When Vickie Wang, an emerging performer, takes her platform in the Big Apple, she's not only thinking about what humor to deliver. She also carefully considers which topics to avoid. “I don't engage in openly criticizing the government,” she explained. And when she ventures there, she ensures it isn't captured for online platforms. “I would never publicly share material where I directly criticize the government … I believe it's a learned behavior acquired back home.”
Wang, 39, resided in Shanghai for almost ten years, leaving in 2022. In 2025, she moved to America. Upon arrival, she dove into a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on democracy,” attending lectures, demonstrations, and delving into New York’s library system.
But over the past year after Donald Trump returned to office again, there has been a “palpable change” in the environment, she says. “Back home, I understood the boundaries, while here I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Her concerns mirror an emerging climate in America which numerous individuals from China, or people who have lived in China, find eerily familiar. Enemies are ostracised. The leader demands total allegiance. Reporters are targeted. Establishments come under fire.
The president has openly expressed about his admiration for Xi Jinping, the nation's authoritarian figure. He's called him as “fantastic”. When they reached a temporary truce in economic tensions recently, the camaraderie between the two leaders of countries with vastly different political systems was evident. And after decades of hope in America that improved relations with China could assist the growing nation become more open, in the current administration, it seems as if America is being pulled in the Chinese direction, instead of vice versa.
“America is experiencing a period of cultural revolution,” stated a constitutional law expert, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The top leader, Trump, is trying to rally the masses in order to sideline or weaken established figures … similar to what happened in China decades past.”
Ever since the administration unleashed the so-called a government streamlining body, or Doge, on federal institutions at the start of his term, numerous Chinese observers see US politics via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the mobilisation of the youth to carry out presidential directives, or purging institutions of those deemed opposition, Trump from a Chinese viewpoint has brought Mao-style chaos to America, albeit without equivalent degrees of violence.
However since the upheaval of the initial period of the new administration has calmed, a new, distinct type of climate has emerged in the country, which in different ways seems recognizable to numerous Chinese people.
‘The Beacon Has Become Dimmer’
The most profound similarity between the US today and China is the crackdown on free speech.
A former police officer, turned Chinese Communist party dissenter, found himself in the eye of a storm this year, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in China. Deng has lived in the US for several years, having fled the country because of pressure from officials.
Last fall, following the passing of a public figure, Deng tweeted that the individual was “despicable”. Similar to others across the US – many of whom were fired as a result of making negative comments regarding him – he encountered significant backlash. His family was doxed and he was accused of being a Chinese spy seeking to divide the US.
“That event was a real shock. I hadn't thought that something like this could happen in America – something that typically happens in an authoritarian country,” he commented.
His pile on originated from fellow social media users, instead of the state, but that kind of social surveillance bears similarities with the East.
“In terms of going after those who disagree and starting to surveil public speech on topics deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge in the US,” said Maria Repnikova, a scholar at a US university. “That’s something observed in China now as too,” she added, stating that there were now fears in America of pupils informing against teachers, a form of surveillance promoted by Chinese authorities.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, said that progressive thinkers such as him once turned to America for ideals, since public debate on internal affairs in China is dangerous. But now, “America is no longer some kind of god for progressive Chinese. America’s image has declined across the board.”
“We once viewed America as the beacon of democratic governance, but after Trump took power, that guide seems to have become less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, typically, at least in private, skeptical about China’s political system, now perceive it more acceptable than the US's, he stated. “It’s sort of difficult to acknowledge this reality … but post-COVID, the government appears to be pursuing correct policies in improving the environment and promoting EVs and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “the West, as represented by America, appear declining.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of shares in US companies has prompted parallels with the East, where the distinction between state and private industry is often blurred.
On Monday, the US government announced it will take an investor in a startup specialising in rare earth processing, following comparable shares in other companies deemed essential for the country's safety. These moves have left some investors concerned that the US is embarking on a new era of government meddling in the private sector.
There are still major differences between Trump’s America and China. In October, several news organisations including the Guardian refused to sign to a defense department rule that demanded they only report on approved information. US courts have blocked or reversed many of Trump’s actions, an action that would be impossible in China’s CCP-controlled legal system.
An analyst, the founder of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, said: “The United States could descend into its gravest challenge of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it would remain more free, more open, and liberal than the East under its leader.”
Zhang observes that although numerous scholars in the country were surprised to see US universities capitulate to official requests regarding diversity and inclusion practices and open discourse on campus, in China, leading institutions are publicly controlled by default. University leaders, which are selected by the state, “cannot of saying no. They can’t afford to be disobedient.”
Still, people in the US are starting to adopt measures previously associated with more authoritarian countries. One professor at an American college who was previously vocal on US-China issues declined to be interviewed for this piece. He stated: “The truth is, I am scared of the censorship here: I actually feel less afraid to criticise Xi now than say anything bad
