When Vickie Wang, an emerging performer, takes her platform in the Big Apple, she's not just thinking about which jokes to deliver. She also weighs which topics to avoid. “I don't engage in openly criticizing the government,” she explained. And when she does, she makes certain it isn't captured for online platforms. “I'd never publish openly material in which I directly criticize the government … I believe it's a learned behavior from China.”
Wang, thirty-nine, lived in Shanghai for nearly ten years, departing in that year. In 2025, she relocated to America. Upon arrival, she dove into a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” attending talks, protests, and exploring the city's public library.
But over the past year after Donald Trump returned to office for the second time, there has been a “palpable change” in the environment, she notes. “Back home, I knew where the line was, while here I find myself on shifting sands.”
Wang’s fears reflect a new climate in America which many Chinese, or those who have lived in China, perceive as eerily similar. Enemies are ostracised. The leader demands absolute loyalty. Journalists are targeted. Institutions are attacked.
Trump has not been shy regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, the nation's authoritarian figure. He's called him as a “great guy”. As they agreed a temporary truce in the trade war on Thursday, the camaraderie between both figures of nations with diametrically opposed political systems was evident. Following years of optimism in America that improved relations with China could assist the rising power to liberalise, in the current administration, it seems that America is shifting in China's path, instead of vice versa.
“The United States is undergoing a period of cultural revolution,” said Zhang Qianfan, an academic at Peking University. “The president, Trump, is attempting to mobilise the masses to sideline or undermine established figures … similar to what happened in the country decades past.”
Ever since Trump initiated the so-called a government streamlining body, or the agency, on federal institutions at the start in office, numerous Chinese observers see US politics through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the rallying of the youth to carry out the leader’s will, or purging institutions of perceived enemies, the president as viewed from China has brought Mao-style chaos to the US, though without the same levels of violence.
But since the upheaval of the initial period of the new administration has calmed, an unfamiliar, different kind of climate has settled in the US, which variously seems recognizable to many Chinese people.
‘The Beacon Is Dimmer’
The most profound parallel between the US today and China is the crackdown on open expression.
Deng Haiyan, now a Chinese Communist party dissenter, ended up in a controversy this year, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in his homeland. He resided in America since 2019, after escaping the country due to harassment from the authorities.
In September, after the death of a public figure, Deng tweeted that Kirk was a “scumbag”. Similar to others across the US – many of whom were fired for making negative comments regarding him – he encountered significant backlash. His family had personal info leaked and he was accused of being a Chinese spy seeking to divide the US.
“This incident was a real shock. I never imagined such a thing could happen in America – something that should only happen in a repressive state,” Deng said.
Deng’s pile on originated from fellow social media users, rather than the government, but such of social surveillance bears similarities with the East.
“Regarding going after dissenters and starting to surveil open discourse about issues that are sensitive … It's appearing here,” noted Maria Repnikova, an associate professor at a US university. “This is that you see in the East today as well,” she said, adding that there were now fears in America of students reporting on educators, a form of surveillance promoted by the CCP.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself used to look to the US for political inspiration, in part because public debate on domestic politics in China is dangerous. However, “America isn't some kind of god for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has worsened generally.”
“We once viewed America as the symbol of democratic governance, but since the new administration, that guide appears less luminous”.
Progressive Chinese, typically, behind closed doors, critical of the nation's governance, now perceive it less objectionable than America’s, Zhang said. “It's somewhat difficult to acknowledge this reality … 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 “Western nations, exemplified by the United States, appear declining.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of stakes in American firms has also drawn comparisons with China, where the line between government and business is frequently unclear.
On Monday, authorities stated it will take a shareholder in a startup specialising in rare earth processing, after taking similar stakes in other companies deemed vital to national security. These moves have left certain stakeholders concerned that America is embarking on a new era of government meddling in private industry.
There are still major differences between Trump’s America and China. Last month, several news organisations including the Guardian refused to sign to a Pentagon policy that required they only report on government-authorised news. American judiciary have halted or reversed many of Trump’s actions, something that would be impossible in China’s CCP-controlled judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of Strategy Risks, specializing in China, commented: “America might face its gravest challenge of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it will still be freer, more open, and liberal than the East under its leader.”
Zhang observes that while many intellectuals in the country were shocked to see American colleges capitulate to government demands regarding DEI policies and free speech on university grounds, in the East, leading institutions are all state-owned inherently. University leaders, which are appointed by the government, “cannot refuse. They dare not to be disobedient.”
Nevertheless, Americans are starting to adopt measures previously associated with repressive regimes. One professor at an American college once outspoken on US-China issues declined to speak for this article. He stated: “The truth is, I am scared of suppression in the US: I actually feel less afraid criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad
