When Vickie Wang, a rising performer, takes her platform in New York, she's not just considering what humor to deliver. She also carefully considers which topics to steer clear of. “I refrain from openly attacking the administration,” she explained. Or if she does, she makes certain it's not recorded for social media. “I'd never publicly share content in which I openly disparage the government … I think it's a learned behavior from China.”
Wang, thirty-nine, resided in Shanghai for nearly ten years, leaving in 2022. By 2025, she moved to the US. When she got there, she embarked on a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” going to talks, protests, and delving into the city's public library.
However over the past year after the president was elected again, there's been a “palpable change” in the environment, she notes. “In China, I knew the boundaries, while here I'm standing on shifting sands.”
Wang’s concerns reflect a new climate in the US which numerous individuals from China, or those with experience in China, find eerily familiar. Opponents face exclusion. The leader expects absolute loyalty. Reporters are targeted. Institutions are attacked.
Trump has openly expressed regarding his respect for China's leader, China’s strongman leader. He's called Xi as a “great guy”. When they reached a temporary truce in economic tensions recently, the bonhomie between both figures of countries with vastly different governance models was evident. And after decades of hope in America that closer ties with the East may help the growing nation become more open, under Trump 2.0, it seems as if America is being pulled in the Chinese direction, instead of vice versa.
“The United States is experiencing a period of cultural revolution,” stated a constitutional law expert, a professor at Peking University. “The top leader, Donald Trump, is attempting to mobilise the grassroots to sideline or weaken the elite … similar to events in China decades past.”
Ever since Trump unleashed the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start in office, many in China have viewed US politics through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the mobilisation of young people to carry out the leader’s will, or cleansing organizations of those deemed opposition, Trump from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered Mao-style chaos to America, though absent the same levels of force.
But after the upheaval of the early months of the new administration subsided, an unfamiliar, distinct type of climate has settled in the US, which variously also feels familiar to many Chinese people.
‘The Lighthouse Has Become Dimmer’
The most profound parallel between the US today and China is the crackdown on open expression.
A former police officer, now a Chinese Communist party critic, found himself in the eye of a storm recently, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in his homeland. He has lived in the US since 2019, after escaping the country due to harassment from officials.
Last fall, following the passing of a public figure, Deng tweeted that the individual was “despicable”. Similar to others nationwide – many of whom lost their jobs for making negative comments about Kirk – Deng faced a huge backlash. Relatives had personal info leaked and he was accused of being a Chinese spy seeking to divide the US.
“This incident surprised me deeply. I never imagined that something like this could happen in America – something that typically happens in an authoritarian country,” he commented.
His backlash originated from fellow social media users, rather than the state, but such of social surveillance also has parallels with China.
“Regarding going after those who disagree and monitoring open discourse on topics deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge here,” noted Maria Repnikova, a scholar at Georgia State University. “That’s something that you see in China now as too,” she said, stating that concerns are rising in the US of students reporting on teachers, a form of surveillance that has been encouraged by Chinese authorities.
Zhang, the legal expert, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him once turned to America for ideals, in part because openly discussing internal affairs in China is risky. However, “The US isn't a ideal for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has worsened across the board.”
“We once viewed the US as the symbol of democratic governance, but since the new administration, that guide seems to have become dimmer”.
Chinese liberals, typically, behind closed doors, skeptical about China’s political system, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than the US's, Zhang said. “It’s sort of painful to accept this … but post-COVID, the government seems to be doing correct policies in improving the environment and promoting EVs and tech investment,” he noted, while “Western nations, exemplified by America, seems to be declining.”
The government's acquisition of stakes in American firms has prompted comparisons with the East, where the distinction between government and private industry is often blurred.
On Monday, authorities announced it would become a shareholder in a startup focused on mineral refinement, following similar stakes in other companies deemed essential for the country's safety. These moves have made certain stakeholders concerned that America is embarking on a fresh phase of government meddling in the private sector.
Yet, there remain major differences between Trump’s America and China. In October, several news organisations among others declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that required reporting solely on approved information. US courts have halted or overturned many of presidential measures, an action that would be impossible in the nation's party-dominated judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “The United States could descend into its gravest challenge of all time, far more severe than currently, and it will still be freer, open, and liberal than the East under its leader.”
Zhang observes that while many intellectuals in the country were shocked to see American colleges capitulate to government demands regarding diversity and inclusion practices and free speech on campus, in the East, the top universities are all state-owned inherently. University leaders, who are selected by the government, “cannot refuse. They can’t afford to be disobedient.”
Nevertheless, Americans are beginning to take precautions previously confined to repressive regimes. One professor at a US university who was previously outspoken on US-China issues declined to be interviewed for this piece. He stated: “Honestly, I fear of the censorship in the US: I genuinely feel more comfortable to criticise Xi these days than say anything bad
