When Vickie Wang, a rising comedic talent, takes her platform in the Big Apple, she is not only thinking about what humor to tell. She also carefully considers what subjects to steer clear of. “I refrain from openly criticizing the administration,” she stated. Or if she does, she makes certain it's not recorded for social media. “I would never publish openly material where I directly criticize the government … I think this is a habit from China.”
Wang, thirty-nine, lived in the Chinese metropolis for almost a decade, leaving in that year. By 2025, she moved to the US. Upon arrival, she embarked on an intense period of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” attending talks, protests, and delving into the city's library system.
However over the past year since the president returned to office again, there has been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she says. “In China, I understood where the line was, while in the US I'm standing on shifting sands.”
Her fears mirror an emerging climate in America which numerous individuals from China, or people who have lived in the country, find disturbingly familiar. Enemies face exclusion. The president demands absolute loyalty. Reporters are targeted. Establishments are attacked.
Trump has not been shy 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 economic tensions recently, the bonhomie between the two leaders of countries with vastly different political systems became clear. And after decades of optimism in the US that closer ties with China could assist the rising power to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it seems that the US is shifting in China's path, rather than vice versa.
“The United States is experiencing an era of cultural revolution,” stated Zhang Qianfan, a professor at Peking University. “The top leader, Donald Trump, is trying to mobilise the masses in order to sideline or weaken established figures … similar to events in the country decades past.”
Since the administration initiated the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy early on of his term, numerous Chinese observers see American governance via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the mobilisation of the youth to carry out the leader’s will, or cleansing institutions of perceived enemies, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered Mao-style chaos to the US, though without equivalent degrees of violence.
However since the upheaval of the initial period under Trump has calmed, an unfamiliar, different kind of climate has settled in the US, which variously also feels recognizable to many Chinese individuals.
‘The Lighthouse Has Become Less Bright’
The most profound parallel between the US today and China is the suppression on open expression.
Deng Haiyan, now a CCP dissenter, found himself in a controversy this year, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in China. He resided in America for several years, having fled China because of pressure from officials.
Last fall, after the death of Charlie Kirk, Deng tweeted that the individual was “despicable”. Similar to others across the US – who were fired for expressing criticism about Kirk – he encountered significant backlash. Relatives had personal info leaked and he was accused of being a Chinese spy seeking to create division.
“That event surprised me deeply. I hadn't thought such a thing could happen in the United States – something that should only happen in an authoritarian country,” he commented.
His pile on originated from online peers, rather than the government, but that kind of social surveillance also has similarities with China.
“In terms of going after dissenters and starting to surveil public speech on topics deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge in the US,” noted an academic, a scholar at Georgia State University. “That’s something that you see in the East now as too,” she said, adding that there were now fears in America of pupils informing against teachers, a form of surveillance promoted by the CCP.
Zhang, the Peking University law professor, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him once turned to the US for political inspiration, since openly discussing internal affairs in China is dangerous. But now, “The US isn't some kind of god for Chinese liberals. America’s image has worsened across the board.”
“We once viewed the US as the beacon of constitutional democracy, but after Trump took power, that guide appears dimmer”.
Progressive Chinese, typically, behind closed doors, skeptical about the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than America’s, Zhang said. “It's somewhat painful to accept this reality … but post-COVID, the government appears to be pursuing the right thing in improving the environment and developing electric cars and tech investment,” Zhang said, while “Western nations, exemplified by America, appear in decline.”
The government's purchase of stakes in US companies has also drawn comparisons with the East, where the line between state and private industry is frequently unclear.
On Monday, the US government announced it will take an investor in a startup specialising in rare earth processing, following comparable shares in other companies deemed vital to the country's safety. These moves have left some investors nervous that America is embarking on a fresh phase 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 required they only report on government-authorised news. US courts have halted or reversed many of Trump’s actions, something that is impossible in the nation's party-dominated judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of a consulting firm, specializing in China, said: “The United States could descend into the worst crisis of all time, far more severe than it is now, and it will still be more free, open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang notes that although numerous scholars in the country were surprised to see US universities yield to official requests regarding diversity and inclusion practices and free speech on university grounds, in China, leading institutions are all state-owned by default. University leaders, which are appointed by the government, “have no liberty refuse. They dare not to be disobedient.”
Nevertheless, Americans are starting to adopt measures that were once associated with more authoritarian countries. One professor at an American college once outspoken on bilateral matters declined to be interviewed for this piece. He said: “The truth is, I am scared of the censorship in the US: I genuinely feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad
