When Vickie Wang, a rising performer, takes the stage in the Big Apple, she's not just considering what humor to tell. Additionally, she weighs which topics to steer clear of. “I don't engage in openly attacking the government,” she stated. And when she ventures there, she makes certain it isn't captured for social media. “I would never publicly share material in which I directly criticize authorities … I think it's a learned behavior from China.”
Wang, thirty-nine, resided in Shanghai for almost ten years, departing in 2022. In 2025, she relocated to America. When she got there, she embarked on a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on democracy,” attending talks, protests, and delving into New York’s public library.
However in the year after Donald Trump returned to office again, there's been a noticeable shift in the environment, she notes. “In China, I understood the boundaries, whereas in the US I find myself on shifting sands.”
Wang’s concerns reflect an emerging climate in America which many Chinese, or people with experience in China, find disturbingly familiar. Opponents face exclusion. The president expects absolute loyalty. Journalists face scrutiny. Institutions come under fire.
Trump has openly expressed regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, China’s authoritarian figure. He's called Xi as a “great guy”. When they reached a temporary truce in economic tensions recently, the camaraderie between both figures of countries with diametrically opposed political systems became clear. Following years of hope in the US that improved relations with China could assist the rising power to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it seems that the US is shifting in China's path, 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, Donald Trump, is trying to rally the grassroots to marginalize or weaken the elite … similar to what happened in the country half a century ago.”
Since the administration unleashed the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy early on in office, many in China have viewed US politics via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the rallying of young people to execute presidential directives, or purging institutions of those deemed opposition, the president as viewed from China has brought disorder reminiscent of Mao to the US, albeit without equivalent degrees of force.
However after the upheaval of the early months of the new administration has calmed, an unfamiliar, distinct type of political atmosphere has settled in the country, which variously seems familiar to many Chinese people.
‘The Beacon Is Dimmer’
The deepest similarity between Trump’s America and the East is the suppression on open expression.
Deng Haiyan, now a Chinese Communist party critic, ended up in a controversy this year, similar to what he once faced in China. He resided in America for several years, having fled China due to pressure from officials.
Last fall, following the passing of a public figure, he posted that Kirk was “despicable”. Like people across the US – who lost their jobs for making negative comments about Kirk – he encountered significant backlash. Relatives was doxed and he was accused of being a Chinese spy attempting to create division.
“This incident surprised me deeply. I hadn't thought that something like this would occur in the United States – something that should only happen in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.
His backlash originated from fellow social media users, rather than the state, but that kind of social surveillance also has similarities with China.
“Regarding going after those who disagree and monitoring public speech about issues deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge in the US,” noted Maria Repnikova, an associate professor at a US university. “This is observed in the East now as too,” she said, stating that concerns are rising in the US of students reporting on educators, a type of monitoring that has been encouraged by the CCP.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, said that progressive thinkers such as him once turned to the US for political inspiration, since public debate on domestic politics in China is risky. However, “The US is no longer a ideal for Chinese liberals. America’s image has worsened generally.”
“We used to see America as the beacon of democratic governance, but since the new administration, that guide appears less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, typically, at least in private, critical of China’s political system, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than the US's, Zhang said. “It’s sort of painful to accept this reality … but after the pandemic, the government appears to be pursuing correct policies in environmental protection and promoting EVs and tech investment,” he noted, while “Western nations, as represented by America, appear in decline.”
The Trump administration’s acquisition of stakes in US companies has also drawn parallels with China, where the distinction between government and private industry is often blurred.
Recently, the US government stated it would become a shareholder in a new company focused on rare earth processing, following similar stakes in other companies deemed vital to the country's safety. These moves have made certain stakeholders nervous that the US is embarking on a fresh phase of government meddling in the private sector.
There are still major differences between the US under Trump and the East. Last month, several news organisations including the Guardian declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that demanded reporting solely on approved news. US courts have halted or reversed many of presidential measures, something that would be impossible in the nation's party-dominated judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of Strategy Risks, specializing in China, said: “The United States could descend into its gravest challenge of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it will still be freer, more open, and more liberal than the East under its leader.”
The professor observes that while numerous scholars in China were shocked to see American colleges yield to official requests regarding diversity and inclusion practices and open discourse on university grounds, in China, the top universities are publicly controlled inherently. Administrators, who are appointed by the state, “have no liberty of saying no. They can’t afford defy orders.”
Nevertheless, people in the US are beginning to adopt measures previously associated with more authoritarian countries. One professor at a US university once outspoken on bilateral matters refused to be interviewed for this piece. He said: “Honestly, I fear of suppression in the US: I actually feel less afraid criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad
