As Vickie Wang, an emerging comedic talent, takes her platform in the Big Apple, she is not just thinking about which jokes to tell. She also weighs what subjects to steer clear of. “I don't engage in openly criticizing the government,” she explained. Or if she does, she makes certain it's not recorded for social media. “I would never publicly share content in which I directly criticize the government … I believe it's a learned behavior acquired back home.”
Wang, thirty-nine, lived in Shanghai for nearly a decade, leaving in that year. In 2025, she relocated to America. When she got there, she dove into an intense period of “overindulging on democracy,” going to lectures, protests, and delving into the city's library system.
But over the past year after the president was elected for the second time, there's been a noticeable shift in the atmosphere, she says. “Back home, I knew the boundaries, whereas here I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Wang’s fears reflect a new political reality in the US which many Chinese, or people who have lived in China, find disturbingly similar. Opponents are ostracised. The leader expects absolute loyalty. Journalists are targeted. Institutions come under fire.
The president has openly expressed about his admiration for China's leader, the nation's authoritarian figure. He's called Xi as a “great guy”. As they agreed a temporary truce in economic tensions on Thursday, the camaraderie between both figures of nations with vastly different political systems was evident. Following years of hope in America that improved relations with the East may help the rising power become more open, in the current administration, it appears that the US is shifting in the Chinese direction, instead of vice versa.
“The United States is undergoing a period of cultural revolution,” stated Zhang Qianfan, a professor at a top Chinese university. “The top leader, Trump, is attempting to mobilise the masses to marginalize or undermine established figures … reminiscent of what happened in the country decades past.”
Since Trump initiated the so-called a government streamlining body, or Doge, on federal institutions early on in office, numerous Chinese observers have viewed American governance via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the rallying of young people to carry out presidential directives, or purging organizations of those deemed opposition, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has brought Mao-style chaos to the US, though absent equivalent degrees of violence.
However after the upheaval of the early months under Trump has calmed, a new, different kind of climate has settled in the US, which variously seems recognizable to many Chinese people.
‘The Lighthouse Is Dimmer’
The deepest parallel between Trump’s America and China is the crackdown on free speech.
A former police officer, now a Chinese Communist party dissenter, found himself in a controversy this year, similar to what he once faced in his homeland. Deng resided in the US since 2019, having fled China because of harassment from the authorities.
In September, after the death of a public figure, Deng tweeted that Kirk was a “scumbag”. Like people across the US – who lost their jobs for expressing criticism regarding him – he encountered significant backlash. His family was doxed and he faced allegations of espionage attempting to create division.
“That event surprised me deeply. I never imagined such a thing would occur in the United States – what should only happen in an authoritarian country,” he commented.
His pile on originated from fellow social media users, instead of the state, but such of public monitoring also has similarities with China.
“In terms of targeting those who disagree and monitoring open discourse about issues deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge in the US,” noted Maria Repnikova, a scholar at a US university. “That’s something that you see in the East today as well,” she added, adding that there were now fears in America of pupils informing against teachers, a type of surveillance promoted by Chinese authorities.
The professor, the legal expert, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him once turned to America for ideals, since openly discussing internal affairs in China is dangerous. But now, “America isn't a god for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has worsened generally.”
“We used to see the US as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, that guide seems to have become less luminous”.
Progressive Chinese, who are often, at least in private, skeptical about the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than America’s, he stated. “It's somewhat difficult to acknowledge this … but post-COVID, the government appears to be pursuing correct policies in improving the environment and developing electric cars and tech investment,” he noted, while “the West, exemplified by the United States, appear in decline.”
The government's purchase of stakes in American firms has also drawn parallels with China, where the line between government and private industry is frequently unclear.
Recently, authorities stated it would become an investor in a new company focused on rare earth processing, after taking comparable shares in other companies deemed vital to the country's safety. The deals have left certain stakeholders nervous that America is entering a fresh phase of government meddling in the private sector.
There are still major differences between Trump’s America and the East. Last month, several news organisations among others declined to agree to a defense department rule that demanded reporting solely on approved news. US courts have blocked or reversed numerous Trump’s actions, something that is impossible in China’s party-dominated legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of Strategy Risks, specializing in China, said: “America could descend into the worst crisis of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it will still be freer, more open, and more liberal than the East under its leader.”
Zhang notes that although many intellectuals in the country were shocked to see American colleges yield to official requests concerning DEI policies and open discourse on university grounds, in China, the top universities are all state-owned inherently. Administrators, which are appointed by the state, “have no liberty of saying no. They dare not to be disobedient.”
Nevertheless, Americans are beginning to take precautions previously confined to more authoritarian countries. An academic at a US university once vocal on US-China issues declined to be interviewed for this piece. He said: “Honestly, I am scared of suppression here: I actually feel more comfortable to criticise Xi now than say anything bad
