When Vickie Wang, an emerging comedic talent, steps onto the stage in the Big Apple, she is not just thinking about which jokes to tell. Additionally, she carefully considers what subjects to avoid. “I refrain from openly criticizing the administration,” she stated. And when she ventures there, she makes certain it isn't captured for online platforms. “I'd never publicly share material where I directly criticize authorities … I think this is a habit acquired back home.”
Wang, thirty-nine, resided in the Chinese metropolis for nearly ten years, leaving in that year. By 2025, she relocated to the US. Upon arrival, she dove into an intense period of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” going to lectures, demonstrations, and exploring New York’s library system.
But over the past year after the president returned to office for the second time, there's been a noticeable shift in the environment, she notes. “In China, I knew the boundaries, whereas here I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Her concerns reflect a new climate in America which numerous individuals from China, or those with experience in the country, perceive as eerily similar. Enemies face exclusion. The president demands absolute loyalty. Reporters are targeted. Establishments come under fire.
The president has not been shy regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, China’s authoritarian figure. He has described him as a “great guy”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in the trade war recently, the bonhomie between both figures of countries with vastly different political systems was evident. Following years of optimism in America that improved relations with China could assist the rising power to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it appears that America is being pulled in China's path, rather than vice versa.
“America is undergoing a period of cultural revolution,” said a constitutional law expert, an academic at Peking University. “The president, Trump, is attempting to mobilise the grassroots to marginalize or undermine the elite … reminiscent of what happened in China decades past.”
Ever since Trump initiated what's termed a government streamlining body, or the agency, on federal institutions early on of his term, many in China see US politics via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the mobilisation of the youth to carry out the leader’s will, or cleansing organizations of those deemed opposition, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has brought disorder reminiscent of Mao to America, though without equivalent degrees of violence.
However since the upheaval of the early months under Trump has calmed, an unfamiliar, distinct type of political atmosphere has settled in the US, which in different ways seems recognizable to numerous Chinese people.
‘The Lighthouse Has Become Less Bright’
The deepest parallel between Trump’s America and the East is the crackdown on free speech.
Deng Haiyan, now a Chinese Communist party dissenter, found himself in a controversy this year, similar to what he once faced in China. Deng has lived in the US since 2019, after escaping China because of harassment from officials.
Last fall, after the death of a public figure, he posted that the individual was “despicable”. Like people across the US – many of whom lost their jobs as a result of making negative comments regarding him – Deng faced significant backlash. Relatives had personal info leaked and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy attempting to create division.
“This incident was a real shock. I hadn't thought that something like this could happen in the United States – what should only happen in a repressive state,” Deng said.
His backlash came from online peers, instead of the state, but that kind of social surveillance bears similarities with the East.
“Regarding going after those who disagree and starting to surveil public speech on topics deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge in the US,” noted Maria Repnikova, a scholar at a US university. “That’s something observed in the East today as well,” she added, adding that concerns are rising in the US of pupils informing against educators, a form of monitoring promoted by the CCP.
Zhang, the legal expert, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him used to look to the US for political inspiration, since openly discussing internal affairs in the country is risky. However, “The US is no longer a god for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has worsened across the board.”
“We once viewed America as the beacon of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, that guide seems to have become dimmer”.
Chinese liberals, typically, at least in private, skeptical about China’s political system, now perceive it less objectionable than the US's, he stated. “It’s sort of difficult to acknowledge this reality … but post-COVID, the government appears to be pursuing the right thing in improving the environment and developing electric cars and tech investment,” he noted, while “the West, as represented by America, appear in decline.”
The government's purchase of stakes in American firms has also drawn parallels with China, where the distinction between state and business is often blurred.
Recently, the US government stated it would become a shareholder in a new company focused on rare earth processing, after taking comparable shares in additional firms deemed vital to the country's safety. The deals have left certain stakeholders nervous that the US is embarking on a fresh phase of state intervention in the private sector.
There are still major differences between the US under Trump and China. Last month, multiple media outlets including the Guardian declined to agree to a defense department rule that demanded reporting solely on approved information. US courts have halted or overturned many of Trump’s actions, an action that would be impossible in the nation's CCP-controlled judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of Strategy Risks, specializing in China, commented: “The United States could descend into the worst crisis of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it will still be freer, 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 regarding diversity and inclusion practices and open discourse on university grounds, in China, leading institutions are publicly controlled inherently. Administrators, which are selected by the state, “have no liberty of saying no. They dare not to be disobedient.”
Still, people in the US are starting to adopt measures previously confined to more authoritarian countries. One professor at a US university who was previously outspoken on bilateral matters refused to speak for this piece. He said: “The truth is, I fear of the censorship here: I actually feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad