As Vickie Wang, a rising performer, takes her platform in New York, she is not just thinking about which jokes to tell. Additionally, she weighs which topics to steer clear of. “I don't engage in directly attacking the administration,” she stated. Or if she ventures there, she makes certain it's not captured for online platforms. “I would never publish openly content where I openly disparage the government … I believe this is a habit acquired back home.”
Wang, 39, resided in the Chinese metropolis for nearly ten years, departing in that year. In 2025, she relocated to the US. When she got there, she dove into an intense period of “overindulging on democracy,” attending talks, protests, and delving into New York’s library system.
But over the past year since the president returned to office again, there has been a noticeable shift in the atmosphere, she notes. “In China, I knew the boundaries, whereas in the US I find myself on unstable ground.”
Wang’s concerns mirror an emerging political reality in the US which numerous individuals from China, or people who have lived in the country, find eerily similar. Enemies are ostracised. The president expects total allegiance. Reporters face scrutiny. Institutions come under fire.
Trump has openly expressed about his admiration for China's leader, China’s authoritarian figure. He has described Xi as “fantastic”. When they reached a temporary truce in the trade war on Thursday, the camaraderie between the two leaders of nations with diametrically opposed governance models became clear. Following years of hope in the US that improved relations with China could assist the growing nation become more open, under Trump 2.0, it seems as if the US is shifting in China's path, instead of vice versa.
“The United States is undergoing an era of cultural revolution,” said Zhang Qianfan, an academic at Peking University. “The president, Trump, is trying to mobilise the grassroots to marginalize or undermine established figures … reminiscent of what happened in China decades past.”
Ever since the administration initiated what's termed Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on federal institutions at the start of his term, numerous Chinese observers see US politics via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the mobilisation of the youth to carry out presidential directives, or purging organizations of perceived enemies, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered Mao-style chaos to the US, albeit without equivalent degrees of force.
But after the upheaval of the initial period of the new administration subsided, a new, distinct type of climate has emerged in the country, which variously also feels familiar to many Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Has Become Less Bright’
The most profound similarity between Trump’s America and the East is the suppression on open expression.
Deng Haiyan, now a Chinese Communist party dissenter, found himself in the eye of a storm recently, the likes of which he once faced in his homeland. He has lived in the US since 2019, after escaping China due to harassment from the authorities.
In September, following the passing of a public figure, he posted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Similar to others nationwide – who lost their jobs for making negative comments regarding him – Deng faced significant backlash. His family was doxed and he was accused of espionage attempting to create division.
“That event surprised me deeply. I never imagined that something like this would occur in the United States – what typically happens in an authoritarian country,” he commented.
Deng’s pile on originated from online peers, instead of the state, but that kind of social surveillance also has parallels with China.
“In terms of targeting those who disagree and starting to surveil open discourse about issues that are sensitive … That’s starting to emerge in the US,” said Maria Repnikova, an associate professor at Georgia State University. “This is observed in China now as well,” she added, stating that there were now fears in America of pupils informing against teachers, a form of monitoring promoted by Chinese authorities.
Zhang, the legal expert, 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 is no longer a god for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has declined generally.”
“We once viewed America as the symbol of democratic governance, but after Trump took power, this lighthouse seems to have become less luminous”.
Progressive Chinese, who are often, behind closed doors, critical of China’s political system, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than the US's, Zhang said. “It's somewhat difficult to acknowledge this reality … but post-COVID, authorities appears to be pursuing the right thing in improving the environment and promoting EVs and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “the West, as represented by America, seems to be in decline.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of shares in US companies has also drawn parallels with the East, where the line between state and business is frequently unclear.
Recently, the US government announced it would become a shareholder in a startup specialising in rare earth processing, after taking similar stakes in additional firms it considers vital to national security. The deals have left certain stakeholders concerned that America is entering a new era of state intervention in private industry.
There are still major differences between Trump’s America and China. Last month, several news organisations including the Guardian refused to sign to a Pentagon policy that demanded reporting solely on government-authorised news. US courts have halted or reversed many of Trump’s actions, something that is unthinkable in China’s party-dominated legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of a consulting firm, a China-focused advisory firm, said: “America might face the worst crisis of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it will still be more free, open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
The professor notes that while numerous scholars in the country were surprised to see American colleges yield to government demands regarding diversity and inclusion practices and open discourse on university grounds, in China, leading institutions are all state-owned by default. Administrators, which are appointed by the state, “have no liberty of saying no. They can’t afford defy orders.”
Nevertheless, people in the US are starting to adopt measures previously confined to more authoritarian countries. One professor at a US university who was previously outspoken on US-China issues declined to speak for this piece. He stated: “Honestly, I am scared of suppression in the US: I genuinely feel more comfortable to criticise Xi these days than say anything bad
