When Vickie Wang, an emerging comedic talent, takes her platform in the Big Apple, she's not only considering which jokes to tell. Additionally, she weighs what subjects to avoid. “I refrain from directly criticizing the government,” she stated. Or if she ventures there, she makes certain it's not recorded for social media. “I'd never publish openly material in which I openly disparage authorities … I believe it's a habit from China.”
Wang, thirty-nine, resided in the Chinese metropolis for nearly a decade, departing in that year. In 2025, she relocated to the US. When she got there, she dove into an intense period of “revenge bingeing on democracy,” attending talks, demonstrations, and exploring the city's public library.
But in the year after the president was elected for the second time, there's been a noticeable shift in the environment, she notes. “Back home, I knew the boundaries, while in the US I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Wang’s fears reflect an emerging political reality in America which many Chinese, or people with experience in the country, find disturbingly similar. Opponents face exclusion. The president expects total allegiance. Reporters are targeted. Establishments come under fire.
Trump has not been shy about his admiration for Xi Jinping, the nation's authoritarian figure. He has described him as a “great guy”. When they reached a temporary truce in economic tensions on Thursday, the camaraderie between the two leaders of countries with diametrically opposed governance models became clear. And after decades of hope in America that closer ties with China could assist the growing nation to liberalise, in the current administration, it seems that America is shifting in China's path, instead of the other way around.
“The United States is undergoing an era of cultural revolution,” said a constitutional law expert, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The top leader, Trump, is attempting to rally the masses in order to sideline or undermine established figures … similar to what happened in the country half a century ago.”
Ever since Trump initiated what's termed Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy early on in office, numerous Chinese observers have viewed US politics via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the mobilisation of the youth to carry out presidential directives, or cleansing organizations of those deemed opposition, Trump from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered Mao-style chaos to the US, albeit absent the same levels of force.
However after the upheaval of the early months of the new administration subsided, an unfamiliar, distinct type of climate has settled in the US, which in different ways seems recognizable to numerous Chinese people.
‘The Beacon Is Less Bright’
The deepest parallel between Trump’s America and China is the crackdown on free speech.
Deng Haiyan, turned CCP critic, ended up in the eye of a storm this year, similar to what he once faced in his homeland. He resided in the US since 2019, after escaping the country due to harassment from the authorities.
Last fall, following the passing of Charlie Kirk, he posted that Kirk was a “scumbag”. Like people nationwide – many of whom lost their jobs as a result of making negative comments about Kirk – he encountered a huge backlash. His family was doxed and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy seeking to divide the US.
“This incident surprised me deeply. I never imagined that something like this could happen in the United States – what should only happen in a repressive state,” he commented.
Deng’s backlash came from online peers, instead of the state, but that kind of social surveillance bears similarities with China.
“In terms of going after dissenters and starting to surveil open discourse on topics that are sensitive … It's appearing here,” said Maria Repnikova, a scholar at a US university. “That’s something that you see in the East today as well,” she said, adding that concerns are rising in America of students reporting on teachers, a type of monitoring that has been encouraged by Chinese authorities.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, explained that progressive thinkers like himself used to look to America for ideals, since openly discussing internal affairs in China is risky. However, “The US isn't some kind of god for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has declined generally.”
“We used to see America as the beacon of democratic governance, but after Trump took power, that guide appears dimmer”.
Chinese liberals, who are often, at least in private, critical of China’s political system, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than America’s, Zhang said. “It’s sort of difficult to acknowledge this reality … but after the pandemic, authorities appears to be pursuing the right thing in improving the environment and promoting EVs and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “Western nations, as represented by the United States, appear declining.”
The government's acquisition of shares in American firms has also drawn parallels with the East, where the line between state and private industry is frequently unclear.
On Monday, the US government announced it will take a shareholder in a new company specialising in mineral refinement, following comparable shares in additional firms deemed vital to the country's safety. The deals have made certain stakeholders nervous that the US is embarking on a new era of government meddling in the private sector.
Yet, there remain significant distinctions between Trump’s America and the East. In October, several news organisations including the Guardian declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that demanded reporting solely on approved news. American judiciary have halted or reversed numerous presidential measures, an action that would be impossible in China’s CCP-controlled legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, said: “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 more liberal than the East under its leader.”
The professor notes that while many intellectuals in China were surprised to see American colleges capitulate to official requests concerning diversity and inclusion practices and free speech on university grounds, in China, leading institutions are all state-owned by default. University leaders, who are appointed by the government, “have no liberty refuse. They can’t afford to be disobedient.”
Still, people in the US are beginning to take precautions that were once associated with repressive regimes. An academic at an American college who was previously vocal on US-China issues refused to speak for this piece. He said: “The truth is, I fear of suppression in the US: I actually feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad
