During the Cultural Revolution, scientists and intellectuals were violently persecuted, universities were shut down, and research was labeled as counter-revolutionary, leading to a complete halt in scientific progress.
In contrast, the Trump administration’s cuts to NASA, NOAA, and other research institutions so far represent a more bureaucratic form of suppression, targeting funding and dismantling programs rather than physically persecuting scientists. However, both cases reflect a distrust of intellectualism, a prioritization of political loyalty over expertise, and long-term damage to national scientific progress. While China’s purge created a generational knowledge gap, the U.S. risks ceding global leadership in multiple areas of scientific research and climate science to other nations, likely echoing the stagnation China experienced post-1976.
