Upon the many millennia of Chinese history, the land has been ruled by many different dynasties. In fact, some of these dynasties were not even ethnically Han. Non-Han groups such as the Manchus, Mongols, Jurchens and Khitans have ruled the empire for a total of nearly four centuries. Even more fascinating than their millitary conquests, however, is a recurring phenomenon that, over time, these non-Han rulers tended to absorb Chinese customs, language and culture: they Sinified. In this blog post I make the observation that, in a sense, the United States of America is currently undergoing its own process of political Sinification - just with a focus on some of China's least desirable traits.
Disclaimer: this post is semi-unserious, and its purpose is primarily to highlight some peculiar, ironic symmetries between the two countries and their political systems, especially given how fiercely U.S. rhetoric condemns the exact governance styles it now seems to be mimicking. The main counter point is that the term sinofication is traditionally used to describe a gradual cultural absorption - barbarian elites learning calligraphy, writing poetry, and wearing Han-style clothing. The American examples I'm looking at are more sudden shifts in how the regime rules and where it focuses its power. But if the U.S. is going to treat China as its ultimate geopolitical rival, it's worth pointing out when they start acting like a funhouse-mirror reflection.
In China, it is understood by the public that the media operates as state-run propaganda, and the people behave accordingly. In the United States, a similar dynamic exists, yet the public largely maintains the belief that their media landscape is open and free. This structural alignment with state interests is on a path to only get worse in the coming years.
Historically, the 1948 Smith-Mundt Act legally prohibited the State Department from broadcasting or disseminating "public diplomacy" - i.e. state propaganda - to domestic audiences, restricting its use to only foreign populations. However, in 2012, a bipartisan Congress passed the Smith-Mundt Modernization Act (later integrated into the National Defense Authorization Act), effectively lifting the ban on the domestic distribution of government-produced media. Furthermore, in the past fifty years, institutional ties between intelligence agencies and major news outlers are well-documented. Since the Cold War, through initiatives like Operation Mockingbird, the CIA has historically leveraged relationships with prominent media corporations to influence public narratives, both domestically and abroad. While decentralized social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook briefly seemed to offer an alternative in the 2010s, that independence has quickly eroded. Following the 2025 inauguration of Donal Trump's second term, major tech platforms have increasingly fallen in line to maintain political standing with the administration. Some have even used their media company to influence the election with bots and algorithm-steering. The untrustworthiness of this new-age internet is even further compounded by the proliferation of LLM-driven bot networks actively manipulating public opinion wherever online discourse takes place. More recently, control on the public narrative has become even more tight by the $111 billion buyout of Warner Bros. Discovery by David Ellison, the son of Oracle founder and Trump donor Larry Ellison. This buyout brings CNN and CBS news under control of the Ellison family. When combined with the established, obviously compromised media empires from people like Rupert Murdoch, a substantial portion of the American media landscape is now concentrated in the hands of a few figures closely aligned with the regime.
One of the most sought after professions in China is the position as a party official. Achieving a high rank in the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) provides long-term job security and financial stability for an official's family. Because of the highly centralized nature of the state, these officials hold high degrees of leverage over contract allocations, creating lucrative opportunities to trade state favors for personal assets or properties. Despite President Xi Jinping's ongoing anti-corruption campaigns, institutionalized corruption and bribery remains rampant in Chinese society. This fact is immediately noticable when visiting China and conversion with the locals: the unusually rich youth always seems to hail from families with notable positions in government.
Now, of course, the United States has always experienced political corruption, like any other country, honestly. The current level of corruption, as well as the visibility and the shamelessness of it however, is reaching an astounding level. For instance, federal ethics disclosures from may 2026 revealed Trump's trusts executed between $220 million and $750 million in stock transactions during just the first three months of 2026. In one instance, he placed a $100,000 order of $MU just one day before publicly praising as "one of the hottest companies" the company during a television interview. This, combined with financial markets receiving massive, highly profitable short positions on oil immediately preceding critical US governemnt announcements regarding the war with Iran (the source of these shorts are easily retrieved by regulators, but for some reason no investigation is performed, perhaps out of fear of retribution). Keep in mind that this shameless corruption is not unique to one party. Lawmakers across the political spectrum consistently place unusual stock orders, one of the more famous examples being democrat senator Elizabeth Warren.
In November 2021, Chinese tennis player Peng Shuai accused a senior Chinese party member of sexual assault. Instead of an investigation into the official or a removal of his position due to criminal behaviour and/ or violations of party discipline, Shuai's Weibo post was removed and the tennisser disappeared from public view.
In the USA, politicians and regime loyalists also seem to be able to get away with more stuff than regular people would. Take former congressman Matt Gaetz, who was accused of spending tens of thousands of dollars on sex & drugs while serving as a congressman, as well as paying for sex with a minor. However, the DoJ declined to press charges. Or, take one of the many pardons made after a generous donation (there's more than you think, the one more brazen than the other).
In pre-colonial history, the Chinese Empire utilized a tributary system where foreign leaders from states within China's sphere of influence would travel to the capital to exchange gifts with the emperor. These exchanges were not merely economic, they were formal rituals designed to signal a clear political hierarchy and inferiority to the emperor.
The modern united states operates its own version of this system, translated into corporate and foreign transactional access. For example, take Qatar's generous gift of a $400 million aircraft that is to be used as Air Force One, or the $2 billion dollar investment secured by the president's son-in-law Jared Kushner from Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund, what a great investor Jared is. Domestically, this modern tributary system is visible in the $256 million raised primarily from top corporate interests for the 2025 inauguration.
Unlike the ancient Chinese model, the American tributary system relies on corporate and foreign donors using massive financial allocations to signal political loyalty and guarantee future policy access.
One of the most common critiques of the current Chinese state is its all-encompassing surveillance network.
Thanks to the nationwide firewall, only communication among certain applications is possible. These
applications, of course, are required by law to share data with the government when asked. Besides
monitoring its citizens online, the hundreds of millions of cameras in the country are able to track
people's movement with the help of AI tools.
Over the last decade however, the US has been building their own surveillance and tracking network in a
similar vain to China. A primary driver of this ambition is Palantir Technologies. Founded by Trump loyalist
and JD
Vance groomer Peter Thiel, the company receives billions
of dollars in contracts from the US government to help advance surveillance data processing and
analysis.
Internationally, Palantir has been integrated into millitary operations. Most notably providing the Israeli
government with AI-powered threath
identification to help lethal targeting of children terrorists. There is much, much
more to say about Palantir and its presence in many western countries, but honestly researching this made me
quite cynical, so further research is left to the reader as an exercise.
Another dog of Trump, Marc Andreessen, recently went on Joe Rogan to talk about a company he backs called Flock Safety. Flock Safety utilizes street cameras and an AI-driven network to automatically track people and analyze their movement behaviour by, for example, tracking their license plates. In the podcast, it seemed like Marc had a difficult time defending against even the tiny amount of pushback Joe gave. But hey, municipalities pay for it, right?
As stated in the introduction, this political Sinification has little to do with the Sinification seen in the Chinese empire over the years. These are just some structural trends observed over the past few years. In fact, there are many more parallels, such as the interest in shifting to Chinese-style state-capitalism, as seen in the administration's 10% stake bought in Intel , alongside the widening wealth gap, the systematic bypassing of the legislative branch and a gradual erosion of protected free speech.