As Vickie Wang, a rising performer, takes the stage in the Big Apple, she's not only considering which jokes to tell. She also weighs what subjects to steer clear of. “I refrain from directly criticizing the administration,” she explained. Or if she ventures there, she makes certain it isn't recorded for online platforms. “I'd never publicly share material where I openly disparage the government … I believe this is a habit acquired back home.”
Wang, thirty-nine, lived in Shanghai for nearly a decade, leaving in that year. By 2025, she relocated to the US. When she got there, she embarked on a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” attending talks, demonstrations, and delving into the city's library system.
However over the past year since Donald Trump returned to office for the second time, there has been a noticeable shift in the atmosphere, she says. “In China, I knew the boundaries, whereas in the US I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Wang’s fears mirror an emerging political reality in America which numerous individuals from China, or those with experience in the country, perceive as eerily similar. Opponents face exclusion. The president demands total allegiance. Reporters face scrutiny. Institutions come under fire.
Trump has not been shy about his admiration for Xi Jinping, the nation's authoritarian figure. He's called him as a “great guy”. When they reached a temporary truce in economic tensions on Thursday, the camaraderie between the two leaders of nations with diametrically opposed governance models was evident. And after decades of optimism in the US that improved relations with the East could assist the growing nation become more open, in the current administration, it appears that the US is being pulled in the Chinese direction, instead of the other way around.
“The United States is experiencing a period of cultural revolution,” said Zhang Qianfan, a professor at Peking University. “The top leader, Trump, is attempting to mobilise the masses in order to marginalize or weaken the elite … reminiscent of what happened in China half a century ago.”
Since Trump unleashed what's termed a government streamlining body, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy early on of his term, numerous Chinese observers have viewed US politics via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the mobilisation of the youth to carry out the leader’s will, or purging organizations of those deemed opposition, the president as viewed from China has brought Mao-style chaos to the US, though absent equivalent degrees of force.
However since the turmoil of the initial period of the new administration has calmed, a new, different kind of political atmosphere has emerged in the US, which in different ways also feels familiar to many Chinese people.
‘The Beacon Has Become Dimmer’
The deepest parallel between the US today and China is the suppression on open expression.
A former police officer, now a Chinese Communist party dissenter, ended up in a controversy recently, the likes of which he once faced in his homeland. He resided in the US for several years, after escaping the country because of harassment from officials.
In September, after the death of Charlie Kirk, Deng tweeted that Kirk was a “scumbag”. Similar to others across the US – many of whom were fired as a result of making negative comments about Kirk – he encountered a huge backlash. Relatives was doxed and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy seeking to create division.
“That event surprised me deeply. I never imagined that something like this could happen in the United States – what typically happens in a repressive state,” Deng said.
Deng’s backlash originated from fellow social media users, rather than the government, but such of public monitoring bears similarities with the East.
“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 a US university. “This is observed in the East now as well,” she said, stating that there were now fears in America of students reporting on educators, a type of monitoring that has been encouraged by Chinese authorities.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself used to look to the US for ideals, since openly discussing domestic politics in the country is risky. However, “The US is no longer some kind of god for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has worsened generally.”
“We once viewed America as the beacon of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, this lighthouse appears less luminous”.
Progressive Chinese, who are often, at least in private, skeptical about the nation's governance, now perceive it less objectionable than the US's, Zhang said. “It's somewhat painful to accept this reality … but post-COVID, the government seems to be doing the right thing in improving the environment and promoting EVs and tech investment,” he noted, while “the West, exemplified by America, appear declining.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of stakes in American firms has also drawn comparisons with the East, where the line between state and business is often blurred.
On Monday, authorities announced it would become an investor in a startup focused on rare earth processing, after taking similar stakes in other companies 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.
There are still major differences between the US under Trump and the East. Last month, multiple media outlets including the Guardian declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that demanded they only report on approved news. American judiciary have halted or overturned numerous presidential measures, an action that would be impossible in China’s CCP-controlled legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of a consulting firm, specializing in China, commented: “America could descend into its gravest challenge of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it would remain more free, more open, and liberal than the East under its leader.”
The professor observes that while numerous scholars in China were shocked to see US universities yield to government demands concerning DEI policies and free speech on university grounds, in the East, the top universities are publicly controlled inherently. Administrators, who are selected by the government, “cannot of saying no. They can’t afford defy orders.”
Still, people in the US are beginning to adopt measures previously associated with more authoritarian countries. An academic at a US university who was previously vocal on bilateral matters refused to be interviewed for this article. He stated: “Honestly, I fear of the censorship here: I actually feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad
