As Vickie Wang, an emerging performer, steps onto the stage in the Big Apple, she's not only considering which jokes to tell. Additionally, she carefully considers what subjects to avoid. “I don't engage in openly attacking the government,” she explained. And when she does, she makes certain it's not captured for online platforms. “I would never publicly share content in which I directly criticize the government … I believe this is a habit acquired back home.”
Wang, 39, lived in the Chinese metropolis for nearly a decade, leaving in 2022. By 2025, she moved to America. When she got there, she embarked on an intense period of “overindulging on freedom,” attending lectures, demonstrations, and exploring the city's library system.
However in the year since the president returned to office again, there has been a noticeable shift in the atmosphere, she notes. “In China, I understood the boundaries, while in the US I find myself on unstable ground.”
Wang’s concerns mirror an emerging climate in America which many Chinese, or people with experience in China, find eerily similar. Opponents face exclusion. The president expects absolute loyalty. Reporters are targeted. Establishments are attacked.
The president has not been shy regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, China’s authoritarian figure. He has described Xi as “fantastic”. When they reached a temporary truce in economic tensions on Thursday, the camaraderie between both figures of nations with diametrically opposed political systems was evident. Following years of hope in America that closer ties with the East may help the growing nation to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it seems that the US is being pulled in the Chinese direction, rather than vice versa.
“The United States is undergoing an era of cultural revolution,” said Zhang Qianfan, a professor at Peking University. “The top leader, Donald Trump, is trying to mobilise the grassroots in order to sideline or undermine established figures … similar to events in China half a century ago.”
Ever since Trump initiated the so-called a government streamlining body, or Doge, on federal institutions early on in office, numerous Chinese observers see American governance via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the mobilisation of the youth to execute presidential directives, or purging organizations of perceived enemies, Trump as viewed from China has brought Mao-style chaos to the US, albeit without equivalent degrees of violence.
However after the turmoil of the early months of the new administration has calmed, an unfamiliar, different kind of political atmosphere has settled in the US, which in different ways also feels recognizable to many Chinese individuals.
‘The Lighthouse Is Less Bright’
The deepest similarity between Trump’s America and the East is the suppression on free speech.
A former police officer, turned CCP dissenter, found himself in a controversy this year, similar to what he once faced in China. Deng resided in the US since 2019, after escaping China due to harassment from officials.
Last fall, following the passing of Charlie Kirk, Deng tweeted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Like people across the US – who were fired as a result of expressing criticism about Kirk – Deng faced significant backlash. Relatives 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 such a thing could happen in the United States – what should only happen in a repressive state,” he commented.
His pile on originated from online peers, instead of the state, but such of social surveillance also has parallels with China.
“Regarding targeting those who disagree and monitoring public speech about issues that are sensitive … That’s starting to emerge here,” noted Maria Repnikova, an associate professor at a US university. “That’s something observed in the East now as well,” she added, adding that there were now fears in the US of students reporting on teachers, a type of monitoring promoted by Chinese authorities.
Zhang, the Peking University law professor, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself used to look to the US for ideals, since openly discussing internal affairs in China is risky. However, “America is no longer a ideal for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has declined across the board.”
“We once viewed America as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, this lighthouse seems to have become dimmer”.
Progressive Chinese, typically, behind closed doors, skeptical about China’s political system, now perceive it more acceptable than the US's, he stated. “It’s sort of painful to accept this … but after the pandemic, the government seems to be doing correct policies in environmental protection and promoting EVs and tech investment,” Zhang said, while “Western nations, as represented by America, seems to be declining.”
The government's acquisition of shares in American firms has also drawn parallels with the East, where the distinction between state and business is often blurred.
On Monday, authorities announced it will take an investor in a startup focused on rare earth processing, following comparable shares in other companies it considers essential for national security. The deals have left some investors nervous that America is embarking on a new era of government meddling in private industry.
There are still significant distinctions between the US under Trump and China. Last month, several news organisations among others declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that demanded reporting solely on approved news. US courts have halted or overturned many of Trump’s actions, something that is impossible in China’s party-dominated legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of Strategy Risks, specializing in China, said: “The United States might face the worst crisis of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it will still be more free, more open, and more liberal than China under Xi.”
The professor notes that while numerous scholars in China were surprised to see American colleges yield to government demands regarding diversity and inclusion practices and free speech on university grounds, in the East, the top universities are publicly controlled inherently. University leaders, which are selected by the state, “have no liberty of saying no. They dare not defy orders.”
Still, people in the US are beginning to take precautions that were once associated with more authoritarian countries. One professor at a US university who was previously outspoken on US-China issues declined to be interviewed for this article. He said: “The truth is, I am scared of the censorship in the US: I actually feel less afraid to criticise Xi now than say anything bad
