On a rainy Friday night in late May, Wang Jian was preparing for his broadcast. Sitting in the garage apartment behind his Boston-area home, he ate dinner while speaking to me in Mandarin, gesturing with his fork. “I’m very sensitive to what Trump does,” he said. “When Trump holds cabinet meetings, he sits there while people around him shower him with praise. It reminds me of Mao Zedong. Trump sells the same package: a mix of populism, small-town shrewdness, and ‘I have money’ attitude.”
Beside him stood a rack of professional shirts and jackets that the 58-year-old journalist wears on air. He sipped from what seemed like a bottomless cup of green tea, which would later be replaced by coffee. By 11 PM, he would cross the room, switch on his ring lights, and begin the continuous commentary for his YouTube news program, “Wang Jian’s Daily Observations.” Though it was a slow news night, he would talk until nearly 1 AM—his second broadcast of the day, catering to different time zones and audiences.
With over 800,000 YouTube subscribers, Wang represents a small but influential segment of Mandarin-language media. He’s among the media professionals who have left Hong Kong and mainland China over the past decade, and one of the few who now produce news and analysis videos on YouTube. His audience includes Chinese expatriates and mainlanders who bypass China’s internet firewall, tuning in for insights that propaganda, censorship, and disinformation often obscure.
Wang’s fans appreciate his entertaining yet professional style. “He’s very objective, I think,” one told me. His delivery shifts from the measured tone of a seasoned newscaster to the personal asides of a slightly skeptical university professor. He often poses rhetorical questions like, “Is this how a U.S. president should speak?” followed by his favorite English interjection: “C’mon.”
Since Trump’s inauguration, I’ve been watching Wang on YouTube, recommended by a journalist at a major Chinese news outlet who regularly checks his broadcasts. “He’ll be perfect for you,” they said, noting how Americans enjoy viewing themselves from an outside perspective.
Through Wang’s lens, U.S. politics appears both more comical and more perilous. He consistently centers China in his broadcasts, offering a “been there, done that” perspective on authoritarian tendencies. He positions the U.S. on a historical trajectory we often claim to have moved beyond. “Americans are like the second-generation rich of democracy,” he told me, born into it without understanding life without it. In contrast, Chinese people “have been bullied by rulers for thousands of years. We’re very familiar with these situations.”
While Wang acknowledges that many American reporters cover China competently, he laughed when I asked about U.S. media coverage of their own country. “If I were the New York Times, I’d be putting curse words on the front page every day,” he said. “F-word, F-word, F-word.”
In the U.S., the narrative about China shifts constantly. We briefly thought the pandemic outbreak in Wuhan would be a “Chernobyl moment” for the regime, but it wasn’t. We intermittently marvel at how China builds rail systems so quickly and worry about it surpassing us in AI development. China’s rise amplifies our sense of national decline. In April, a New York Times op-ed by Thomas Friedman was headlined, “I just saw the future. It wThe Chinese Communist Party prioritized the well-being of the party and the people over factual accuracy. In 1990, Wang secured a reporting job in Hong Kong, then under British administration, where press freedom was stronger—though residents couldn’t elect their own leaders.
Wang found himself in a unique position to write candidly about his new home and his former country. He earned several journalism awards while working at the daily newspaper Ming Pao and later joined Sing Tao Daily in 2001, the city’s oldest Chinese-language paper. By then, Hong Kong had returned to Chinese rule, and while Sing Tao operated independently, it maintained close connections with Beijing. Wang eventually led the paper’s international expansion, setting up offices in New York, Toronto, and San Francisco. He visited these cities but didn’t explore much, spending his time working or dining with Chinese expatriates. (“If you ask my impression of the U.S., I didn’t have one! My only impression of New York was Chinatown.”)
Hong Kong reporters held a distinctive role at the time. In an authoritarian system, reliable information is precious, and Hong Kong journalists had some access to Chinese officials. “This access made Hong Kong media influential not only with Chinese audiences but also with officials, who saw it as an alternative information source,” explained Rose Liuqiu, a journalism professor at Hong Kong Baptist University. This was especially true for economic reporters like Wang.
The job required diplomatic skill. Charles Ho, owner of Sing Tao Daily, had strong ties to Beijing but famously remarked that following directives 100% would diminish his value to Chinese authorities. Wang’s own work balanced attracting readers, reporting facts, and navigating the concerns of a global power.
This delicate balance in Hong Kong’s media didn’t hold. As business links with Beijing grew, so did fears of self-censorship. After pro-democracy protests in 2014, prominent editors and journalists faced violent attacks. Next Media founder Jimmy Lai had his home firebombed multiple times, and Ming Pao editor Kevin Lau was hospitalized after a cleaver assault in the street. By 2016, Wang chose to retire, believing Hong Kong’s press freedoms were declining and wouldn’t regain the openness that had shaped his youth.
Wang stepped back to focus on raising his young daughter while his wife continued in real estate. After visiting his sister-in-law in San Francisco in late 2018, he decided to move his family to the U.S., convinced Hong Kong offered little future. He reasoned his daughter could attend high school there. By the time we met, Wang shared that many of his friends from outlets like the now-closed Apple Daily had either fled or were imprisoned.
Wang thought his journalism days were over, but his talkative nature had other plans. In 2019, he began hosting informal weekend gatherings at his sister-in-law’s house. With Trump launching a trade war against China, many Bay Area acquaintances, mostly in tech, wanted to discuss current events. The weekly group grew, and it was his sister-in-law who suggested…Mr. Wang moved his conversations online and out of his backyard. By the end of the year, he had launched his YouTube channel, which began as a casual, informal show. Then the pandemic struck, and Wang returned to being a professional. “Suddenly, it felt serious,” he told me. “I had a responsibility.”
Wang quickly gained an audience, especially after he started broadcasting twice a day—his strategy relies on volume. The pandemic pushed people online, and China was restricting information from locked-down cities. One regular viewer I spoke with, a government worker in China who wished to remain anonymous, discovered Wang during a strict lockdown when they were stuck at home. They still tune in daily for economic updates, hoping to find news that might not be circulating freely between towns. “Through the comments, you get a sense of what’s happening locally in China,” they said.
Eventually, Wang hired a few researchers, some of whom were journalists who had left Hong Kong after the 2019 crackdown, paying them with ad revenue from his broadcasts. He also started a membership program, a Patreon page, and began selling a limited range of products. The tea he offers on YouTube, he told me, was sourced by a fan. “We don’t make any money on the tea,” he laughed. “I’m the one who buys most of it.”
Wang and others like him are part of an influencer ecosystem often called “KOLs” in China, short for “Knowledge and Opinion Leaders”—a term that likely originated in Hong Kong. These KOLs compete for attention with Western media like Joe Rogan and Fox News clips. Most KOLs avoid politics, posting on TikTok or XiaoHongShu about beauty trends or daily life. Within China, many influencers have the tacit approval of the CCP. For example, Li Ziqi runs the most popular Mandarin-language program on YouTube and also posts on mainland sites, showcasing an idealized version of rural life with traditional crafts and calming music. Political KOLs are less common in video content, and those in China either support the CCP or risk having their accounts blocked. One, known as Gu Ziming, is famous for repeatedly creating new accounts after his old ones are shut down by censors.
When I visited Wang on a Friday evening, his researchers—who also preferred to stay anonymous—had submitted potential topics for the night via a shared Google document. They joked about Trump’s negotiation tactics (“No one trusts him!”) and wondered why a major job recruitment platform in Shanghai had stopped reporting salaries (“It means they’re afraid to release the report”). They rearranged the topics in the order Wang planned to discuss them. At times, Wang questioned the news they brought and encouraged them to find more sources.
The proposed topics included elections in South Korea, a systemwide shutdown of San Francisco’s BART trains, and a Texas ban on Chinese nationals buying property. “Have those Chinese living in Texas done nothing?” Wang asked. “No resistance or protest?”
“I think there were protests before,” a researcher replied over the phone. “But it turns out they’re making exceptions for some people; otherwise, you need a green card.”
“That’s fine, then,” Wang responded. “Don’t go t”So, I’m thinking of buying a house in Texas. Housing prices there are dropping anyway. It’s a very conservative state, and I can really sense the direction it’s heading.” That topic made it into the broadcast.
Years ago, when I began covering China’s media scene, I saw it as a contrast to the more chaotic and open media in the West. Now, it feels more like a funhouse mirror—a distorted, exaggerated reflection of something that’s essentially the same. Chinese readers have always been skeptical of their news sources. In the U.S. and much of the West, media remains largely free and unrestricted, but facts themselves are increasingly under assault.
Researcher Wang Yaqiu notes a divide she observes in both the U.S. and China: those with political power, wealth, or sufficient education and drive will go to great lengths to find reliable information. This was the case when Wang Jian started his career in Hong Kong, where Communist Party officials once trusted Hong Kong media as a credible source. It’s still true today, as reliable information often comes at a price—whether paying for subscriptions or using a VPN to bypass the Great Firewall. Wang’s program is free to watch, but accessing it requires knowledge, motivation, and skill. As Wang Yaqiu pointed out, good information and the ability to find it are increasingly tied to privilege and money—on both sides of the Pacific. “The rest of us,” she said, “will all be swimming in the same trash.”
Wang isn’t often asked what to do about the authoritarian trends he comments on in the U.S. He’s been in this position most of his life—reporting from Hong Kong as its democratic freedoms eroded, and now from the U.S. His distance gives him a bird’s-eye view, allowing him to see events as both amusing and alarming. At the same time, he holds a stubborn, somewhat traditional belief in the value of news. After a lifetime navigating the line between truth and falsehood, Wang believes people construct their realities based on what’s available to them: their experiences, teachers, and the media they consume. They’re reasonable; they just need access to reliable information.
In recent months, as political violence and censorship have increased in the U.S., he’s spoken more about journalism’s importance. When Charlie Kirk was assassinated in September, Wang quickly and calmly outlined Kirk’s record: “Kirk promoted conservatism and Christian nationalism,” he told his viewers. “He denied vaccine effectiveness. After Kirk’s death, Trump ordered flags to fly at half-mast.” The next day, Wang made a fresh case for his profession: “Media’s role is to help everyone hold power accountable,” he said. “China castrated the media.” A few days later, he revisited the theme: “How do you change your destiny? You change it with knowledge. How do you gain knowledge? You read the news.”
Wang issues warnings, but his work is fundamentally hopeful. He often reflects on his own arrival in Hong Kong: walking the streets, looking at buildings, and marveling that he could simply look up who owned them—something impossible back home. Reading old copies of Life magazine, he began questioning the Communist Party’s version of history. It was an epiphany. “My mission is to give everyone a chance to change their view of the world,” Wang told me, switching from tea to coffee. “That’s the value of this program. You need to know the world is made of countless puzzles, and what’s happening in the U.S. is one of them.”
On the night I visited, Wang wrapped up around 1 a.m. He thanked his audience and sighed.For a moment, he let his weariness show. He requested upvotes and follows, adding, “Become a member and help support us.” Then he ended with his usual closing words: “Broadcast better. Be better.” You can listen to our podcasts here and subscribe to the long read weekly email here.
Frequently Asked Questions
Of course Here is a list of FAQs about the statement A Chinese journalist describes Americans under Trump as inheriting democracy like secondgeneration heirs to a fortune
BeginnerLevel Questions
1 What does this comparison actually mean
It means the journalist is suggesting that Americans didnt have to fight for their democracy they were simply born into it much like a child who inherits a fortune without having to work for it
2 Who made this statement and why is it significant
The statement was made by a journalist from Chinas staterun broadcaster CCTV Its significant because it offers a foreign stateapproved perspective that is critical of American democracy framing it as taken for granted and poorly managed by its citizens
3 What is a secondgeneration heir
In this context its a Chinese term for the children of wealthy families who inherit their parents fortune It often carries a negative connotation of being spoiled irresponsible and unappreciative of the hard work that created the wealth
4 Is the journalist saying American democracy is a good thing
No quite the opposite The comparison is critical It implies that Americans are careless with their democratic system because they didnt have to struggle to establish it
Advanced Analytical Questions
5 What is the underlying message China is trying to send with this analogy
China is promoting its own model of governance by contrasting it with the US They are suggesting that their system which they view as more disciplined and meritbased is superior to a Western democracy they portray as chaotic and entitled
6 How does this relate to the concept of democratic backsliding
The analogy directly addresses democratic backslidingthe idea that democracies can weaken from within The journalist is arguing that Americans like careless heirs are allowing their democratic institutions to decay through political polarization misinformation and a lack of civic engagement
7 What historical events is the journalist referring to when they say inherited
They are referring to the American Revolution and the founding of the US constitutional republic The point is that modern Americans are the beneficiaries of that 18thcentury struggle but may not be actively upholding its principles
8 Isnt this just propaganda
Yes from a Western perspective this is a classic piece of geopolitical propaganda It uses a vivid relatable metaphor to
