As Vickie Wang, a rising comedic talent, steps onto her platform in New York, she is not only considering what humor to deliver. She also carefully considers which topics to steer clear of. “I refrain from directly criticizing the administration,” she stated. Or if she ventures there, she ensures it's not captured for social media. “I would never publicly share material where I directly criticize authorities … I believe this is a learned behavior acquired back home.”
Wang, 39, lived in Shanghai for nearly a decade, departing in 2022. By 2025, she moved to the US. Upon arrival, she embarked on an intense period of “overindulging on democracy,” attending lectures, protests, and exploring New York’s public library.
However in the year since the president returned to office again, there has been a “palpable change” in the environment, she says. “In China, I knew the boundaries, while in the US I'm standing on shifting sands.”
Wang’s concerns reflect a new political reality in the US which many Chinese, or those with experience in the country, find eerily similar. Enemies face exclusion. The leader expects absolute loyalty. Journalists face scrutiny. Establishments are attacked.
The president has not been shy regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, the nation's authoritarian figure. He's called him as a “great guy”. When they reached a temporary truce in the trade war on Thursday, the camaraderie between both figures of nations with diametrically opposed governance models became clear. Following years of hope in America that closer ties with the East could assist the rising power become more open, in the current administration, it appears as if America is shifting in the Chinese direction, instead of vice versa.
“America is experiencing an era of cultural revolution,” stated a constitutional law expert, a professor at Peking University. “The president, Trump, is attempting to rally the masses to sideline or weaken the elite … reminiscent of events in the country decades past.”
Since Trump unleashed what's termed Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on federal institutions early on in office, many in China have viewed American governance via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the mobilisation of young people to execute the leader’s will, or purging institutions of perceived enemies, the president as viewed from China has brought Mao-style chaos to America, though absent 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 in different ways also feels familiar to many Chinese individuals.
‘The Lighthouse Has Become Less Bright’
The deepest similarity between Trump’s America and China is the crackdown on free speech.
A former police officer, now a CCP dissenter, found himself in the eye of a storm this year, the likes of which he once faced in China. He resided in the US since 2019, having fled the country because of pressure from officials.
In September, after the death of a public figure, Deng tweeted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Similar to others across the US – many of whom lost their jobs for expressing criticism regarding him – Deng faced a huge backlash. Relatives was doxed and he faced allegations of espionage attempting to divide the US.
“This incident surprised me deeply. I never imagined that something like this could happen in America – something that should only happen in an authoritarian country,” he commented.
His pile on originated from fellow social media users, instead of the government, but that kind of social surveillance also has similarities with the East.
“Regarding targeting those who disagree and monitoring public speech about issues that are sensitive … That’s starting to emerge in the US,” noted an academic, an associate professor at a US university. “That’s something observed in the East now as well,” she added, adding that concerns are rising in America of pupils informing against teachers, a form of monitoring that has been encouraged by Chinese authorities.
The professor, the legal expert, explained that progressive thinkers such as him used to look to the US for political inspiration, since public debate on internal affairs in the country is risky. But now, “America is no longer a ideal for Chinese liberals. America’s image has worsened generally.”
“We once viewed the US as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, that guide seems to have become less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, typically, behind closed doors, skeptical about the nation's governance, now perceive it less objectionable than the US's, Zhang said. “It’s sort of painful to accept this … but after the pandemic, authorities seems to be doing the right thing in improving the environment and promoting EVs and investing in hi-tech,” he noted, while “the West, as represented by the United States, seems to be in decline.”
The Trump administration’s acquisition of shares in US companies has prompted comparisons with the East, where the line between government and business is frequently unclear.
On Monday, the US government stated it would become a shareholder in a startup focused on mineral refinement, after taking comparable shares in other companies it considers essential for national security. These moves have made some investors nervous that the US is embarking on a new era of state intervention in the private sector.
Yet, there remain major differences between Trump’s America and the East. Last month, several news organisations among others declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that required reporting solely on government-authorised information. US courts have blocked or reversed numerous Trump’s actions, an action that would be unthinkable in China’s party-dominated judiciary.
An analyst, the founder of a consulting firm, specializing in China, said: “America could descend into the worst crisis of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it would remain more free, open, and more liberal than the East under its leader.”
Zhang observes that while numerous scholars in the country were surprised to see American colleges capitulate to government demands regarding DEI policies and free speech on campus, in China, leading institutions are all state-owned by default. University leaders, who are selected by the government, “have no liberty of saying no. They dare not to be disobedient.”
Nevertheless, people in the US are beginning to take precautions that were once confined to repressive regimes. An academic at a US university who was previously outspoken on bilateral matters refused to be interviewed for this article. He stated: “Honestly, I fear of suppression here: I actually feel more comfortable to criticise Xi these days than say anything bad
