As Vickie Wang, an emerging performer, takes her platform in New York, she is not just considering what humor to deliver. She also carefully considers what subjects to avoid. “I refrain from directly attacking the government,” she stated. And when she ventures there, she ensures it isn't captured for social media. “I'd never publicly share content in which I openly disparage authorities … I believe it's a habit from China.”
Wang, 39, resided in the Chinese metropolis for nearly a decade, departing in that year. By 2025, she relocated to the US. Upon arrival, she embarked on a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” attending talks, demonstrations, and exploring the city's public library.
However over the past year after Donald Trump returned to office again, there's been a noticeable shift in the environment, she says. “In China, I understood where the line was, whereas here I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Wang’s concerns mirror a new climate in the US which many Chinese, or people who have lived in China, find eerily familiar. Enemies are ostracised. The leader demands absolute loyalty. Journalists are targeted. Establishments are attacked.
The president has openly expressed about his admiration for Xi Jinping, China’s strongman leader. He has described Xi as “fantastic”. As they agreed a temporary truce in economic tensions on Thursday, the bonhomie between both figures of countries with vastly different political systems was evident. And after decades of optimism in America that closer ties with the East could assist the rising power to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it appears as if the US is shifting in the Chinese direction, instead of the other way around.
“The United States is undergoing a period of cultural revolution,” stated a constitutional law expert, a professor at Peking University. “The president, Trump, is attempting to rally the grassroots to sideline or undermine established figures … similar to events in the country decades past.”
Ever since Trump unleashed what's termed Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy early on in office, many in China see US politics through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the mobilisation of young people to execute presidential directives, or purging institutions of those deemed opposition, the president as viewed from China has delivered Mao-style chaos to America, albeit without equivalent degrees of violence.
However since the turmoil of the early months under Trump has calmed, an unfamiliar, different kind of climate has settled in the US, which variously also feels familiar to many Chinese people.
‘The Lighthouse Has Become Less Bright’
The most profound parallel between the US today and the East is the suppression on open expression.
A former police officer, now a CCP dissenter, ended up in the eye of a storm this year, similar to what he once faced in China. Deng has lived in the US for several years, having fled the country due to harassment from the authorities.
In September, after the death of Charlie Kirk, he posted that Kirk was “despicable”. Like people across the US – many of whom lost their jobs for expressing criticism regarding him – he encountered significant backlash. Relatives had personal info leaked and he was accused of being a Chinese spy seeking to divide the US.
“That event was a real shock. I never imagined such a thing would occur in America – something that typically happens in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.
His pile on originated from fellow social media users, instead of the government, but such of social surveillance bears parallels with the East.
“In terms of going after dissenters and starting to surveil open discourse about issues deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge here,” said Maria Repnikova, a scholar at a US university. “That’s something observed in China today as too,” she added, stating that concerns are rising in the US of students reporting on teachers, a type of surveillance promoted by Chinese authorities.
Zhang, the legal expert, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself once turned to the US for ideals, since public debate on domestic politics in China is dangerous. But now, “America is no longer a ideal for progressive Chinese. America’s image has worsened generally.”
“We used to see the US as the beacon of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, that guide seems to have become dimmer”.
Progressive Chinese, typically, at least in private, skeptical about the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than America’s, he stated. “It's somewhat difficult to acknowledge this reality … but after the pandemic, authorities 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 America, seems to be declining.”
The Trump administration’s acquisition of stakes in American firms has also drawn comparisons with China, where the distinction between government and business is often blurred.
On Monday, authorities announced it will take an investor in a new company focused on mineral refinement, after taking similar stakes in additional firms deemed essential for national security. The deals have left certain stakeholders concerned that the US is embarking on a new era of state intervention in private industry.
Yet, there remain major differences between Trump’s America and China. In October, several news organisations including the Guardian declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that demanded reporting solely on government-authorised news. US courts have halted or reversed many of Trump’s actions, something that is unthinkable in the nation's party-dominated judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of a consulting firm, a China-focused advisory firm, said: “America might face the worst crisis of all time, far more severe than it is now, and it would remain freer, open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
The professor notes that while many intellectuals in the country were surprised to see American colleges capitulate to government demands concerning DEI policies and open discourse on campus, in China, the top universities are publicly controlled by default. Administrators, who are appointed by the state, “cannot of saying no. They can’t afford to be disobedient.”
Still, people in the US are starting to take precautions that were once confined to more authoritarian countries. One professor at an American college who was previously vocal on bilateral matters refused to be interviewed for this piece. He stated: “Honestly, I fear of suppression here: I actually feel more comfortable to criticise Xi now than say anything bad
