When Vickie Wang, a rising comedic talent, steps onto the stage in New York, she is not only considering what humor to deliver. Additionally, she carefully considers which topics to steer clear of. “I refrain from directly criticizing the government,” she stated. And when she ventures there, she ensures it isn't recorded for online platforms. “I'd never publicly share material in which I openly disparage authorities … I believe it's a learned behavior from China.”
Wang, 39, lived in the Chinese metropolis for almost a decade, departing in that year. In 2025, she moved to the US. Upon arrival, she dove into an intense period of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” attending talks, demonstrations, and exploring the city's public library.
But over the past year after the president was elected for the second time, there has been a “palpable change” in the environment, she notes. “Back home, I knew the boundaries, while here I find myself on shifting sands.”
Her concerns reflect an emerging climate in America which numerous individuals from China, or people with experience in the country, find eerily familiar. Enemies are ostracised. The president demands absolute loyalty. Reporters are targeted. Establishments come under fire.
The president has openly expressed regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, the nation's authoritarian figure. He's called Xi as a “great guy”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in economic tensions on Thursday, the bonhomie between both figures of countries with diametrically opposed governance models was evident. And after decades of hope in America that improved relations with the East could assist the rising power 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,” stated a constitutional law expert, a professor at a top Chinese university. “The top leader, Donald Trump, is trying to rally the grassroots to sideline or undermine established figures … similar to what happened in the country half a century ago.”
Ever since Trump unleashed the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start of his term, many in China have viewed American governance through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the rallying of the youth to execute the leader’s will, or cleansing organizations of perceived enemies, Trump as viewed from China has brought Mao-style chaos to America, though without equivalent degrees of violence.
However since the upheaval of the initial period under Trump subsided, an unfamiliar, distinct type of climate has emerged in the US, which in different ways also feels recognizable to many Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Is Less Bright’
The most profound parallel between the US today and China is the suppression on open expression.
A former police officer, now a CCP dissenter, found himself in a controversy recently, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in his homeland. Deng has lived in America since 2019, after escaping China because of harassment from officials.
Last fall, after the death of a public figure, Deng tweeted that the individual was “despicable”. Similar to others nationwide – many of whom were fired as a result of making negative comments regarding him – Deng faced significant backlash. His family was doxed and he faced allegations of espionage attempting to create division.
“This incident surprised me deeply. I hadn't thought that something like this would occur in America – something that typically happens in a repressive state,” he commented.
His pile on originated from online peers, instead of the state, but such of public monitoring also has parallels with the East.
“Regarding targeting those who disagree and monitoring open discourse on topics that are sensitive … That’s starting to emerge here,” noted an academic, a scholar at Georgia State University. “This is that you see in the East today as too,” she added, stating that there were now fears in the US of students reporting on teachers, a form of monitoring promoted by Chinese authorities.
Zhang, the Peking University law professor, said that progressive thinkers such as him once turned to America for political inspiration, in part because openly discussing internal affairs in the country is dangerous. But now, “The US isn't a god for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has declined generally.”
“We once viewed the US as the beacon of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, this lighthouse seems to have become less luminous”.
Progressive Chinese, typically, at least in private, skeptical about China’s political system, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than the US's, he stated. “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 developing electric cars and tech investment,” Zhang said, while “Western nations, exemplified by America, seems to be in decline.”
The government's purchase of stakes in US companies has also drawn comparisons with the East, where the distinction between government and private industry is frequently unclear.
Recently, the US government announced it will take a shareholder in a new company specialising in mineral refinement, following comparable shares in other companies deemed vital to national security. The deals have left certain stakeholders nervous that the US is embarking on a new era of state intervention in private industry.
There are still significant distinctions between Trump’s America and China. In October, multiple media outlets including the Guardian refused to sign to a defense department rule that demanded reporting solely on approved news. US courts have halted or overturned numerous Trump’s actions, an action that is unthinkable in the nation's party-dominated judiciary.
An analyst, the founder of Strategy Risks, specializing in China, commented: “America could descend into the worst crisis of its history, far more severe than it is now, and it will still be more free, more open, and more liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang observes that while many intellectuals in China were surprised to see US universities capitulate to government demands concerning diversity and inclusion practices and open discourse on campus, in China, the top universities are all state-owned inherently. University leaders, which are appointed by the government, “cannot refuse. They dare not defy orders.”
Still, people in the US are beginning to adopt measures previously confined to more authoritarian countries. One professor at an American college once vocal on US-China issues refused to speak for this article. He stated: “Honestly, I am scared of the censorship here: I genuinely feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad
