When Vickie Wang, an emerging performer, takes her platform in the Big Apple, she is not only considering what humor to deliver. She also weighs which topics to avoid. “I refrain from directly criticizing the administration,” she explained. Or if she ventures there, she ensures it's not recorded for online platforms. “I'd never publish openly material where I openly disparage authorities … I think this is a habit acquired back home.”
The comedian, thirty-nine, lived in Shanghai for nearly a decade, leaving in 2022. In 2025, she relocated to America. When she got there, she embarked on a frenzy of “overindulging on freedom,” going to talks, demonstrations, and delving into the city's library system.
However over the past year after the president was elected again, there has been a noticeable shift in the environment, she says. “In China, I understood where the line was, whereas here I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Her fears reflect a new political reality in America which numerous individuals from China, or those with experience in China, perceive as eerily similar. Opponents are ostracised. The leader demands total allegiance. Reporters are targeted. Institutions come under fire.
Trump has openly expressed regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, the nation's authoritarian figure. He has described him as a “great guy”. As they agreed a temporary truce in the trade war recently, the bonhomie between the two leaders of countries with diametrically opposed governance models became clear. And after decades of optimism in the US that improved relations with China may help the rising power to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it seems as if America is shifting in China's path, rather than the other way around.
“America is experiencing a period of cultural revolution,” stated Zhang Qianfan, an academic at Peking University. “The top leader, Donald Trump, is trying to mobilise the masses to marginalize or weaken established figures … similar to what happened in the country half a century ago.”
Since the administration unleashed the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy early on of his term, many in China see US politics through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the mobilisation of the youth to carry out the leader’s will, or cleansing organizations of those deemed opposition, the president as viewed from China has brought Mao-style chaos to America, albeit without the same levels of force.
However since the upheaval of the initial period of the new administration subsided, a new, distinct type of political atmosphere has emerged in the country, which in different ways also feels familiar to many Chinese people.
‘The Beacon 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 the eye of a storm this year, the likes of which he once faced in his homeland. He resided in America since 2019, after escaping the country because of pressure from the authorities.
In September, after the death of Charlie Kirk, Deng tweeted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Like people nationwide – many of whom lost their jobs as a result of making negative comments about Kirk – Deng faced significant backlash. Relatives was doxed and he faced allegations of espionage attempting to create division.
“That event was a real shock. I never imagined such a thing would occur in the United States – something that typically happens in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.
Deng’s pile on originated from fellow social media users, rather than the government, but such of social surveillance bears similarities with China.
“Regarding going after dissenters and monitoring public speech on topics that are sensitive … It's appearing here,” said an academic, a scholar at a US university. “That’s something observed in the East now as too,” she added, stating that there were now fears in the US of pupils informing against teachers, a form of monitoring that has been encouraged by Chinese authorities.
The professor, the legal expert, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him used to look to America for ideals, since openly discussing domestic politics in China is risky. However, “The US isn't a ideal for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has declined across the board.”
“We used to see the US as the beacon of democratic governance, but since the new administration, that guide appears less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, who are often, behind closed doors, 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 reality … but post-COVID, the government appears to be pursuing correct policies in environmental protection and promoting EVs and tech investment,” he noted, while “the West, as represented by America, seems to be in decline.”
The government's acquisition of shares in US companies has also drawn parallels with the East, where the distinction between government and private industry is frequently unclear.
On Monday, the US government stated it will take a shareholder in a startup focused on mineral refinement, following comparable shares in other companies it considers vital to national security. These moves have left certain stakeholders nervous that the US is embarking on a new era of state intervention in private industry.
Yet, there remain major differences between the US under Trump and China. Last month, several news organisations including the Guardian refused to sign to a defense department rule that demanded reporting solely on government-authorised information. US courts have blocked or overturned numerous presidential measures, something that is unthinkable in the nation's CCP-controlled legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of a consulting firm, a China-focused advisory firm, said: “The United States might face its gravest challenge of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it would remain freer, open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang notes that although numerous scholars in the country were surprised to see US universities yield to government demands concerning DEI policies and free speech on campus, in the East, leading institutions are all state-owned inherently. Administrators, who are appointed by the government, “have no liberty refuse. They dare not defy orders.”
Still, Americans are beginning to adopt measures that were once associated with more authoritarian countries. One professor at an American college who was previously vocal on US-China issues declined to be interviewed for this piece. He said: “Honestly, I fear of the censorship in the US: I genuinely feel less afraid criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad
