When Vickie Wang, a rising performer, takes the stage in New York, she is not just thinking about which jokes to tell. She also weighs what subjects to steer clear of. “I refrain from directly attacking the administration,” she explained. And when she does, she ensures it's not recorded for online platforms. “I'd never publicly share material where I openly disparage authorities … I believe it's a habit from China.”
Wang, 39, resided in Shanghai for nearly a decade, leaving in 2022. By 2025, she relocated to the US. When she got there, she embarked on a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on democracy,” attending lectures, demonstrations, and exploring the city's library system.
But in the year since Donald Trump was elected for the second time, there's been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she says. “In China, I knew where the line was, whereas in the US I find myself on shifting sands.”
Wang’s concerns mirror an emerging political reality in the US which numerous individuals from China, or those with experience in the country, perceive as eerily similar. Opponents face exclusion. The president expects total allegiance. Reporters face scrutiny. Institutions come under fire.
Trump has not been shy about his admiration for China's leader, the nation's strongman leader. He has described Xi as “fantastic”. When they reached a temporary truce in economic tensions on Thursday, the bonhomie between the two leaders of nations with diametrically opposed political systems became clear. And after decades of optimism in the US that closer ties with China may help the rising power to liberalise, in the current administration, it seems as if America is shifting in the Chinese direction, instead of the other way around.
“America is undergoing an era of cultural revolution,” stated a constitutional law expert, an academic at Peking University. “The top leader, Trump, is trying to rally the grassroots in order to sideline or weaken established figures … similar to events in China decades past.”
Since the administration unleashed the so-called a government streamlining body, or the agency, on federal institutions early on in office, many in China see American governance via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the rallying of young people to execute the leader’s will, or purging institutions of those deemed opposition, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered disorder reminiscent of Mao to the US, though without equivalent degrees of force.
But after the turmoil of the initial period of the new administration subsided, a new, different kind of political atmosphere has settled in the US, which in different ways also feels familiar to many Chinese people.
‘The Beacon Has Become Less Bright’
The most profound parallel between the US today and China is the suppression on free speech.
A former police officer, turned Chinese Communist party critic, found himself in the eye of a storm recently, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in his homeland. He has lived in the US for several years, having fled China due to harassment from the authorities.
In September, after the death of Charlie Kirk, Deng tweeted that Kirk was a “scumbag”. Like people nationwide – who lost their jobs as a result of expressing criticism about Kirk – Deng faced significant backlash. Relatives was doxed and he faced allegations of espionage seeking to create division.
“That event was a real shock. I hadn't thought that something like this would occur in America – what should only happen in a repressive state,” he commented.
Deng’s backlash came from fellow social media users, instead of the state, but that kind of social surveillance bears similarities with the East.
“In terms of targeting dissenters and monitoring public speech about issues deemed controversial … It's appearing in the US,” noted an academic, an associate professor at a US university. “This is observed in the East today as too,” she said, stating that concerns are rising in the US of pupils informing against teachers, a type of monitoring promoted by Chinese authorities.
The professor, the legal expert, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself once turned to America for political inspiration, in part because public debate on internal affairs in the country is dangerous. However, “America isn't some kind of ideal for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has worsened across the board.”
“We once viewed America as the beacon of democratic governance, but since the new administration, that guide seems to have become dimmer”.
Chinese liberals, typically, behind closed doors, skeptical about China’s political system, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than the US's, he stated. “It’s sort of difficult to acknowledge this … but post-COVID, the government appears to be pursuing the right thing in environmental protection and developing electric cars and investing in hi-tech,” he noted, while “Western nations, exemplified by the United States, seems to be declining.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of stakes in US companies has prompted parallels with the East, where the distinction between state and business is often blurred.
On Monday, the US government announced it would become a shareholder in a startup specialising in rare earth processing, following comparable shares in other companies deemed vital to national security. The deals have made some investors concerned that America is entering a fresh phase of state intervention in the private sector.
Yet, there remain major differences between Trump’s America and the East. Last month, multiple media outlets including the Guardian declined to agree to a defense department rule that demanded they only report on approved information. US courts have halted or reversed numerous presidential measures, an action that would be impossible in the nation's CCP-controlled legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of a consulting firm, a China-focused advisory firm, said: “The United States might face its gravest challenge of its history, far more severe than it is now, and it will still be freer, open, and more liberal than the East under its leader.”
The professor notes that while numerous scholars in the country were surprised to see US universities capitulate to official requests concerning diversity and inclusion practices and open discourse on university grounds, in China, the top universities are all state-owned by default. University leaders, who are selected by the government, “have no liberty of saying no. They can’t afford to be disobedient.”
Nevertheless, people in the US are starting to take precautions that were once confined to more authoritarian countries. One professor at a US university once vocal on bilateral matters declined to speak for this article. He stated: “Honestly, I fear of suppression in the US: I actually feel more comfortable to criticise Xi these days than say anything bad
