When Vickie Wang, a rising comedic talent, takes the stage in the Big Apple, she is not only thinking about which jokes to deliver. Additionally, she carefully considers which topics to avoid. “I don't engage in openly criticizing the government,” she stated. Or if she ventures there, she makes certain it's not captured for social media. “I'd never publicly share material where I openly disparage authorities … I believe this is a learned behavior acquired back home.”
Wang, thirty-nine, lived in Shanghai for almost a decade, leaving in that year. By 2025, she relocated to the US. Upon arrival, she embarked on an intense period of “overindulging on freedom,” attending lectures, demonstrations, and exploring New York’s public library.
However over the past year after Donald Trump returned to office for the second time, there's been a “palpable change” in the environment, she says. “Back home, I understood where the line was, while here I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Her fears mirror a new political reality in America which many Chinese, or those who have lived in the country, find eerily familiar. Opponents are ostracised. The leader demands total allegiance. Reporters are targeted. Institutions are attacked.
The president has openly expressed regarding his respect for China's leader, China’s strongman leader. He's called him as “fantastic”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in economic tensions on Thursday, the bonhomie between the two leaders of nations with diametrically opposed political systems was evident. And after decades of optimism in the US that closer ties with China may help the growing nation become more open, under Trump 2.0, it appears that America is being pulled in the Chinese direction, rather than vice versa.
“America is undergoing a period of cultural revolution,” said Zhang Qianfan, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The president, Trump, is trying to mobilise the grassroots in order to sideline or undermine established figures … reminiscent of what happened in China decades past.”
Since Trump unleashed the so-called a government streamlining body, 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. Be it the mobilisation of young people to execute the leader’s will, or purging organizations of perceived enemies, Trump from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered Mao-style chaos to America, though without the same levels of violence.
But after the upheaval of the early months of the new administration subsided, a new, distinct type of political atmosphere has emerged in the country, which in different ways also feels recognizable to numerous Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Has Become Less Bright’
The deepest parallel between the US today and China is the suppression on open expression.
A former police officer, now a Chinese Communist party critic, found himself in the eye of a storm recently, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in his homeland. He resided in America for several years, having fled the country due to pressure from the authorities.
In September, after the death of Charlie Kirk, Deng tweeted that Kirk was a “scumbag”. Like people nationwide – who were fired for making negative comments regarding him – he encountered significant backlash. Relatives had personal info leaked and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy seeking to divide the US.
“This incident surprised me deeply. I hadn't thought that something like this could happen in the United States – something that typically happens in a repressive state,” he commented.
His backlash originated from online peers, rather than the government, but that kind of social surveillance bears similarities with China.
“Regarding targeting dissenters and monitoring open discourse about issues deemed controversial … It's appearing here,” said Maria Repnikova, a scholar at Georgia State University. “This is that you see in China now as well,” she added, adding that concerns are rising in America of pupils informing against teachers, a form of monitoring that has been encouraged by Chinese authorities.
Zhang, the Peking University law professor, said that progressive thinkers like himself once turned to America for ideals, in part because openly discussing internal affairs in China is dangerous. However, “The US is no longer a ideal for progressive Chinese. America’s image has declined across the board.”
“We used to see America as the beacon of constitutional democracy, but after Trump took power, this lighthouse appears less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, typically, behind closed doors, skeptical about China’s political system, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than America’s, he stated. “It’s sort of difficult to acknowledge this … but after the pandemic, the government seems to be doing the right thing in environmental protection and promoting EVs and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “the West, as represented by America, appear declining.”
The Trump administration’s acquisition of stakes in US companies has also drawn parallels with China, where the line between state and private industry is frequently unclear.
Recently, authorities announced it would become an investor in a startup focused on mineral refinement, following similar stakes in other companies deemed vital to the country's safety. These moves have left certain stakeholders nervous that America is entering a new era of state intervention in the private sector.
Yet, there remain significant distinctions between the US under Trump and China. In October, several news organisations among others declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that demanded reporting solely on approved news. American judiciary have halted or overturned many of presidential measures, an action that would be impossible in China’s CCP-controlled judiciary.
An analyst, who established of Strategy Risks, specializing in China, said: “America could descend into its gravest challenge of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it will still be freer, open, and more liberal than the East under its leader.”
The professor notes that although many intellectuals in China were surprised to see US universities capitulate to official requests concerning DEI policies and free speech on campus, in the East, leading institutions are all state-owned inherently. University leaders, who are selected by the state, “have no liberty refuse. They can’t afford defy orders.”
Nevertheless, Americans are starting to adopt measures previously confined to more authoritarian countries. One professor at an American college once outspoken on US-China issues refused to speak for this piece. He said: “Honestly, I am scared of suppression here: I actually feel less afraid criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad
