When Vickie Wang, an emerging performer, steps onto her platform in the Big Apple, she's not only thinking about what humor to deliver. Additionally, she carefully considers which topics to avoid. “I don't engage in openly attacking the government,” she stated. And when she does, she ensures it's not captured for social media. “I would never publish openly material in which I openly disparage the government … I think this is a habit from China.”
The comedian, thirty-nine, lived in Shanghai for almost ten years, departing in 2022. By 2025, she moved to America. When she got there, she embarked on an intense period of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” going to lectures, protests, and exploring New York’s library system.
However in the year after the president returned to office for the second time, there has been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she notes. “Back home, I understood the boundaries, whereas in the US I find myself on shifting sands.”
Wang’s fears reflect an emerging climate in the US which numerous individuals from China, or those who have lived in China, perceive as eerily similar. Opponents face exclusion. The president expects total allegiance. Reporters are targeted. Establishments come under fire.
Trump has openly expressed about his admiration for China's leader, China’s strongman leader. He's called Xi as “fantastic”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in economic tensions recently, the bonhomie between both figures of countries with diametrically opposed political systems was evident. And after decades of optimism in the US that improved relations with the East may help the rising power to liberalise, in the current administration, it appears that the US is being pulled in the Chinese direction, instead of vice versa.
“America is undergoing a period of cultural revolution,” said a constitutional law expert, a professor at Peking University. “The top leader, Donald Trump, is attempting to rally the grassroots in order to sideline or weaken established figures … similar to what happened in China half a century ago.”
Ever since the administration unleashed what's termed Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on federal institutions early on in office, many in China have viewed US politics through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the rallying of the youth to carry out presidential directives, or purging organizations of those deemed opposition, the president as viewed from China has brought Mao-style chaos to America, though without equivalent degrees of violence.
But since the turmoil of the early months of the new administration has calmed, a new, distinct type of political atmosphere has emerged in the country, which variously seems familiar to many Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Has Become Dimmer’
The deepest parallel between Trump’s America and China is the suppression on free speech.
Deng Haiyan, now a Chinese Communist party critic, ended up in a controversy this year, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in China. He has lived in the US since 2019, having fled the country due to pressure from officials.
In September, after the death of a public figure, Deng tweeted that the individual was “despicable”. Like people nationwide – many of whom lost their jobs as a result of making negative comments about Kirk – he encountered a huge backlash. Relatives was doxed and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy seeking to create division.
“That event was a real shock. I hadn't thought such a thing could happen in America – what should only happen in a repressive state,” Deng said.
His backlash came from online peers, rather than the state, but such of social surveillance bears parallels with China.
“Regarding targeting those who disagree and monitoring open discourse on topics deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge in the US,” noted Maria Repnikova, a scholar at Georgia State University. “That’s something that you see in the East today as too,” she added, stating that concerns are rising in America of pupils informing against teachers, a form of monitoring that has been encouraged by Chinese authorities.
Zhang, the Peking University law professor, explained that progressive thinkers such as him once turned to the US for ideals, since openly discussing internal affairs in China is risky. However, “America isn't a ideal for Chinese liberals. America’s image has declined across the board.”
“We used to see the US as the symbol of democratic governance, but since the new administration, this lighthouse appears less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, typically, at least in private, critical of the nation's governance, now perceive it less objectionable than the US's, Zhang said. “It's somewhat painful to accept this reality … but after the pandemic, the government appears to be pursuing correct policies in environmental protection and promoting EVs and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “Western nations, exemplified by America, seems to be declining.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of shares in US companies has prompted comparisons with China, where the line between government and business is often blurred.
On Monday, authorities stated it would become an investor in a new company specialising in rare earth processing, after taking comparable shares in additional firms deemed essential for national security. These moves have left certain stakeholders concerned that America is embarking on a new era of government meddling in the private sector.
There are still significant distinctions between the US under Trump and China. In October, several news organisations among others declined to agree to a defense department rule that demanded they only report on government-authorised news. American judiciary have blocked or overturned numerous Trump’s actions, an action that would be unthinkable in the nation's CCP-controlled judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of a consulting firm, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “America might face the worst crisis of all time, far more severe than it is now, and it will still be freer, open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
The professor notes that while numerous scholars in the country were shocked to see American colleges capitulate to government demands regarding diversity and inclusion practices and free speech on university grounds, in the East, leading institutions are all state-owned by default. Administrators, who are selected by the state, “cannot of saying no. They dare not to be disobedient.”
Still, people in the US are starting to adopt measures that were once associated with more authoritarian countries. One professor at an American college once vocal on US-China issues refused to speak for this piece. He said: “Honestly, I am scared of the censorship in the US: I genuinely feel less afraid to criticise Xi these days than say anything bad
