As Vickie Wang, an emerging performer, steps onto the stage in the Big Apple, she's not just thinking about what humor to tell. Additionally, she carefully considers which topics to steer clear of. “I refrain from openly criticizing the administration,” she stated. And when she ventures there, she ensures it's not captured for social media. “I would never publicly share material where I openly disparage authorities … I think this is a learned behavior acquired back home.”
Wang, thirty-nine, lived in the Chinese metropolis for nearly ten years, departing in 2022. By 2025, she relocated to the US. Upon arrival, she embarked on a frenzy of “overindulging on freedom,” going to talks, protests, and delving into New York’s public library.
However over the past year since Donald Trump returned to office for the second time, there's been a noticeable shift in the atmosphere, she notes. “Back home, I understood where the line was, whereas in the US I find myself on unstable ground.”
Her fears reflect an emerging political reality in the US which many Chinese, or people with experience in China, find disturbingly familiar. Enemies are ostracised. The leader demands total allegiance. Reporters are targeted. Institutions come under fire.
Trump has openly expressed about his admiration for Xi Jinping, the nation's strongman leader. He has described Xi as “fantastic”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in economic tensions on Thursday, the bonhomie between the two leaders of countries with diametrically opposed political systems was evident. And after decades of optimism in America that improved relations with the East may help the rising power become more open, under Trump 2.0, it seems as if the US is being pulled in China's path, instead of the other way around.
“The United States is experiencing a period of cultural revolution,” stated a constitutional law expert, an academic at Peking University. “The president, Trump, is trying to mobilise the masses to sideline or undermine established figures … similar to what happened in China half a century ago.”
Ever since Trump unleashed what's termed Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start in office, many in China have viewed American governance through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the rallying of young people to carry out presidential directives, or purging organizations of those deemed opposition, Trump from a Chinese viewpoint has brought disorder reminiscent of Mao to America, though without equivalent degrees of force.
However since the upheaval of the early months of the new administration subsided, a new, distinct type of political atmosphere has emerged in the US, which in different ways seems familiar to many Chinese individuals.
‘The Lighthouse Has Become Dimmer’
The deepest parallel between the US today and China is the suppression on free speech.
Deng Haiyan, turned Chinese Communist party dissenter, ended up in a controversy this year, similar to what he once faced in China. Deng has lived in America since 2019, after escaping the country due to harassment from officials.
In September, after the death of a public figure, he posted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Like people across the US – who lost their jobs for making negative comments about Kirk – he encountered a huge backlash. Relatives was doxed and he faced allegations of espionage attempting to create division.
“That event was a real shock. I hadn't thought that something like this could happen in the United States – something that typically happens in an authoritarian country,” he commented.
Deng’s pile on came from fellow social media users, instead of the government, but such of public monitoring also has parallels with the East.
“Regarding targeting those who disagree and starting to surveil open discourse on topics deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge here,” noted Maria Repnikova, a scholar at a US university. “That’s something that you see in China today as well,” she added, stating that concerns are rising in the US of students reporting on educators, a form of monitoring that has been encouraged by the CCP.
Zhang, the legal expert, said that progressive thinkers like himself once turned to the US for ideals, in part because public debate on internal affairs in the country is dangerous. However, “America isn't some kind of ideal for progressive Chinese. America’s image has worsened generally.”
“We used to see America as the beacon of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, that guide seems to have become dimmer”.
Progressive Chinese, typically, at least in private, skeptical about China’s political system, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than America’s, Zhang said. “It’s sort of difficult to acknowledge 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 “the West, exemplified by the United States, appear declining.”
The government's acquisition of stakes in American firms has prompted parallels with China, where the distinction between state and business is often blurred.
Recently, authorities stated it would become an investor in a startup focused on mineral refinement, following comparable shares in other companies deemed essential for national security. The deals have left certain stakeholders concerned that the US is entering a new era of government meddling in private industry.
Yet, there remain major differences between the US under Trump and the East. Last month, multiple media outlets including the Guardian declined to agree to a defense department rule that required they only report on approved news. American judiciary have blocked or reversed numerous Trump’s actions, an action that is impossible in China’s CCP-controlled legal system.
An analyst, the founder of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “America could descend into its gravest challenge of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it would remain more free, more open, and more liberal than the East under its leader.”
Zhang notes that while numerous scholars in China were surprised to see US universities yield to official requests regarding DEI policies and free speech on university grounds, in China, the top universities are publicly controlled inherently. Administrators, which are selected by the government, “cannot of saying no. They can’t afford to be disobedient.”
Nevertheless, Americans are beginning to adopt measures previously confined to repressive regimes. One professor at an American college once outspoken on bilateral matters declined to be interviewed for this article. He said: “The truth is, I fear of suppression here: I genuinely feel less afraid criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad
