When Vickie Wang, an emerging comedic talent, takes her platform in the Big Apple, she's not just considering which jokes to deliver. She also carefully considers what subjects to avoid. “I refrain from directly attacking the administration,” she explained. And when she ventures there, she makes certain it's not captured for online platforms. “I would never publish openly material in which I directly criticize the government … I believe this is a habit from China.”
Wang, thirty-nine, resided in Shanghai for almost ten years, departing in that year. In 2025, she moved to the US. Upon arrival, she dove into a frenzy of “overindulging on democracy,” going to lectures, demonstrations, and delving into the city's library system.
But in the year after the president returned to office for the second time, there's been a noticeable shift in the environment, she says. “Back home, I understood the boundaries, while here I find myself on unstable ground.”
Her concerns reflect a new political reality in the US which many Chinese, or those with experience in China, find disturbingly similar. Enemies face exclusion. The leader demands absolute loyalty. Journalists face scrutiny. Establishments come under fire.
Trump has not been shy about his admiration for China's leader, the nation's strongman leader. He has described him as a “great guy”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in economic tensions on Thursday, the camaraderie between both figures of countries with diametrically opposed governance models was evident. Following years of optimism in America that closer ties with China may help the growing nation become more open, under Trump 2.0, it seems as if the US is shifting in China's path, rather than 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 attempting to mobilise the grassroots in order to sideline or undermine established figures … similar to events in China decades past.”
Ever since Trump unleashed what's termed a government streamlining body, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy early on in office, numerous Chinese observers see US politics via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the rallying of the youth to execute the leader’s will, or purging institutions of those deemed opposition, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered Mao-style chaos to the US, albeit without equivalent degrees of violence.
However after the upheaval of the early months under Trump has calmed, a new, distinct type of political atmosphere has settled in the country, which in different ways seems recognizable to numerous Chinese individuals.
‘The Lighthouse Is Dimmer’
The deepest similarity between the US today and the East is the suppression on open expression.
Deng Haiyan, now a Chinese Communist party critic, ended up in the eye of a storm this year, similar to what he once faced in his homeland. He has lived in America for several years, after escaping the country because of pressure from officials.
In September, following the passing of a public figure, Deng tweeted that the individual was “despicable”. Like people across the US – who lost their jobs for making negative comments regarding him – he encountered a huge backlash. Relatives was doxed and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy seeking to create division.
“That event was a real shock. I hadn't thought that something like this could happen in the United States – what typically happens in a repressive state,” he commented.
His pile on came from fellow social media users, rather than the government, but such of social surveillance also has similarities with China.
“Regarding targeting dissenters and starting to surveil public speech about issues that are sensitive … It's appearing here,” noted Maria Repnikova, an associate professor at a US university. “This is observed in China today as too,” she said, stating that concerns are rising in America of students reporting on educators, a form of surveillance promoted by Chinese authorities.
Zhang, the legal expert, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself used to look to America for political inspiration, since public debate on domestic politics in the country is dangerous. But now, “America isn't some kind of god for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has worsened generally.”
“We used to see America as the symbol of democratic governance, but since the new administration, that guide appears less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, who are often, at least in private, skeptical about China’s political system, now perceive it less objectionable than America’s, he stated. “It's somewhat painful to accept this reality … but after the pandemic, authorities seems to be doing the right thing in improving the environment and promoting EVs and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “the West, exemplified by America, appear in decline.”
The government's purchase of shares in American firms 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 new company specialising in rare earth processing, after taking comparable shares in additional firms it considers essential for the country's safety. These moves have made certain stakeholders nervous that the US is entering a fresh phase of state intervention in private industry.
There are still major differences between Trump’s America and the East. In October, multiple media outlets including the Guardian declined to agree to a defense department rule that demanded reporting solely on government-authorised news. American judiciary have blocked or overturned numerous presidential measures, an action that is unthinkable 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 freer, open, and more liberal than China under Xi.”
The professor observes that although many intellectuals in China were surprised to see American colleges yield to official requests regarding DEI policies and open discourse on university grounds, in China, the top universities are publicly controlled by default. Administrators, which are appointed by the government, “have no liberty refuse. They can’t afford to be disobedient.”
Still, Americans are beginning to take precautions previously confined to repressive regimes. One professor at an American college who was previously vocal on US-China issues refused to be interviewed for this piece. He stated: “The truth is, I fear of the censorship here: I actually feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad
