As Vickie Wang, an emerging performer, steps onto the stage in the Big Apple, she's not just considering what humor to tell. She also carefully considers which topics to steer clear of. “I don't engage in openly attacking the administration,” she stated. Or if she ventures there, she ensures it isn't recorded for social media. “I would never publicly share material in which I openly disparage the government … I believe it's a habit from China.”
Wang, thirty-nine, lived in Shanghai for nearly ten years, leaving in that year. By 2025, she moved to the US. When she got there, she dove into an intense period of “overindulging on freedom,” attending lectures, demonstrations, and delving into New York’s public library.
But in the year after Donald Trump was elected for the second time, there's been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she notes. “In China, I understood where the line was, while in the US I find myself on shifting sands.”
Wang’s concerns mirror an emerging political reality in the US which many Chinese, or people with experience in the country, find eerily similar. Enemies face exclusion. The leader demands total allegiance. Reporters face scrutiny. Institutions are attacked.
Trump has openly expressed regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, China’s authoritarian figure. He has described him as a “great guy”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in the trade war recently, the camaraderie between both figures of nations with vastly different political systems became clear. And after decades of hope in the US that closer ties with China could assist the rising power become more open, in the current administration, it appears as if the US is being pulled in the Chinese direction, instead of the other way around.
“America is undergoing a period of cultural revolution,” said a constitutional law expert, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The president, Trump, is trying to rally the masses in order to marginalize or undermine the elite … reminiscent of events in China half a century ago.”
Since the administration unleashed the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or Doge, on federal institutions early on of his term, numerous Chinese observers see American governance through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the rallying of young people to execute presidential directives, or purging organizations of perceived enemies, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has brought Mao-style chaos to America, though without equivalent degrees of violence.
But after the turmoil of the initial period of the new administration subsided, a new, different kind of political atmosphere has settled in the country, which variously seems recognizable to numerous Chinese individuals.
‘The Lighthouse Is Dimmer’
The most profound similarity between the US today and China is the crackdown on open expression.
Deng Haiyan, turned CCP dissenter, found himself in a controversy recently, the likes of which he once faced in China. Deng resided in the US for several years, having fled the country because of harassment from the authorities.
Last fall, following the passing of Charlie Kirk, he posted that the individual was “despicable”. Similar to others nationwide – many of whom were fired for making negative comments regarding him – Deng faced a huge backlash. His family had personal info leaked and he faced allegations of espionage seeking to create division.
“This incident was a real shock. I never imagined such a thing would occur in America – what should only happen in a repressive state,” he commented.
Deng’s backlash originated from fellow social media users, instead of the government, but that kind of public monitoring also has parallels with the East.
“Regarding targeting dissenters and monitoring open discourse about issues that are sensitive … That’s starting to emerge in the US,” said Maria Repnikova, an associate professor at a US university. “This is observed in the East now as well,” she said, stating that there were now fears in America of pupils informing against teachers, a type of monitoring promoted by Chinese authorities.
The professor, the legal expert, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him once turned to the US for political inspiration, since openly discussing internal affairs in the country is dangerous. But now, “The US is no longer a god for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has declined generally.”
“We used to see the US as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but after Trump took power, that guide appears less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, typically, behind closed doors, critical of the nation's governance, now perceive it more acceptable than the US's, Zhang said. “It's somewhat painful to accept this … but after the pandemic, authorities appears to be pursuing correct policies in environmental protection and developing electric cars and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “the West, as represented by the United States, seems to be in decline.”
The government's acquisition of shares in American firms has also drawn comparisons with the East, where the distinction between state and business is frequently unclear.
On Monday, the US government stated it would become a shareholder in a new company focused on mineral refinement, following similar stakes in other companies it considers essential for the country's safety. These moves have made some investors nervous that America is embarking on a fresh phase of state intervention in private industry.
There are still major differences between Trump’s America and China. In October, multiple media outlets among others refused to sign to a defense department rule that required reporting solely on approved news. US courts have blocked or overturned numerous presidential measures, something that is unthinkable in China’s CCP-controlled legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of Strategy Risks, specializing in China, said: “The United States could descend into the worst crisis of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it will still be more free, more open, and more liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang observes that although many intellectuals in the country were surprised to see US universities capitulate to official requests concerning DEI policies and free speech on university grounds, in China, leading institutions are publicly controlled inherently. Administrators, which are selected by the government, “have no liberty of saying no. They dare not to be disobedient.”
Still, people in the US are starting to adopt measures that were once confined to repressive regimes. An academic at a US university who was previously outspoken on bilateral matters declined to be interviewed for this article. He said: “The truth is, I am scared of the censorship here: I genuinely feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad
