When Vickie Wang, an emerging performer, takes the stage in the Big Apple, she is not just thinking about which jokes to deliver. She also carefully considers which topics to avoid. “I don't engage in directly criticizing the government,” she explained. And when she does, she ensures it's not captured for social media. “I would never publish openly material where I openly disparage the government … I think it's a learned behavior from China.”
Wang, thirty-nine, resided in Shanghai for nearly a decade, departing in that year. In 2025, she relocated to the US. Upon arrival, she embarked on an intense period of “overindulging on democracy,” attending talks, protests, and exploring New York’s public library.
However in the year after the president returned to office for the second time, there has been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she says. “In China, I knew the boundaries, whereas here I find myself on unstable ground.”
Wang’s concerns mirror a new climate in America which numerous individuals from China, or those who have lived in China, find disturbingly similar. Opponents face exclusion. The president demands absolute loyalty. Journalists are targeted. Establishments are attacked.
Trump has not been shy regarding his respect for China's leader, China’s authoritarian figure. He has described Xi as a “great guy”. As they agreed a temporary truce in economic tensions on Thursday, the camaraderie between both figures of countries with diametrically opposed political systems was evident. And after decades of hope in America that closer ties with China could assist the growing nation to liberalise, in the current administration, it seems that the US is shifting in China's path, instead of the other way around.
“America is experiencing an era of cultural revolution,” said a constitutional law expert, a professor at a top Chinese university. “The president, Donald Trump, is trying to mobilise the masses in order to marginalize or weaken the elite … reminiscent of events in China decades past.”
Ever since the administration initiated the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on federal institutions at the start in office, many in China see US politics via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the mobilisation of young people to carry out the leader’s will, or purging organizations of those deemed opposition, Trump from a Chinese viewpoint has brought Mao-style chaos to the US, though absent the same levels of violence.
However since the turmoil of the early months under Trump subsided, a new, distinct type of political atmosphere has emerged in the US, which variously also feels recognizable to numerous Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Is Dimmer’
The most profound parallel between Trump’s America and China is the suppression on free speech.
Deng Haiyan, now a Chinese Communist party dissenter, found himself in a controversy recently, the likes of which he once faced in China. He resided in the US since 2019, after escaping China because of harassment from the authorities.
Last fall, following the passing of Charlie Kirk, Deng tweeted that the individual was “despicable”. Like people across the US – who lost their jobs as a result of making negative comments about Kirk – he encountered a huge backlash. Relatives had personal info leaked and he was accused of espionage attempting to create division.
“That event was a real shock. I never imagined that something like this would occur in the United States – something that typically happens in a repressive state,” Deng said.
Deng’s pile on came from fellow social media users, rather than the government, but such of public monitoring bears similarities with China.
“Regarding targeting dissenters and starting to surveil open discourse about issues that are sensitive … It's appearing in the US,” said Maria Repnikova, a scholar at Georgia State University. “This is that you see in China today as well,” she said, stating that there were now fears in the US of pupils informing against educators, a type of monitoring promoted by the CCP.
Zhang, the Peking University law professor, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him used to look to the US for political inspiration, in part because public debate on domestic politics in the country is risky. However, “America is no longer a ideal for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has worsened generally.”
“We once viewed America as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, that guide appears less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, who are often, behind closed doors, skeptical about China’s political system, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than America’s, Zhang said. “It's somewhat difficult to acknowledge this reality … but post-COVID, the government appears to be pursuing the right thing in environmental protection and promoting EVs and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “Western nations, exemplified by America, seems to be in decline.”
The government's acquisition of shares in US companies has also drawn comparisons with the East, where the distinction between government and business is often blurred.
Recently, the US government stated it would become a shareholder in a new company focused on rare earth processing, after taking comparable shares in other companies deemed vital to national security. These moves have made some investors nervous that America is embarking on a new era of government meddling in the private sector.
Yet, there remain major differences between Trump’s America and China. Last month, multiple media outlets among others declined to agree to a defense department rule that required reporting solely on approved news. US courts have blocked or overturned many of presidential measures, an action that is impossible in the nation's party-dominated legal system.
An analyst, the founder of Strategy Risks, specializing in China, said: “The United States could descend into the worst crisis of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it would remain freer, open, and more liberal than China under Xi.”
The professor notes that while numerous scholars in China were shocked to see American colleges capitulate to government demands regarding diversity and inclusion practices and open discourse on campus, in China, the top universities are publicly controlled inherently. Administrators, who are appointed by the government, “have no liberty of saying no. They dare not defy orders.”
Still, people in the US are beginning to take precautions previously confined to repressive regimes. An academic at a US university once outspoken on US-China issues refused to be interviewed for this article. He stated: “The truth is, I fear of the censorship here: I actually feel less afraid to criticise Xi now than say anything bad
