When Vickie Wang, an emerging comedic talent, steps onto her platform in New York, she is not just considering which jokes to deliver. Additionally, she carefully considers which topics to steer clear of. “I don't engage in openly criticizing the government,” she stated. Or if she does, she makes certain it's not captured for social media. “I would never publish openly material in which I openly disparage the government … I believe this is a habit acquired back home.”
Wang, thirty-nine, lived in the Chinese metropolis for almost a decade, leaving in that year. By 2025, she relocated to the US. When she got there, she embarked on an intense period of “revenge bingeing on democracy,” going to talks, protests, and exploring the city's public library.
However over the past year after the president was elected for the second time, there's been a “palpable change” in the environment, she notes. “Back home, I knew where the line was, while here I find myself on shifting sands.”
Her concerns reflect a new climate in the US which numerous individuals from China, or those with experience in the country, find disturbingly familiar. Enemies are ostracised. The leader expects absolute loyalty. Reporters face scrutiny. Establishments are attacked.
The president has openly expressed about his admiration for China's leader, the nation's authoritarian figure. He has described Xi as “fantastic”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in the trade war recently, the bonhomie between the two leaders of countries with vastly different political systems became clear. Following years of hope in the US that closer ties with the East may help the rising power to liberalise, in the current administration, it appears that the US is shifting in the Chinese direction, instead of the other way around.
“The United States is undergoing an era of cultural revolution,” said Zhang Qianfan, an academic at Peking University. “The president, Donald Trump, is attempting to mobilise the masses to marginalize or undermine established figures … reminiscent of events in China half a century ago.”
Since the administration unleashed the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy early on in office, numerous Chinese observers have viewed American governance through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the rallying of the youth to carry out the leader’s will, or purging institutions of perceived enemies, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has brought Mao-style chaos to the US, albeit absent the same levels of violence.
But after the upheaval of the early months of the new administration has calmed, an unfamiliar, distinct type of climate has settled in the country, which in different ways also feels recognizable to many Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Is Less Bright’
The most profound similarity between Trump’s America and the East is the suppression on free speech.
Deng Haiyan, turned Chinese Communist party dissenter, found himself in a controversy recently, similar to what he once faced in his homeland. Deng resided in the US since 2019, after escaping China due to harassment from officials.
Last fall, after the death of Charlie Kirk, Deng tweeted that Kirk was “despicable”. Like people nationwide – who were fired as a result of expressing criticism about Kirk – he encountered a huge backlash. Relatives was doxed and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy attempting to divide the US.
“This incident surprised me deeply. I never imagined that something like this could happen in America – something that typically happens in a repressive state,” he commented.
Deng’s backlash originated from online peers, rather than the government, but such of social surveillance also has parallels with China.
“Regarding targeting those who disagree and starting to surveil open discourse about issues deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge in the US,” said an academic, a scholar at Georgia State University. “This is that you see in the East today as well,” she said, stating that concerns are rising in America of students reporting on educators, a form of monitoring promoted by Chinese authorities.
Zhang, the legal expert, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself once turned to America for ideals, in part because public debate on domestic politics in the country is risky. But now, “America isn't a god for Chinese liberals. America’s image has declined across the board.”
“We once viewed the US as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, this lighthouse appears dimmer”.
Chinese liberals, typically, behind closed doors, critical of China’s political system, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than America’s, Zhang said. “It's somewhat difficult to acknowledge this reality … but after the pandemic, the government appears to be pursuing correct policies in improving the environment and developing electric cars and tech investment,” Zhang said, while “Western nations, as represented by America, seems to be declining.”
The government's purchase of shares in US companies has also drawn parallels with the East, where the distinction between state and private industry is frequently unclear.
Recently, the US government stated it will take a shareholder in a new company focused on mineral refinement, after taking comparable shares in other companies deemed vital to the country's safety. The deals have made some investors nervous that the US is entering a new era of government meddling in private industry.
Yet, there remain major differences between the US under Trump and the East. In October, multiple media outlets among others declined to agree to a defense department rule that required they only report on government-authorised news. American judiciary have blocked or overturned many of presidential measures, an action that would be impossible in the nation's party-dominated judiciary.
An analyst, the founder 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 liberal than China under Xi.”
The professor observes that although numerous scholars in China were shocked to see American colleges capitulate to government demands concerning DEI policies and free speech on university grounds, in the East, leading institutions are publicly controlled inherently. University leaders, which are appointed by the state, “cannot of saying no. They can’t afford defy orders.”
Still, Americans are beginning to adopt measures previously confined to repressive regimes. An academic at a US university once vocal on US-China issues declined to speak for this piece. He stated: “The truth is, I am scared of suppression here: I genuinely feel less afraid to criticise Xi now than say anything bad
