When Vickie Wang, a rising performer, takes her platform in the Big Apple, she's not only thinking about what humor to deliver. She also weighs which topics to avoid. “I don't engage in directly criticizing the government,” she stated. Or if she does, she ensures it's not recorded for social media. “I'd never publicly share content in which I openly disparage the government … I believe it's a habit acquired back home.”
Wang, thirty-nine, resided in Shanghai for almost ten years, departing in 2022. In 2025, she moved to the US. Upon arrival, she embarked on an intense period of “overindulging on freedom,” attending lectures, demonstrations, and delving into New York’s library system.
But over the past year after Donald Trump was elected for the second time, there's been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she notes. “In China, I understood where the line was, while in the US I find myself on unstable ground.”
Her concerns reflect an emerging political reality in America which numerous individuals from China, or people with experience in China, perceive as disturbingly familiar. Opponents face exclusion. The president demands total allegiance. Reporters face scrutiny. Establishments are attacked.
Trump has not been shy regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, the nation's strongman leader. He has described him as a “great guy”. When they reached a temporary truce in economic tensions recently, the camaraderie between the two leaders of nations with vastly different political systems became clear. Following years of hope in America that closer ties with the East may help the rising power to liberalise, in the current administration, it seems that the US is being pulled in the Chinese direction, instead of vice versa.
“America is undergoing an era of cultural revolution,” said a constitutional law expert, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The president, Donald Trump, is attempting to rally the masses to marginalize or undermine established figures … reminiscent of events in the country half a century ago.”
Ever since Trump unleashed the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy early on of his term, numerous Chinese observers have viewed American governance through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the mobilisation of young people to carry out presidential directives, or cleansing organizations of those deemed opposition, Trump as viewed from China has delivered Mao-style chaos to the US, though absent equivalent degrees of violence.
But after the upheaval of the initial period under Trump has calmed, an unfamiliar, distinct type of climate has emerged in the country, which in different ways seems familiar to many Chinese people.
‘The Beacon Is Dimmer’
The deepest similarity between the US today and the East is the crackdown on free speech.
Deng Haiyan, turned Chinese Communist party critic, found himself in a controversy this year, the likes of which he once faced in his homeland. He resided in America since 2019, after escaping the country because of harassment from officials.
In September, following the passing of a public figure, Deng tweeted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Like people across the US – who lost their jobs for expressing criticism about Kirk – Deng faced significant backlash. His family had personal info leaked and he was accused of espionage attempting to divide the US.
“That event was a real shock. I never imagined that something like this could happen in the United States – something that typically happens in a repressive state,” Deng said.
Deng’s backlash originated from fellow social media users, instead of the state, but such of public monitoring also has similarities with China.
“Regarding targeting those who disagree and monitoring open discourse about issues that are sensitive … That’s starting to emerge here,” said an academic, an associate professor at Georgia State University. “This is observed in the East now as well,” she added, adding that there were now fears in America of students reporting on educators, a form of surveillance promoted by the CCP.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, explained that progressive thinkers like himself used to look to the US for political inspiration, since openly discussing domestic politics in China is risky. However, “The US isn't some kind of ideal for progressive Chinese. America’s image has declined across the board.”
“We used to see America as the beacon of democratic governance, but after Trump took power, this lighthouse appears dimmer”.
Chinese liberals, typically, at least in private, critical of the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than America’s, Zhang said. “It’s sort of difficult to acknowledge this … but after the pandemic, authorities seems to be doing correct policies in environmental protection and developing electric cars and investing in hi-tech,” he noted, while “the West, as represented by America, appear declining.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of shares in American firms has also drawn comparisons with China, where the line between government and private industry is often blurred.
Recently, authorities announced it will take a shareholder in a startup focused on rare earth processing, following similar stakes in additional firms it considers vital to national security. The deals have left some investors nervous 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 the East. Last month, multiple media outlets among others declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that demanded reporting solely on approved news. American judiciary have blocked or reversed many of presidential measures, an action that is unthinkable in the nation's party-dominated legal system.
An analyst, who established of Strategy Risks, specializing in China, said: “America could descend into the worst crisis of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it would remain more free, open, and liberal than the East under its leader.”
Zhang observes that although many intellectuals in China were shocked to see US universities yield to official requests regarding diversity and inclusion practices and free speech on university grounds, in China, leading institutions are all state-owned inherently. Administrators, which are appointed by the government, “cannot refuse. They can’t afford defy orders.”
Still, people in the US are starting to take precautions previously associated with more authoritarian countries. One professor at an American college once vocal on bilateral matters refused to speak for this piece. He stated: “The truth is, I fear of the censorship here: I genuinely feel less afraid criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad
