When Vickie Wang, an emerging performer, takes the stage in New York, she's not only considering which jokes to deliver. Additionally, she carefully considers what subjects to avoid. “I don't engage in openly attacking the government,” she explained. Or if she ventures there, she ensures it's not recorded for online platforms. “I would never publish openly content in which I openly disparage the government … I believe it's a learned behavior from China.”
The comedian, 39, resided in the Chinese metropolis for almost ten years, leaving in that year. By 2025, she relocated to America. When she got there, she embarked on a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” going to lectures, protests, and exploring the city's library system.
However in the year after Donald Trump returned to office for the second time, there has been a noticeable shift in the atmosphere, she notes. “In China, I understood where the line was, whereas here I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Her concerns mirror an emerging political reality in America which numerous individuals from China, or those with experience in the country, perceive as eerily familiar. Opponents are ostracised. The president expects total allegiance. Reporters face scrutiny. Establishments come under fire.
Trump has openly expressed regarding his respect for China's leader, the nation's authoritarian figure. He has described Xi as “fantastic”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in the trade war on Thursday, the bonhomie between both figures of nations with diametrically opposed governance models was evident. And after decades of optimism in America that closer ties with China may help the growing nation to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it appears that America is shifting in China's path, instead of the other way around.
“America is undergoing an era of cultural revolution,” said a constitutional law expert, an academic at Peking University. “The top leader, Donald Trump, is attempting to rally the grassroots to marginalize or undermine established figures … reminiscent of events in China half a century ago.”
Since Trump initiated the so-called a government streamlining body, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start in office, many in China see American governance via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the rallying of young people to execute presidential directives, or purging institutions of perceived enemies, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered disorder reminiscent of Mao to America, though without the same levels of force.
But after the turmoil of the initial period under Trump has calmed, an unfamiliar, distinct type of climate has settled in the US, which in different ways also feels recognizable to numerous Chinese people.
‘The Beacon Has Become Dimmer’
The most profound similarity between the US today and China is the suppression on free speech.
Deng Haiyan, now a CCP dissenter, found himself in a controversy this year, the likes of which he once faced in his homeland. Deng resided in the US since 2019, after escaping the country because of pressure from the authorities.
In September, following the passing of Charlie Kirk, Deng tweeted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Like people nationwide – who were fired as a result of expressing criticism about Kirk – Deng faced a huge backlash. Relatives had personal info leaked and he was accused of espionage attempting to create division.
“This incident was a real shock. I hadn't thought such a thing would occur in America – something that should only happen in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.
Deng’s pile on originated from online peers, instead of the government, but that kind of public monitoring bears similarities with China.
“Regarding targeting dissenters and starting to surveil public speech on topics that are sensitive … That’s starting to emerge here,” said Maria Repnikova, a scholar at a US university. “This is observed in China today as well,” she said, adding that concerns are rising in the US of pupils informing against educators, a type of monitoring that has been encouraged by the CCP.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him used to look to America for political inspiration, in part because openly discussing internal affairs in the country is dangerous. But now, “The US isn't a ideal for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has declined generally.”
“We used to see the US as the beacon of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, that guide seems to have become dimmer”.
Chinese liberals, typically, at least in private, critical of China’s political system, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than the US's, Zhang said. “It's somewhat painful to accept this reality … but after the pandemic, the government seems to be doing correct policies in improving the environment and promoting EVs and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “the West, as represented by America, appear declining.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of stakes in US companies has also drawn parallels with the East, where the distinction between state and private industry is often blurred.
Recently, authorities stated it will take a shareholder in a startup focused on rare earth processing, after taking similar stakes in additional firms deemed vital to national security. The deals have left some investors concerned that the US is entering a new era of government meddling in private industry.
There are still major differences between Trump’s America and China. Last month, multiple media outlets among others refused to sign to a defense department rule that required reporting solely on approved information. US courts have blocked or overturned many of presidential measures, an action that would be impossible in the nation's party-dominated judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, said: “The United States could descend into the worst crisis of its history, far more severe than currently, and it will still be freer, more open, and more liberal than the East under its leader.”
The professor observes that although many intellectuals in the country were shocked to see American colleges yield to government demands concerning DEI policies and open discourse on campus, in the East, leading institutions are publicly controlled inherently. Administrators, which are appointed by the state, “have no liberty refuse. They dare not to be disobedient.”
Still, Americans are beginning to take precautions previously confined to more authoritarian countries. One professor at a US university once outspoken on bilateral matters refused to be interviewed for this piece. He said: “The truth is, I am scared of suppression in the US: I genuinely feel less afraid to criticise Xi now than say anything bad
