When Vickie Wang, an emerging performer, steps onto the stage in the Big Apple, she is not only thinking about which jokes to tell. She also carefully considers which topics to avoid. “I refrain from openly criticizing the administration,” she explained. And when she does, she ensures it isn't recorded for online platforms. “I would never publish openly content where I directly criticize the government … I think it's a learned behavior from China.”
Wang, thirty-nine, resided in the Chinese metropolis for nearly a decade, leaving in 2022. By 2025, she relocated to the US. When she got there, she embarked on a frenzy of “overindulging on freedom,” attending lectures, demonstrations, and exploring New York’s library system.
However over the past year after Donald Trump was elected for the second time, there's been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she notes. “In China, I understood where the line was, while here I find myself on shifting sands.”
Her fears mirror an emerging political reality in the US which numerous individuals from China, or people who have lived in the country, find disturbingly similar. Enemies are ostracised. The leader demands total allegiance. Reporters are targeted. Establishments come under fire.
Trump has openly expressed about his admiration for Xi Jinping, the nation's authoritarian figure. He has described Xi as a “great guy”. When they reached a temporary truce in the trade war recently, the bonhomie between both figures of countries with vastly different governance models became clear. And after decades of optimism in the US that improved relations with China could assist the rising power become more open, under Trump 2.0, it appears as if America is shifting in China's path, rather than the other way around.
“The United States is undergoing a period of cultural revolution,” said Zhang Qianfan, an academic at Peking University. “The top leader, Trump, is trying to rally the masses to sideline or weaken established figures … reminiscent of events in China decades past.”
Ever since the administration initiated the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start of his term, numerous Chinese observers have viewed American governance through the lens of China's historical period. Whether it is the mobilisation of the youth to carry out presidential directives, or cleansing organizations of those deemed opposition, the president as viewed from China has delivered Mao-style chaos to America, albeit without equivalent degrees of force.
However since the upheaval of the initial period under Trump has calmed, a new, distinct type of climate has settled in the country, which in different ways also feels recognizable to many Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Is Less Bright’
The most profound parallel between the US today and China is the suppression on free speech.
A former police officer, now a CCP critic, found himself in a controversy recently, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in his homeland. Deng resided in America since 2019, after escaping China because of pressure from officials.
Last fall, following the passing of a public figure, he posted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Like people nationwide – who lost their jobs for expressing criticism about Kirk – he encountered a huge backlash. Relatives was doxed and he faced allegations of espionage attempting to create division.
“That event was a real shock. I hadn't thought such a thing could happen in America – what typically happens in a repressive state,” Deng said.
His backlash came from fellow social media users, rather than the state, but that kind of public monitoring bears parallels with the East.
“In terms of going after dissenters and monitoring open discourse on topics deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge here,” noted Maria Repnikova, an associate professor at a US university. “That’s something observed in China now as well,” she said, stating that there were now fears in America of pupils informing against educators, a form of monitoring promoted by Chinese authorities.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, said that progressive thinkers like himself once turned to the US for ideals, since public debate on domestic politics in China is dangerous. However, “America is no longer a god for progressive Chinese. America’s image has declined generally.”
“We used to see the US as the beacon of constitutional democracy, but after Trump took power, this lighthouse seems to have become less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, typically, at least in private, skeptical about China’s political system, now perceive it less objectionable than the US's, Zhang said. “It's somewhat difficult to acknowledge this reality … but post-COVID, the government appears to be pursuing correct policies in environmental protection and developing electric cars and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “Western nations, exemplified by the United States, appear in decline.”
The Trump administration’s acquisition of stakes in American firms has prompted comparisons with the East, where the line between government and private industry is often blurred.
On Monday, authorities announced it will take an investor in a new company specialising in mineral refinement, after taking comparable shares in additional firms it considers essential for national security. The deals have left some investors concerned that America is entering a fresh phase of state intervention in the private sector.
There are still major differences between Trump’s America and China. In October, multiple media outlets including the Guardian refused to sign to a Pentagon policy that required they only report on approved news. US courts have blocked or overturned numerous Trump’s actions, something that is impossible in China’s CCP-controlled judiciary.
An analyst, the founder of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “The United States might face its gravest challenge of all time, far more severe than it is now, and it will still be more free, more open, and more liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang observes that although many intellectuals in the country were surprised to see US universities capitulate to government demands regarding diversity and inclusion practices and free speech on campus, in the East, the top universities are publicly controlled by default. University leaders, which are appointed by the state, “cannot of saying no. They can’t afford defy orders.”
Still, Americans are beginning to adopt measures previously confined to repressive regimes. An academic at an American college once outspoken on bilateral matters declined to be interviewed for this piece. He said: “The truth is, I fear of the censorship in the US: I actually feel more comfortable to criticise Xi now than say anything bad
