When Vickie Wang, a rising performer, steps onto the stage in the Big Apple, she's not just considering which jokes to tell. Additionally, she carefully considers what subjects to steer clear of. “I refrain from openly attacking the administration,” she explained. Or if she ventures there, she ensures it isn't recorded for online platforms. “I would never publish openly content in which I directly criticize the government … I think this is a learned behavior from China.”
Wang, thirty-nine, resided in the Chinese metropolis for nearly ten years, leaving in that year. By 2025, she relocated to the US. When she got there, she embarked on an intense period of “revenge bingeing on democracy,” attending talks, demonstrations, and exploring the city's public library.
But in the year since Donald Trump returned to office for the second time, there has been a “palpable change” in the environment, she notes. “Back home, I knew the boundaries, while here I find myself on unstable ground.”
Her concerns mirror a new climate in the US which numerous individuals from China, or people with experience in China, find eerily similar. Opponents are ostracised. The president demands absolute loyalty. Journalists are targeted. Institutions are attacked.
Trump has not been shy about his admiration for Xi Jinping, the nation's authoritarian figure. He has described Xi as a “great guy”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in economic tensions on Thursday, the bonhomie between the two leaders of countries with vastly different political systems was evident. And after decades of hope in America that improved relations with China may help the growing nation to liberalise, in the current administration, it seems as if the US is shifting in China's path, instead of vice versa.
“The United States is undergoing an era of cultural revolution,” stated a constitutional law expert, an academic at Peking University. “The president, Donald Trump, is attempting to rally the masses in order to sideline or undermine established figures … reminiscent of events in China decades past.”
Ever since Trump unleashed the so-called a government streamlining body, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start in office, numerous Chinese observers have viewed American governance through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the rallying of young people to execute presidential directives, or cleansing organizations of those deemed opposition, Trump as viewed from China has delivered disorder reminiscent of Mao to the US, though without equivalent degrees of force.
But after the turmoil of the initial period of the new administration subsided, a new, distinct type of political atmosphere has emerged in the US, which variously seems familiar to many Chinese individuals.
‘The Lighthouse Has Become Dimmer’
The most profound similarity between Trump’s America and China is the suppression on free speech.
A former police officer, turned Chinese Communist party dissenter, found himself in the eye of a storm recently, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in China. He has lived in America for several years, after escaping China because of harassment from officials.
Last fall, following the passing of a public figure, he posted that the individual was “despicable”. Like people nationwide – many of whom lost their jobs for making negative comments about Kirk – Deng faced significant backlash. Relatives was doxed and he was accused of espionage attempting to divide the US.
“This incident was a real shock. I hadn't thought such a thing would occur in the United States – what typically happens in a repressive state,” he commented.
Deng’s pile on came from fellow social media users, rather than the state, but such of social surveillance also has similarities with China.
“In terms of targeting dissenters and starting to surveil open discourse about issues deemed controversial … It's appearing in the US,” noted Maria Repnikova, a scholar at Georgia State University. “That’s something that you see in China now as too,” she added, adding that concerns are rising in America of students reporting on teachers, a form of monitoring that has been encouraged by the CCP.
Zhang, the legal expert, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him used to look to the US for ideals, in part because openly discussing internal affairs in China is risky. But now, “America isn't a ideal for progressive Chinese. America’s image has worsened across the board.”
“We used to see the US as the beacon of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, this lighthouse seems to have become dimmer”.
Progressive Chinese, typically, at least in private, skeptical about China’s political system, now perceive it less objectionable than the US's, Zhang said. “It's somewhat painful to accept this reality … 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 America, appear in decline.”
The government's purchase of stakes in American firms has also drawn parallels with the East, where the line between government and business is frequently unclear.
Recently, the US government stated it would become an investor in a startup focused on mineral refinement, after taking comparable shares in additional firms deemed vital to national security. These moves have made certain stakeholders nervous that America is embarking on a new era of state intervention in private industry.
Yet, there remain significant distinctions between Trump’s America and the East. Last month, several news organisations among others refused to sign to a defense department rule that demanded reporting solely on government-authorised news. American judiciary have halted or reversed many of Trump’s actions, an action that would be impossible in China’s party-dominated judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “The United States might face its gravest challenge of its history, far more severe than it is now, and it will still be freer, open, and more liberal than the East under its leader.”
Zhang observes that while many intellectuals in the country were surprised to see US universities capitulate to government demands regarding diversity and inclusion practices and free speech on campus, in China, leading institutions are publicly controlled inherently. Administrators, who are selected by the state, “have no liberty refuse. They dare not defy orders.”
Nevertheless, Americans are beginning to adopt measures previously associated with repressive regimes. One professor at an American college once vocal on US-China issues refused to be interviewed for this article. He said: “The truth is, I fear of suppression in the US: I actually feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad
