As Vickie Wang, an emerging performer, takes her platform in New York, she is not only considering what humor to deliver. She also carefully considers which topics to avoid. “I don't engage in openly criticizing the government,” she explained. Or if she ventures there, she makes certain it's not captured for online platforms. “I'd never publicly share content where I directly criticize the government … I believe this is a habit acquired back home.”
Wang, thirty-nine, lived in the Chinese metropolis for almost ten years, leaving in 2022. By 2025, she moved to America. Upon arrival, she embarked on a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” going to lectures, demonstrations, and delving into the city's library system.
However in the year after the president returned to office for the second time, there has been a “palpable change” in the environment, she says. “Back home, I understood the boundaries, whereas in the US I find myself on shifting sands.”
Her concerns reflect an emerging climate in America which many Chinese, or those who have lived in the country, find eerily similar. Opponents are ostracised. The president demands absolute loyalty. Journalists are targeted. Institutions are attacked.
The president has not been shy regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, China’s authoritarian figure. He's called him as a “great guy”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in economic tensions on Thursday, the bonhomie between both figures of countries with diametrically opposed political systems became clear. And after decades of hope in the US that improved relations with the East could assist the rising power to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it appears as if America is being pulled in China's path, instead of the other way around.
“The United States is undergoing an era of cultural revolution,” stated Zhang Qianfan, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The top leader, Trump, is trying to rally the masses in order to sideline or weaken established figures … reminiscent of events in China decades past.”
Ever since the administration initiated the so-called a government streamlining body, or Doge, on federal institutions at the start in office, many in China have viewed American governance through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the rallying of young people to execute the leader’s will, or purging organizations of perceived enemies, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered Mao-style chaos to America, though absent the same levels of violence.
However after the upheaval of the initial period of the new administration subsided, an unfamiliar, different kind of climate has emerged in the country, which variously seems familiar to numerous Chinese individuals.
‘The Lighthouse Is Less Bright’
The most profound parallel between the US today and the East is the suppression on free speech.
Deng Haiyan, turned CCP dissenter, found himself in the eye of a storm this year, the likes of which he once faced in his homeland. Deng resided in America since 2019, having fled China because of pressure from officials.
In September, following the passing of a public figure, Deng tweeted that the individual was “despicable”. Like people across the US – who lost their jobs as a result of making negative comments regarding him – he encountered significant backlash. His family was doxed and he faced allegations of espionage seeking to divide the US.
“That event was a real shock. I never imagined that something like this would occur in America – what typically happens in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.
His backlash came from fellow social media users, rather than the government, but that kind of social surveillance also has similarities with China.
“Regarding targeting those who disagree and monitoring public speech on topics that are sensitive … It's appearing in the US,” noted an academic, an associate professor at Georgia State University. “That’s something that you see in the East today as well,” she said, adding that there were now fears in America of pupils informing against educators, a type of surveillance that has been encouraged by Chinese authorities.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, explained that progressive thinkers like himself used to look to America for ideals, in part because openly discussing domestic politics in the country is risky. But now, “America isn't some kind of god for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has worsened generally.”
“We used to see the US as the beacon of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, that guide seems to have become less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, who are often, at least in private, critical of the nation's governance, now perceive it less objectionable than America’s, he stated. “It's somewhat painful to accept this … but after the pandemic, authorities seems to be doing the right thing in improving the environment and promoting EVs and tech investment,” he noted, while “the West, as represented by the United States, appear declining.”
The government's acquisition of shares in American firms has prompted comparisons with China, where the distinction between government and private industry is frequently unclear.
Recently, authorities stated it will take an investor in a new company focused on rare earth processing, following comparable shares in other companies it considers vital to national security. These moves have left some investors nervous that America is entering a fresh phase of state intervention in the private sector.
Yet, there remain significant distinctions between the US under Trump and the East. Last month, multiple media outlets among others declined to agree to a defense department rule that required they only report on approved information. American judiciary have blocked or reversed numerous presidential measures, an action that would be impossible in the nation's party-dominated legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “America might face the worst crisis of its history, far more severe than currently, and it will still be more free, more open, and more liberal than the East under its leader.”
Zhang notes that while numerous scholars in the country were shocked to see US universities capitulate to government demands regarding diversity and inclusion practices and free speech on university grounds, in the East, the top universities are all state-owned inherently. University leaders, who are selected by the government, “cannot of saying no. They dare not to be disobedient.”
Still, Americans are beginning to adopt measures previously confined to more authoritarian countries. An academic at a US university who was previously vocal on US-China issues refused to be interviewed for this piece. He said: “Honestly, I am scared of the censorship in the US: I genuinely feel less afraid criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad
