When Vickie Wang, a rising comedic talent, takes the stage in the Big Apple, she's not only considering what humor to deliver. Additionally, she weighs what subjects to avoid. “I don't engage in openly attacking the administration,” she explained. And when she ventures there, she makes certain it isn't captured for social media. “I would never publicly share material where I openly disparage authorities … I think it's a learned behavior acquired back home.”
Wang, thirty-nine, resided in the Chinese metropolis for nearly a decade, departing in that year. In 2025, she moved to America. When she got there, she embarked on an intense period of “revenge bingeing on democracy,” going to lectures, protests, and delving into New York’s library system.
However in the year since Donald Trump was elected again, there's been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she notes. “Back home, I knew where the line was, whereas in the US I find myself on unstable ground.”
Her fears reflect a new climate in America which numerous individuals from China, or those with experience in China, perceive as disturbingly familiar. Enemies face exclusion. The president expects absolute loyalty. Journalists face scrutiny. Institutions come under fire.
The president has openly expressed about his admiration for Xi Jinping, China’s strongman leader. He's called Xi as a “great guy”. As they agreed a temporary truce in economic tensions recently, the bonhomie between both figures of nations with vastly different governance models became clear. Following years of optimism in America that closer ties with China could assist the rising power to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it seems as if the US is shifting in China's path, rather than the other way around.
“America is experiencing an era of cultural revolution,” said Zhang Qianfan, a professor at a top Chinese university. “The top leader, Trump, is attempting to rally the masses to marginalize or weaken established figures … similar to what happened in the country half a century ago.”
Since the administration initiated the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start in office, numerous Chinese observers have viewed US politics through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the mobilisation of the youth to carry out the leader’s will, or cleansing organizations of those deemed opposition, Trump from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered Mao-style chaos to the US, albeit without equivalent degrees of force.
However after the upheaval of the early months under Trump has calmed, a new, different kind of climate has emerged in the country, which in different ways seems recognizable to many Chinese people.
‘The Lighthouse Has Become Less Bright’
The deepest parallel between the US today and China is the crackdown on free speech.
Deng Haiyan, now a Chinese Communist party critic, found himself in a controversy recently, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in China. He resided in the US for several years, having fled the country due to harassment from officials.
Last fall, following the passing of Charlie Kirk, Deng tweeted that the individual was “despicable”. Similar to others 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 seeking to divide the US.
“That event surprised me deeply. I never imagined such a thing could happen in the United States – what should only happen in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.
His pile on came from online peers, rather than the government, but such of public monitoring also has parallels with the East.
“In terms of targeting dissenters and starting to surveil public speech about issues deemed controversial … It's appearing in the US,” said an academic, an associate professor at Georgia State University. “This is observed in China today as too,” she added, adding that concerns are rising in the US of students reporting on educators, a form of monitoring that has been encouraged by Chinese authorities.
Zhang, the Peking University law professor, said that progressive thinkers such as him once turned to the US for ideals, since public debate on domestic politics in the country is risky. However, “America isn't a god for progressive Chinese. 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, that guide appears less luminous”.
Progressive Chinese, typically, behind closed doors, critical of China’s political system, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than the US's, Zhang said. “It’s sort of difficult to acknowledge this reality … but after the pandemic, authorities seems to be doing the right thing in environmental protection and developing electric cars and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “Western nations, as represented by the United States, seems to be in decline.”
The Trump administration’s acquisition of shares in American firms has also drawn parallels with the East, where the line between government and private industry is frequently unclear.
On Monday, authorities announced it will take a shareholder in a new company specialising in mineral refinement, after taking similar stakes in additional firms deemed vital to the country's safety. These moves have left certain stakeholders concerned that America is entering a fresh phase of state intervention in private industry.
Yet, there remain major differences between the US under Trump and the East. In October, several news organisations including the Guardian refused to sign to a defense department rule that demanded reporting solely on approved information. American judiciary have halted or reversed many of Trump’s actions, an action that would be unthinkable in the nation's party-dominated legal system.
An analyst, the founder of a consulting firm, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “America could descend into the worst crisis of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it will still be freer, open, and liberal than the East under its leader.”
Zhang observes that while numerous scholars in China were shocked to see US universities capitulate to government demands regarding diversity and inclusion practices and open discourse on campus, in China, the top universities are publicly controlled by default. Administrators, who are selected by the government, “cannot of saying no. They can’t afford defy orders.”
Nevertheless, people in the US are beginning to adopt measures previously confined to more authoritarian countries. One professor at an American college once outspoken on US-China issues refused to be interviewed for this piece. He said: “Honestly, I fear of suppression here: I genuinely feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad
