When Vickie Wang, an emerging comedic talent, takes the stage in the Big Apple, she's not just thinking about what humor to deliver. Additionally, she weighs which topics to avoid. “I don't engage in directly criticizing the administration,” she stated. And when she does, she makes certain it isn't recorded for online platforms. “I would never publicly share content where I directly criticize authorities … I think it's a learned behavior from China.”
Wang, thirty-nine, resided in the Chinese metropolis for nearly ten years, leaving in 2022. By 2025, she relocated to the US. Upon arrival, she dove into a frenzy of “overindulging on freedom,” going to talks, protests, and exploring the city's library system.
However over the past year since Donald Trump returned to office again, there has been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she notes. “In China, I knew where the line was, whereas here I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Her fears reflect an emerging political reality in America which many Chinese, or those with experience in China, perceive as disturbingly similar. Enemies are ostracised. The president expects total allegiance. Journalists are targeted. Institutions come under fire.
Trump has not been shy about his admiration for Xi Jinping, the nation's strongman leader. He's called him as “fantastic”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in economic tensions on Thursday, the camaraderie between the two leaders of countries with vastly different governance models was evident. And after decades of hope in the US that closer ties with the East may help the growing nation become more open, under Trump 2.0, it appears that America is shifting in China's path, rather than vice versa.
“America is experiencing a period of cultural revolution,” said a constitutional law expert, a professor at a top Chinese university. “The president, Trump, is trying to mobilise the masses in order to marginalize or weaken established figures … similar to what happened in China half a century ago.”
Since the administration initiated what's termed Department for Government Efficiency, or Doge, on federal institutions at the start of his term, many in China see US politics via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the mobilisation of the youth to carry out the leader’s will, or purging organizations of those deemed opposition, Trump from a Chinese viewpoint has brought disorder reminiscent of Mao to the US, albeit without the same levels of violence.
But since the upheaval of the initial period of the new administration has calmed, an unfamiliar, different kind of climate has settled in the US, which variously also feels recognizable to numerous Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Has Become Dimmer’
The most profound parallel between the US today and China is the suppression on open expression.
Deng Haiyan, turned Chinese Communist party dissenter, ended up in the eye of a storm recently, the likes of which he once faced in China. He has lived in America for several years, after escaping China due to harassment from officials.
In September, after the death of a public figure, Deng tweeted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Similar to others across the US – many of whom lost their jobs for making negative comments regarding him – he encountered a huge backlash. His family had personal info leaked and he was accused of being a Chinese spy attempting to create division.
“That event surprised me deeply. I never imagined such a thing would occur in the United States – what should only happen in a repressive state,” Deng said.
His pile on originated from fellow social media users, instead of the government, but such of social surveillance also has similarities with the East.
“Regarding going after dissenters and starting to surveil public speech about issues that are sensitive … That’s starting to emerge here,” said Maria Repnikova, an associate professor at Georgia State University. “That’s something that you see in the East now as well,” she added, adding that there were now fears in the US of students reporting on teachers, a type of monitoring promoted by the CCP.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, explained that progressive thinkers such as him once turned to the US for ideals, since openly discussing domestic politics in China is dangerous. However, “The US is no longer a ideal for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has worsened generally.”
“We once viewed America as the symbol of democratic governance, but since the new administration, that guide seems to have become dimmer”.
Chinese liberals, typically, behind closed doors, skeptical about China’s political system, now perceive it less objectionable than America’s, he stated. “It’s sort of difficult to acknowledge this … but post-COVID, the government seems to be doing the right thing in environmental protection and promoting EVs and investing in hi-tech,” he noted, while “Western nations, 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 the East, where the distinction between government and business is frequently unclear.
On Monday, authorities announced it will take a shareholder in a new company specialising in rare earth processing, following comparable shares in additional firms it considers essential for national security. The deals have left certain stakeholders concerned that America is embarking on a new era of state intervention in the private sector.
Yet, there remain significant distinctions between Trump’s America and the East. In October, several news organisations among others refused to sign to a Pentagon policy that demanded they only report on government-authorised news. US courts have blocked or reversed many of presidential measures, something that would be impossible in China’s party-dominated judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of a consulting firm, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “America might face the worst crisis of all time, far more severe than it is now, and it would remain freer, more open, and more liberal than the East under its leader.”
Zhang notes that while numerous scholars in the country were shocked to see American colleges yield to government demands concerning DEI policies and free speech on campus, in the East, leading institutions are all state-owned by default. University leaders, who are selected by the state, “have no liberty of saying no. They dare not defy orders.”
Nevertheless, people in the US are starting to adopt measures previously associated with repressive regimes. An academic at an American college once outspoken on bilateral matters declined to speak for this article. He stated: “Honestly, I am scared of the censorship in the US: I genuinely feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad
