When Vickie Wang, an emerging performer, takes the stage in the Big Apple, she is not just thinking about what humor to deliver. Additionally, she weighs what subjects to avoid. “I don't engage in directly attacking the government,” she explained. And when she does, she makes certain it isn't captured for social media. “I would never publish openly content where I directly criticize authorities … I think it's a habit from China.”
Wang, thirty-nine, lived in Shanghai for nearly ten years, leaving in 2022. By 2025, she moved to America. When she got there, she embarked on a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” going to talks, demonstrations, and delving into New York’s public library.
However in the year after Donald Trump was elected for the second time, there has been a noticeable shift in the environment, she says. “Back home, I understood the boundaries, while here I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Wang’s concerns mirror an emerging political reality in the US which many Chinese, or those with experience in the country, find disturbingly familiar. Opponents are ostracised. The leader expects absolute loyalty. Journalists are targeted. Establishments are attacked.
The president has openly expressed about his admiration for Xi Jinping, the nation's strongman leader. He has described him as a “great guy”. When they reached a temporary truce in economic tensions on Thursday, the bonhomie between the two leaders of countries with diametrically opposed governance models was evident. And after decades of optimism in the US that closer ties with China may help the growing nation to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it seems as if America is being pulled in China's path, rather than vice versa.
“The United States is undergoing an era of cultural revolution,” said Zhang Qianfan, a professor at a top Chinese university. “The top leader, Trump, is attempting to rally the masses to sideline or undermine the elite … reminiscent of events in the country half a century ago.”
Since Trump initiated what's termed Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy early on in office, many in China have viewed US politics via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the mobilisation of the youth to execute presidential directives, or cleansing organizations of perceived enemies, the president as viewed from China has brought disorder reminiscent of Mao to America, though absent the same levels of force.
But after the upheaval of the initial period under Trump subsided, a new, distinct type of political atmosphere has settled in the country, which in different ways seems familiar to many Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Has Become Less Bright’
The most profound parallel between Trump’s America and China is the crackdown on open expression.
A former police officer, turned Chinese Communist party dissenter, ended up in the eye of a storm recently, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in China. Deng resided in America since 2019, after escaping China because of pressure from the authorities.
In September, after the death of a public figure, he posted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Like people nationwide – who were fired for expressing criticism regarding him – Deng faced a huge backlash. His family had personal info leaked and he faced allegations of espionage seeking to create division.
“That event was a real shock. I hadn't thought that something like this could happen in the United States – what should only happen in a repressive state,” he commented.
Deng’s backlash originated from online peers, instead of the state, but that kind of public monitoring bears parallels with the East.
“Regarding targeting dissenters and monitoring public speech on topics deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge in the US,” said Maria Repnikova, a scholar at Georgia State University. “That’s something observed in the East today as too,” she said, adding that concerns are rising in America of students reporting on teachers, a type of monitoring promoted by the CCP.
The professor, the legal expert, explained that progressive thinkers such as him once turned to the US for political inspiration, since public debate on domestic politics in the country is risky. However, “America isn't a ideal for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has worsened generally.”
“We once viewed the US as the beacon of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, this lighthouse appears dimmer”.
Progressive Chinese, typically, at least in private, critical of China’s political system, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than the US's, Zhang said. “It's somewhat painful to accept this … but post-COVID, authorities seems to be doing the right thing in improving the environment and developing electric cars and tech investment,” Zhang said, while “Western nations, exemplified by America, appear declining.”
The Trump administration’s acquisition of stakes in American firms has also drawn parallels with China, where the line between government and private industry is frequently unclear.
On Monday, the US government announced it will take a shareholder in a startup focused on mineral refinement, following comparable shares in additional firms deemed vital to national security. The deals have made certain stakeholders concerned that the US is embarking on a new era of state intervention in the private sector.
There are still significant distinctions between the US under Trump and the East. Last month, multiple media outlets including the Guardian declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that demanded reporting solely on approved news. American judiciary have halted or overturned many of presidential measures, something that is unthinkable in China’s party-dominated judiciary.
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 it is now, and it will still be more free, more open, and more liberal than the East under its leader.”
The professor observes that while numerous scholars in China were surprised to see American colleges yield to government demands concerning DEI policies and open discourse on university grounds, in China, leading institutions are all state-owned by default. Administrators, who are appointed by the state, “have no liberty refuse. They can’t afford defy orders.”
Nevertheless, people in the US are starting to adopt measures previously associated with more authoritarian countries. One professor at an American college who was previously vocal on bilateral matters declined to speak for this piece. He said: “The truth is, I am scared of suppression in the US: I genuinely feel more comfortable to criticise Xi these days than say anything bad
