When Vickie Wang, an emerging comedic talent, steps onto her platform in the Big Apple, she is not only considering what humor to tell. Additionally, she weighs which topics to steer clear of. “I refrain from directly attacking the government,” she explained. Or if she ventures there, she ensures it's not recorded for online platforms. “I would never publicly share material in which I directly criticize authorities … I think it's a learned behavior acquired back home.”
Wang, 39, lived in Shanghai for nearly ten years, departing in that year. By 2025, she moved to the US. When she got there, she dove into a frenzy of “overindulging on freedom,” attending lectures, protests, and exploring New York’s library system.
However over the past year since the president was elected for the second time, there's been a noticeable shift in the atmosphere, she says. “Back home, I understood the boundaries, whereas in the US I find myself on unstable ground.”
Her fears reflect an emerging climate in America which numerous individuals from China, or those who have lived in the country, find eerily similar. Enemies face exclusion. The president demands absolute loyalty. Reporters are targeted. Establishments come under fire.
The president has openly expressed about his admiration for China's leader, China’s strongman leader. He's called him as “fantastic”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in economic tensions recently, the bonhomie between both figures of nations with diametrically opposed political systems was evident. Following years of optimism in America that improved relations with China could assist the rising power become more open, in the current administration, it appears as if America is being pulled in the Chinese direction, rather than the other way around.
“The United States is experiencing an era of cultural revolution,” stated Zhang Qianfan, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The top leader, Trump, is trying to mobilise the grassroots to sideline or undermine established figures … similar to what happened in the country decades past.”
Ever since the administration unleashed what's termed a government streamlining body, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start of his term, numerous Chinese observers see US politics through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the rallying of young people to execute presidential directives, or purging organizations of those deemed opposition, the president as viewed from China has delivered Mao-style chaos to America, though absent equivalent degrees of violence.
But after the turmoil of the early months under Trump subsided, an unfamiliar, distinct type of political atmosphere has settled in the US, which in different ways seems recognizable to many Chinese people.
‘The Beacon Has Become Dimmer’
The most profound parallel between Trump’s America and China is the crackdown on free speech.
A former police officer, turned CCP critic, found himself in a controversy this year, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in China. He resided in the US for several years, after escaping the country because of pressure from the authorities.
Last fall, following the passing of a public figure, Deng tweeted that Kirk was a “scumbag”. Similar to others nationwide – many of whom lost their jobs for expressing criticism about Kirk – Deng faced a huge backlash. His family was doxed and he was accused of being a Chinese spy attempting to create division.
“This incident surprised me deeply. I hadn't thought that something like this could happen in America – what should only happen in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.
His pile on came from fellow social media users, instead of the government, but such of social surveillance also has similarities with the East.
“Regarding targeting dissenters and monitoring open discourse about issues deemed controversial … It's appearing in the US,” noted an academic, a scholar at a US university. “This is that you see in the East today as well,” she said, adding that concerns are rising in America of pupils informing against teachers, a type of monitoring that has been encouraged by the CCP.
Zhang, the legal expert, said that progressive thinkers such as him used to look to America for political inspiration, in part because public debate on internal affairs in the country is risky. But now, “America is no longer some kind of god for progressive Chinese. America’s image has worsened generally.”
“We used to see the US as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, that guide seems to have become dimmer”.
Progressive Chinese, typically, at least in private, critical of the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than the US's, he stated. “It’s sort of painful to accept this reality … but post-COVID, the government seems to be doing correct policies in improving the environment and promoting EVs and investing in hi-tech,” he noted, while “Western nations, as represented by America, seems to be in decline.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of stakes in US companies has also drawn parallels with China, where the line between government and private industry is often blurred.
Recently, the US government stated it will take a shareholder in a new company focused on mineral refinement, after taking similar stakes in other companies deemed essential for the country's safety. These moves have made some investors concerned that the US is entering a new era of government meddling in the private sector.
There are still significant distinctions between the US under Trump and the East. Last month, multiple media outlets among others declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that required reporting solely on approved news. US courts have halted or overturned numerous presidential measures, something that would be impossible in the nation's party-dominated legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, said: “The United States could descend into the worst crisis of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it will still be freer, more open, and liberal than the East under its leader.”
Zhang notes that while many intellectuals in China were surprised to see US universities capitulate to government demands concerning diversity and inclusion practices and free speech on university grounds, in the East, the top universities are publicly controlled inherently. Administrators, who are appointed by the government, “cannot refuse. They can’t afford defy orders.”
Nevertheless, people in the US are beginning to take precautions previously confined to more authoritarian countries. One professor at a US university once vocal on US-China issues declined to speak for this article. He said: “Honestly, I fear of suppression here: I genuinely feel less afraid to criticise Xi these days than say anything bad
