When Vickie Wang, an emerging performer, takes her platform in the Big Apple, she is not just considering which jokes to deliver. She also weighs which topics to avoid. “I don't engage in directly criticizing the administration,” she explained. And when she ventures there, she makes certain it isn't captured for online platforms. “I would never publicly share content in which I directly criticize the government … I think this is a learned behavior acquired back home.”
Wang, 39, lived in the Chinese metropolis for nearly ten years, leaving in that year. By 2025, she relocated to the US. When she got there, she embarked on a frenzy of “overindulging on democracy,” going to lectures, demonstrations, and delving into the city's public library.
However in the year after Donald Trump returned to office again, there's been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she says. “In China, I understood where the line was, whereas in the US I find myself on shifting sands.”
Wang’s concerns mirror a new climate in America which numerous individuals from China, or people with experience in the country, perceive as eerily similar. Enemies face exclusion. The leader demands absolute loyalty. Journalists face scrutiny. Establishments come under fire.
The president has not been shy about his admiration for China's leader, China’s strongman leader. He has described Xi as “fantastic”. When they reached a temporary truce in the trade war recently, the bonhomie between the two leaders of countries with diametrically opposed governance models was evident. Following years of hope in the US that closer ties with China could assist the growing nation to liberalise, in the current administration, it seems as if the US is shifting in China's path, rather than vice versa.
“The United States is experiencing an era of cultural revolution,” stated a constitutional law expert, a professor at a top Chinese university. “The president, Donald Trump, is trying to mobilise the masses in order to sideline or weaken the elite … similar to events in China decades past.”
Since Trump unleashed the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or Doge, on federal institutions at the start of his term, numerous Chinese observers have viewed US politics via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the mobilisation of the youth to execute presidential directives, or cleansing institutions of perceived enemies, the president as viewed from China has brought disorder reminiscent of Mao to the US, albeit absent the same levels of violence.
But after the turmoil of the early months under Trump subsided, a new, different kind of political atmosphere has emerged in the US, which variously seems familiar to numerous Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Is Dimmer’
The deepest similarity between Trump’s America and the East is the suppression on free speech.
Deng Haiyan, turned CCP dissenter, found himself in the eye of a storm this year, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in China. He has lived in America for several years, having fled the country due to harassment from the authorities.
Last fall, following the passing of a public figure, he posted that the individual was “despicable”. Similar to others across the US – who lost their jobs for making negative comments about Kirk – Deng faced a huge backlash. His family was doxed and he faced allegations of espionage attempting to create division.
“This incident surprised me deeply. I never imagined such a thing could happen in the United States – what typically happens in a repressive state,” he commented.
His backlash came from fellow social media users, instead of the government, but such of social surveillance bears parallels with the East.
“In terms of targeting dissenters and starting to surveil public speech on topics deemed controversial … It's appearing here,” noted Maria Repnikova, a scholar at Georgia State University. “That’s something that you see in China now as well,” she said, stating that concerns are rising in America of pupils informing against teachers, a type of surveillance promoted by the CCP.
Zhang, the legal expert, explained that progressive thinkers such as him used to look to America for political inspiration, since openly discussing domestic politics in the country is dangerous. But now, “America isn't a ideal for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has worsened across the board.”
“We once viewed America as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, that guide appears less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, typically, at least in private, critical of China’s political system, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than the US's, he stated. “It’s sort of painful to accept this reality … but post-COVID, authorities seems to be doing the right thing in improving the environment and developing electric cars and tech investment,” he noted, while “Western nations, exemplified by the United States, seems to be declining.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of stakes in American firms has prompted comparisons with the East, where the distinction between government and business is frequently unclear.
On Monday, authorities stated it will take an investor in a new company specialising in rare earth processing, after taking comparable shares in other companies it considers essential for national security. The deals have made certain stakeholders nervous that the US is embarking on a fresh phase of state intervention in private industry.
There are still significant distinctions between Trump’s America and China. Last month, several news organisations among others refused to sign to a defense department rule that demanded they only report on approved news. American judiciary have blocked or overturned many of Trump’s actions, an action that is impossible in China’s CCP-controlled judiciary.
An analyst, the founder of a consulting firm, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “America might face its gravest challenge of its history, far more severe than it is now, and it will still be more free, open, and liberal than the East under its leader.”
Zhang notes that although many intellectuals in the country were surprised to see US universities capitulate to government demands regarding DEI policies and open discourse on campus, in China, leading institutions are publicly controlled by default. Administrators, who are selected by the government, “cannot refuse. They can’t afford to be disobedient.”
Nevertheless, Americans are starting to take precautions previously confined to more authoritarian countries. An academic at an American college once outspoken on bilateral matters refused to speak for this article. He stated: “The truth is, I am scared of the censorship in the US: I actually feel more comfortable to criticise Xi now than say anything bad
