When Vickie Wang, a rising performer, takes the stage in the Big Apple, she is not just considering which jokes to deliver. She also carefully considers which topics to steer clear of. “I refrain from openly criticizing the administration,” she explained. Or if she does, she ensures it's not recorded for online platforms. “I would never publicly share material where I directly criticize authorities … I think this is a learned behavior from China.”
Wang, thirty-nine, resided in the Chinese metropolis for almost ten years, leaving in 2022. By 2025, she relocated to the US. Upon arrival, she embarked on a frenzy of “overindulging on freedom,” attending lectures, protests, and exploring the city's library system.
But over the past year after Donald Trump returned to office for the second time, there has been a noticeable shift in the environment, she says. “In China, I understood the boundaries, while here I find myself on unstable ground.”
Her fears mirror a new climate in the US which many Chinese, or those with experience in China, find disturbingly familiar. Opponents are ostracised. The leader expects absolute loyalty. Journalists are targeted. Establishments come under fire.
The president has openly expressed regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, the nation's strongman leader. He's called Xi as “fantastic”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in the trade war recently, the camaraderie between both figures of countries with vastly different political systems became clear. And after decades of hope in the US that closer ties with the East may help the rising power to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it seems as if the US is being pulled in China's path, instead of the other way around.
“The United States is experiencing an era of cultural revolution,” said Zhang Qianfan, an academic at Peking University. “The president, Donald Trump, is attempting to rally the masses to sideline or weaken the elite … similar to what happened in China half a century ago.”
Since the administration initiated what's termed Department for Government Efficiency, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy early on in office, numerous Chinese observers have viewed American governance through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the rallying of young people to execute presidential directives, or purging organizations of perceived enemies, Trump as viewed from China has delivered Mao-style chaos to the US, albeit without the same levels of force.
However since the upheaval of the initial period of the new administration subsided, an unfamiliar, different kind of climate has settled in the US, which variously also feels recognizable to numerous Chinese people.
‘The Lighthouse Has Become Dimmer’
The most profound parallel between the US today and China is the crackdown on free speech.
Deng Haiyan, turned CCP dissenter, ended up in a controversy this year, similar to what he once faced in China. He has lived in America since 2019, having fled the country due to harassment from the authorities.
Last fall, after the death of Charlie Kirk, Deng tweeted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Similar to others across the US – who lost their jobs for expressing criticism about Kirk – he encountered significant backlash. Relatives had personal info leaked and he was accused of being a Chinese spy attempting to create division.
“That event was a real shock. I hadn't thought such a thing would occur in the United States – something that typically happens 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 parallels with China.
“In terms of going after dissenters and monitoring open discourse on topics that are sensitive … That’s starting to emerge here,” noted Maria Repnikova, a scholar at a US university. “This is that you see in the East today as well,” she said, stating that concerns are rising in the US of pupils informing against educators, a type of monitoring promoted by the CCP.
Zhang, the Peking University law professor, said that progressive thinkers such as him once turned to the US for ideals, since public debate on domestic politics in the country is risky. But now, “The US isn't some kind of god for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has worsened generally.”
“We used to see America as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, that guide appears dimmer”.
Chinese liberals, who are often, at least in private, critical of China’s political system, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than America’s, he stated. “It's somewhat difficult to acknowledge this … but post-COVID, authorities seems to be doing correct policies in improving the environment and promoting EVs and tech investment,” he noted, while “Western nations, as represented by America, seems to be in decline.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of shares in US companies has prompted comparisons with the East, where the distinction between government and business is frequently unclear.
On Monday, the US government announced it would become a shareholder in a new company specialising in mineral refinement, following similar stakes in other companies it considers vital to national security. These moves have made certain stakeholders concerned that the US is entering a new era of state intervention in private industry.
There are still significant distinctions between Trump’s America and the East. In October, several news organisations among others declined to agree to a defense department rule that required they only report on approved information. American judiciary have halted or reversed many of presidential measures, an action that is impossible in China’s party-dominated judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of Strategy Risks, specializing in China, commented: “The United States might face the worst crisis of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it will still be freer, more open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang notes that although numerous scholars in China were shocked to see American colleges yield to official requests concerning diversity and inclusion practices and free speech on university grounds, in the East, leading institutions are publicly controlled by default. University leaders, which are appointed by the state, “cannot refuse. They dare not defy orders.”
Nevertheless, Americans are beginning to adopt measures that were once confined to more authoritarian countries. One professor at an American college who was previously vocal on US-China issues refused to be interviewed for this article. He said: “The truth is, I am scared of the censorship here: I actually feel less afraid to criticise Xi now than say anything bad
