the broader international order.
The Soviet Union’s “Gorbachev transformation” triggered all four, he observed, resulting in the country’s dissolution in 1991, the transformation of political systems in Eastern Europe, the Warsaw Pact’s collapse and the start of the post-Cold War era.
In 1985, Gorbachev introduced radical reforms aimed at reviving the country’s stagnant economy and overhauling its political system – steps that many observers later saw as unintentionally hastening the Soviet Union’s dissolution.
Zheng, who also advises the Chinese government, said the “Trumpian transformation” was raising the question of whether another such moment could be on its way.
He argued that Trump had altered US party politics – the foundation of American democracy – reshaping the Republican Party through populism and leaving no consensus between Republicans and Democrats.
Globally, the US used to play a leading role in promoting and expanding American-style democracy, he said, adding that the global backsliding of democracy was “unprecedented”, with the US retreating from its role.
Zheng described Trump as showing little interest in American democracy itself and not interested in exporting it across regions and countries.
According to Zheng, Trump was also largely undermining the core of US constitutional governance – the separation and balance of powers – pressuring the legislative and judicial branches and fundamentally altering the system.
Under the US Constitution, federal authority over American states was limited, he said, yet Trump had rapidly changed that, favouring Republican-led states and targeting those led by Democrats, even deploying the military to states and cities run by Democrats.
Zheng stressed that while Trump was driving these changes, they were not solely the product of his personal will but arose from structural tensions that had “deep social roots”.
“Trump could be seen as a ‘mediator’ of these changes,” he said. “Even without him, someone else was likely to drive them.”
The Trump administration was also shifting defence policy towards a focus on domestic defence and the western hemisphere, Zheng added, reforming the military in ways that some observers viewed as preparing it for a domestic conflict.
He saw Trump as prioritising domestic affairs, followed by regional issues like Mexico and Canada and then the broader “backyard” of Latin America, saying this approach would “deeply influence” the orders beyond America’s border.
“Today, regions around the globe are already witnessing a scenario of ‘rising powers competing with one another’,” he added.
Zheng said that in the long run this trajectory could yield a multipolar system but the feudalised nature of the international order was making regional and global conflicts, as well as the possibility of war, “highly likely”.
Zheng said Trump and Gorbachev sought to make their nations great again but their problems were different.
From a Marxist theoretical perspective, the heart of America’s problem was one of a superstructure and mode of production that had fallen behind its economic base and productive capacity, he said.
“Gorbachev’s reforms were intended to address the stagnation that the Soviet Union faced … Yet his radical approach ultimately led to the bloc’s collapse,” Zheng said. The US “does not face the same economic or technological stagnation”.
The US was still the world’s largest economy with the strongest military, he observed, and its economic and technological development was continuing at a fast pace.
No “Trumpian transformation” would alter the capitalist nature of the US, Zheng said, arguing that the only area Trump both needed and was able to reform was the country’s superstructure and mode of production.
“In this regard, will Trump’s revolution bring about a fundamental transformation of America’s traditional constitutional system?” he asked. “And while some Americans have labelled Trump a ‘fascist’, is this fascism a means or a goal? There is no definitive answer.”