When Vickie Wang, a rising performer, steps onto her platform in New York, she is not just considering what humor to tell. Additionally, she weighs which topics to avoid. “I don't engage in openly criticizing the administration,” she explained. Or if she does, she ensures it isn't recorded for online platforms. “I would never publish openly content in which I directly criticize the government … I think it's a learned behavior acquired back home.”
Wang, thirty-nine, lived in Shanghai for almost ten years, departing in that year. By 2025, she relocated to the US. When she got there, she embarked on a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” going to lectures, protests, and delving into the city's library system.
But in the year after Donald Trump was elected for the second time, there's been a noticeable shift in the atmosphere, she notes. “Back home, I knew the boundaries, whereas here I find myself on shifting sands.”
Wang’s concerns reflect an emerging political reality in America which numerous individuals from China, or those with experience in the country, find disturbingly familiar. Enemies face exclusion. The president demands absolute loyalty. Reporters face scrutiny. Institutions are attacked.
Trump has not been shy regarding his respect for China's leader, the nation's strongman leader. He's called him as “fantastic”. As they agreed a temporary truce in the trade war recently, the bonhomie between the two leaders of countries with vastly different political systems became clear. Following years of optimism in America that improved relations with the East could assist the growing nation become more open, in the current administration, it seems as if the US is shifting in China's path, instead of vice versa.
“America is undergoing a period of cultural revolution,” said Zhang Qianfan, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The top leader, Trump, is trying to rally the masses in order to sideline or undermine established figures … reminiscent of events in the country decades past.”
Since the administration initiated what's termed Department for Government Efficiency, or Doge, on federal institutions at the start in office, numerous Chinese observers see American governance via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the mobilisation of young people to execute presidential directives, or purging institutions of perceived enemies, the president as viewed from China has delivered disorder reminiscent of Mao to the US, though without equivalent degrees of violence.
But since the upheaval of the early months of the new administration subsided, a new, different kind of political atmosphere has settled in the country, which variously seems familiar to numerous Chinese people.
‘The Lighthouse Has Become Dimmer’
The most profound parallel between the US today and the East is the crackdown on open expression.
A former police officer, now a Chinese Communist party dissenter, found himself in a controversy recently, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in China. Deng has lived in the US since 2019, having fled the country because of pressure from officials.
Last fall, following the passing of Charlie Kirk, he posted that Kirk was “despicable”. Like people nationwide – who were fired as a result of expressing criticism regarding him – Deng faced significant backlash. Relatives had personal info leaked and he was accused of espionage seeking to create division.
“That event surprised me deeply. I never imagined such a thing would occur in the United States – what typically happens in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.
His pile on originated from online peers, instead of the government, but such of public monitoring also has similarities with China.
“In terms of going after those who disagree and starting to surveil public speech about issues that are sensitive … That’s starting to emerge here,” said Maria Repnikova, a scholar at Georgia State University. “This is observed in the East now as too,” she added, adding that concerns are rising in the US of pupils informing against educators, a form of monitoring that has been encouraged by the CCP.
Zhang, the Peking University law professor, explained that progressive thinkers like himself once turned to the US for ideals, since openly discussing domestic politics in China is dangerous. However, “America isn't some kind of ideal for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has worsened generally.”
“We used to see America as the beacon of democratic governance, but since the new administration, this lighthouse appears dimmer”.
Chinese liberals, typically, behind closed doors, critical of China’s political system, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than America’s, Zhang said. “It’s sort of difficult to acknowledge this … but post-COVID, the government seems to be doing correct policies in improving the environment and developing electric cars and tech investment,” Zhang said, while “Western nations, as represented by America, seems to be declining.”
The Trump administration’s acquisition of shares in US companies has also drawn comparisons with the East, where the distinction between state and private industry is frequently unclear.
Recently, the US government announced it will take an investor in a startup specialising in mineral refinement, after taking similar stakes in other companies it considers essential for the country's safety. These moves have left some investors nervous that the US is entering a new era of government meddling in the private sector.
There are still major differences between the US under Trump and China. In October, multiple media outlets among others declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that required reporting solely on government-authorised news. American judiciary have halted or overturned many of presidential measures, an action that is unthinkable in the nation's CCP-controlled legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of a consulting firm, specializing in China, commented: “America might face its gravest challenge of all time, far more severe than currently, and it would remain more free, open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
The professor notes that while many intellectuals in China were shocked to see American colleges capitulate to official requests regarding diversity and inclusion practices and free speech on campus, in China, the top universities are publicly controlled by default. University leaders, which are selected by the state, “have no liberty refuse. They dare not defy orders.”
Still, Americans are beginning to take precautions that were once associated with more authoritarian countries. An academic at a US university once outspoken on bilateral matters refused to speak for this piece. He stated: “The truth is, I am scared of the censorship in the US: I genuinely feel less afraid to criticise Xi now than say anything bad
