When Vickie Wang, an emerging comedic talent, 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 government,” she stated. And when she does, she makes certain it isn't recorded for social media. “I would never publicly share content where I directly criticize the government … I think it's a habit from China.”
Wang, 39, lived in Shanghai for nearly a decade, leaving in 2022. By 2025, she moved to America. When she got there, she dove into a frenzy of “overindulging on freedom,” attending lectures, demonstrations, and delving into the city's library system.
But in the year since the president returned to office for the second time, there has been a noticeable shift in the environment, she notes. “In China, I knew where the line was, while here I'm standing on shifting sands.”
Her concerns reflect an emerging political reality in the US which numerous individuals from China, or those with experience in China, find disturbingly familiar. Opponents face exclusion. The leader expects total allegiance. Reporters face scrutiny. Establishments come under fire.
The president has openly expressed regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, China’s strongman leader. He's called Xi as “fantastic”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in the trade war recently, the camaraderie between the two leaders of countries with vastly different political systems became clear. And after decades of hope in America that improved relations with China could assist the rising power to liberalise, in the current administration, it appears that the US is being pulled in China's path, rather than the other way around.
“America is undergoing an era of cultural revolution,” said Zhang Qianfan, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The top leader, Donald Trump, is attempting to rally the masses in order to marginalize or weaken the elite … similar to what happened in China half a century ago.”
Ever since the administration initiated what's termed Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy early on of his term, numerous Chinese observers see American governance via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the rallying of the youth to carry out presidential directives, or purging institutions of those deemed opposition, the president as viewed from China has brought disorder reminiscent of Mao to America, though without the same levels of violence.
However after the upheaval of the early months under Trump has calmed, an unfamiliar, different kind of climate has settled in the country, which variously seems recognizable to many Chinese people.
‘The Beacon Is Less Bright’
The deepest similarity between Trump’s America and the East is the crackdown on free speech.
A former police officer, turned CCP dissenter, ended up in the eye of a storm this year, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in China. He has lived in America for several years, after escaping China due to pressure from officials.
In September, following the passing of Charlie Kirk, he posted that Kirk was “despicable”. Like people across the US – who lost their jobs as a result of making negative comments regarding him – he encountered significant backlash. His family had personal info leaked and he was accused of espionage seeking to divide the US.
“That event was a real shock. I never imagined that something like this would occur in America – something that should only happen in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.
His pile on originated from fellow social media users, rather than the government, but such of public monitoring also has similarities with China.
“In terms of targeting dissenters and monitoring open discourse on topics deemed controversial … It's appearing in the US,” said an academic, a scholar at Georgia State University. “That’s something that you see in the East now as too,” she added, stating that there were now fears in America of students reporting on teachers, a type of monitoring that has been encouraged by the CCP.
Zhang, the Peking University law professor, explained that progressive thinkers like himself used to look to the US for political inspiration, in part because public debate on internal affairs in China is risky. But now, “America is no longer some kind of god for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has worsened generally.”
“We once viewed the US as the symbol of democratic governance, but since the new administration, that guide seems to have become less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, typically, at least in private, skeptical about China’s political system, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than America’s, Zhang said. “It's somewhat difficult to acknowledge this … but post-COVID, authorities appears to be pursuing correct policies in improving the environment and developing electric cars and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “the West, as represented by the United States, seems to be in decline.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of shares in US companies has also drawn comparisons with China, where the line between state and private industry is often blurred.
On Monday, authorities stated it would become an investor in a startup specialising in mineral refinement, after taking similar stakes in other companies deemed essential for national security. The deals have left certain stakeholders concerned that the US is entering a new era of state intervention in the private sector.
Yet, there remain significant distinctions between the US under Trump and the East. Last month, multiple media outlets among others declined to agree to a defense department rule that demanded they only report on government-authorised information. American judiciary have blocked or overturned many of Trump’s actions, an action that would be unthinkable in the nation's party-dominated judiciary.
An analyst, who established of a consulting firm, a China-focused advisory firm, said: “The United States might face the worst crisis of its history, far more severe than currently, and it would remain more free, more open, and more liberal than the East under its leader.”
Zhang notes that while many intellectuals in the country were surprised to see US universities capitulate to official requests concerning diversity and inclusion practices and free speech on campus, in China, leading institutions are all state-owned inherently. University leaders, which are appointed by the state, “cannot of saying no. They dare not to be disobedient.”
Nevertheless, Americans are beginning to adopt measures previously confined to repressive regimes. An academic at a US university who was previously outspoken on bilateral matters declined to be interviewed for this article. He stated: “Honestly, I fear of suppression in the US: I actually feel more comfortable to criticise Xi these days than say anything bad
