When Vickie Wang, an emerging performer, steps onto the stage in the Big Apple, she is not only considering what humor to tell. She also weighs which topics to steer clear of. “I refrain from directly criticizing the government,” she explained. And when she ventures there, she makes certain it isn't recorded for social media. “I would never publicly share content in which I openly disparage authorities … I believe it's a habit from China.”
Wang, 39, lived in Shanghai for almost ten years, departing in that year. By 2025, she moved to America. Upon arrival, she embarked on an intense period of “overindulging on democracy,” attending talks, protests, and delving into New York’s library system.
But in the year after Donald Trump returned to office for the second time, there's been a noticeable shift in the environment, she notes. “Back home, I knew the boundaries, while here I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Wang’s concerns reflect a new political reality in America which many Chinese, or people who have lived in the country, find disturbingly similar. Opponents are ostracised. The leader expects total allegiance. Journalists face scrutiny. Establishments come under fire.
Trump has openly expressed about his admiration for China's leader, China’s authoritarian figure. He's called him as “fantastic”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in the trade war on Thursday, the camaraderie between both figures of nations with vastly different political systems was evident. And after decades of optimism in America that improved relations with China could assist the rising power to liberalise, in the current administration, it seems that the US is being pulled in China's path, rather than the other way around.
“America is experiencing an era of cultural revolution,” said a constitutional law expert, a professor at Peking University. “The president, Trump, is trying to mobilise the masses in order to sideline or weaken established figures … reminiscent of events in the country decades past.”
Since Trump initiated the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start of his term, many in China see American governance through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the mobilisation of the youth to execute presidential directives, or cleansing institutions of those deemed opposition, the president as viewed from China has delivered disorder reminiscent of Mao to America, albeit without equivalent degrees of force.
However after the turmoil of the initial period of the new administration has calmed, a new, distinct type of climate has settled in the US, which variously seems recognizable to many Chinese individuals.
‘The Lighthouse Is Dimmer’
The deepest similarity between Trump’s America and China is the crackdown on free speech.
Deng Haiyan, turned Chinese Communist party critic, ended up in a controversy this year, the likes of which he once faced in his homeland. Deng resided in the US for several years, having fled the country due to harassment from the authorities.
Last fall, following the passing of Charlie Kirk, Deng tweeted that Kirk was “despicable”. Similar to others across the US – many of whom were fired as a result of expressing criticism regarding him – Deng faced significant backlash. His family had personal info leaked and he was accused of being a Chinese spy attempting to divide the US.
“That event was a real shock. I never imagined such a thing would occur in the United States – what should only happen in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.
His pile on originated from fellow social media users, instead of the government, but such of public monitoring also has similarities with the East.
“Regarding going after dissenters and monitoring open discourse about issues that are sensitive … It's appearing in the US,” said Maria Repnikova, an associate professor at Georgia State University. “That’s something observed in China now as too,” she added, adding that there were now fears in the US of students reporting on educators, a type of monitoring promoted by the CCP.
Zhang, the legal expert, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself used to look to the US for political inspiration, in part because openly discussing internal affairs in China is dangerous. But now, “America isn't a ideal for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has declined generally.”
“We used to see America as the beacon of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, that guide appears less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, who are often, at least in private, skeptical about the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than the US's, he stated. “It's somewhat painful to accept this … but after the pandemic, the government seems to be doing the right thing in improving the environment and promoting EVs and tech investment,” Zhang said, while “Western nations, as represented by the United States, seems to be declining.”
The government's acquisition of stakes in American firms has also drawn parallels with the East, where the distinction between government and business is frequently unclear.
Recently, the US government announced it will take a shareholder in a new company specialising in rare earth processing, following comparable shares in other companies deemed vital to the country's safety. These moves have made certain stakeholders nervous that the US is entering a new era of state intervention in private industry.
Yet, there remain significant distinctions between the US under Trump and the East. Last month, several news organisations including the Guardian declined to agree to a defense department rule that required they only report on government-authorised information. American judiciary have blocked or overturned many of Trump’s actions, something that is impossible in the nation's party-dominated judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, said: “The United States might face the worst crisis of all time, far more severe than it is now, and it will still be more free, open, and more liberal than the East under its leader.”
Zhang notes that although many intellectuals in the country were shocked to see US universities yield to government demands regarding DEI policies and free speech on campus, in China, the top universities are publicly controlled inherently. Administrators, who are appointed by the state, “have no liberty of saying no. They can’t afford defy orders.”
Nevertheless, people in the US are beginning to take precautions that were once confined to repressive regimes. An academic at an American college once outspoken on bilateral matters refused to speak for this article. He said: “The truth is, I fear of suppression here: I genuinely feel more comfortable to criticise Xi now than say anything bad
