When Vickie Wang, a rising performer, steps onto the stage in the Big Apple, she's not only thinking about which jokes to tell. She also weighs which topics to avoid. “I don't engage in directly criticizing the administration,” she explained. And when she does, she ensures it isn't recorded for online platforms. “I would never publish openly content where I openly disparage authorities … I think it's a habit from China.”
Wang, thirty-nine, resided in Shanghai for almost ten years, leaving in that year. In 2025, she relocated to the US. Upon arrival, she embarked on an intense period of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” attending lectures, demonstrations, and delving into the city's public library.
However over the past year since the president returned to office again, there's been a “palpable change” in the environment, she notes. “Back home, I understood the boundaries, whereas here I find myself on unstable ground.”
Wang’s concerns reflect a new political reality in America which numerous individuals from China, or people with experience in the country, perceive as eerily familiar. Opponents face exclusion. The president demands total allegiance. Journalists face scrutiny. Establishments are attacked.
The president has not been shy about his admiration for China's leader, the nation's authoritarian figure. He's called Xi as “fantastic”. As they agreed a temporary truce in the trade war recently, the bonhomie between the two leaders of countries with vastly different governance models became clear. And after decades of hope in the US that closer ties with the East may help the growing nation become more open, under Trump 2.0, it appears as if the US is being pulled in China's path, instead of vice versa.
“The United States is undergoing an era of cultural revolution,” stated Zhang Qianfan, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The top leader, Trump, is trying to rally the masses in order to marginalize or undermine the elite … similar to what happened in the country half a century ago.”
Ever since the administration unleashed what's termed Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy early on of his term, many in China have viewed US politics via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the mobilisation of the youth to execute the leader’s will, or cleansing organizations of those deemed opposition, Trump as viewed from China has delivered Mao-style chaos to America, albeit absent equivalent degrees of violence.
But after the upheaval of the initial period under Trump has calmed, an unfamiliar, distinct type of political atmosphere has emerged in the US, which in different ways seems recognizable to numerous Chinese people.
‘The Beacon Is Less Bright’
The deepest similarity between the US today and China is the suppression on open expression.
Deng Haiyan, turned Chinese Communist party critic, found himself in a controversy this year, similar to what he once faced in China. He resided in the US since 2019, after escaping China because of harassment from officials.
Last fall, after the death of a public figure, Deng tweeted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Similar to others nationwide – who lost their jobs for expressing criticism about Kirk – Deng faced significant backlash. His family was doxed and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy attempting to divide the US.
“That event was a real shock. I hadn't thought that something like this could happen in the United States – something that typically happens in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.
Deng’s pile on originated from fellow social media users, instead of the government, but that kind of social surveillance bears similarities with the East.
“Regarding going after dissenters and monitoring public speech on topics that are sensitive … That’s starting to emerge in the US,” said an academic, an associate professor at a US university. “That’s something that you see in the East today as well,” she added, stating that there were now fears in America of students reporting on educators, a type of surveillance promoted by the CCP.
The professor, the legal expert, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him used to look to America for ideals, in part because public debate on domestic politics in the country is risky. But now, “The US is no longer some kind of god for Chinese liberals. America’s image has declined generally.”
“We used to see the US as the beacon of constitutional democracy, but after Trump took power, this lighthouse seems to have become less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, who are often, behind closed doors, skeptical about the nation's governance, now perceive it less objectionable than America’s, he stated. “It's somewhat difficult to acknowledge this … but post-COVID, the government appears to be pursuing correct policies in improving the environment and promoting EVs and investing in hi-tech,” he noted, while “Western nations, as represented by the United States, appear declining.”
The Trump administration’s acquisition of stakes in US companies has also drawn comparisons with the East, where the distinction between state and business is often blurred.
Recently, the US government announced it would become an investor in a startup specialising in rare earth processing, after taking comparable shares in other companies it considers vital to the country's safety. These moves have left certain stakeholders nervous that the US is entering a fresh phase of government meddling in private industry.
There are still significant distinctions between Trump’s America and China. In October, multiple media outlets among others refused to sign to a Pentagon policy that demanded they only report on approved news. US courts have halted or overturned numerous Trump’s actions, something that would be unthinkable in China’s CCP-controlled judiciary.
An analyst, the founder of a consulting firm, specializing in China, commented: “America might face the worst crisis of all time, far more severe than it is now, and it will still be freer, more open, and more liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang notes that although numerous scholars in China were shocked to see US universities yield to official requests regarding diversity and inclusion practices and open discourse on campus, in the East, leading institutions are publicly controlled inherently. Administrators, who are appointed by the state, “cannot of saying no. They dare not to be disobedient.”
Nevertheless, Americans are starting to take precautions that were once confined to more authoritarian countries. An academic at an American college who was previously vocal on bilateral matters declined to be interviewed for this piece. He said: “Honestly, I am scared of the censorship in the US: I genuinely feel less afraid criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad
