When Vickie Wang, an emerging comedic talent, takes her platform in New York, she is not just considering what humor to tell. Additionally, she weighs which topics to avoid. “I refrain from directly criticizing the government,” she explained. Or if she does, she ensures it's not recorded for online platforms. “I would never publicly share material in which I directly criticize authorities … I believe this is a learned behavior acquired back home.”
Wang, thirty-nine, resided in Shanghai for almost a decade, departing in that year. By 2025, she relocated to the US. When she got there, she embarked on an intense period of “overindulging on freedom,” going to talks, demonstrations, and exploring New York’s library system.
However over the past year after the president returned to office again, there's been a noticeable shift in the environment, she says. “Back home, I understood the boundaries, whereas here I find myself on shifting sands.”
Wang’s concerns reflect a new political reality in America which many Chinese, or those who have lived in China, perceive as disturbingly similar. Opponents are ostracised. The leader demands absolute loyalty. Journalists are targeted. Institutions come under fire.
Trump has not been shy about his admiration for Xi Jinping, China’s strongman leader. He has described Xi as “fantastic”. As they agreed a temporary truce in the trade war on Thursday, the bonhomie between the two leaders of countries with diametrically opposed governance models was evident. Following years of hope in America that closer ties with China may help the rising power become more open, in the current administration, it appears as if the US is being pulled in the Chinese direction, rather than the other way around.
“The United States is undergoing an era of cultural revolution,” said a constitutional law expert, a professor at Peking University. “The top leader, Trump, is attempting to mobilise the masses in order to sideline or undermine established figures … similar to what happened in the country decades past.”
Ever since Trump unleashed the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start in office, many in China see US politics through the lens of China's historical period. Be it the rallying of the youth to carry out the leader’s will, or cleansing institutions of those deemed opposition, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered disorder reminiscent of Mao to the US, albeit absent the same levels of force.
However since the upheaval of the initial period under Trump has calmed, an unfamiliar, different kind of climate has emerged in the US, which variously also feels recognizable to numerous Chinese people.
‘The Beacon Has Become Less Bright’
The deepest similarity between Trump’s America and China is the crackdown on open expression.
A former police officer, now a Chinese Communist party dissenter, found himself in the eye of a storm this year, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in China. He resided in the US since 2019, after escaping the country due to pressure from the authorities.
In September, following the passing of Charlie Kirk, Deng tweeted that Kirk was “despicable”. Similar to others across the US – who lost their jobs as a result of expressing criticism regarding him – he encountered a huge backlash. His family was doxed and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy attempting to create division.
“This incident surprised me deeply. I hadn't thought such a thing would occur in the United States – what should only happen in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.
His pile on originated from fellow social media users, instead of the government, but such of social surveillance bears parallels with China.
“Regarding targeting those who disagree and monitoring open discourse about issues that are sensitive … That’s starting to emerge in the US,” said Maria Repnikova, a scholar at Georgia State University. “That’s something observed in the East now as well,” she added, adding that concerns are rising in America of students reporting on educators, a type of monitoring that has been encouraged by Chinese authorities.
The professor, the legal expert, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself once turned to the US for political inspiration, in part because openly discussing internal affairs in the country is risky. But now, “America isn't a god for progressive Chinese. America’s image has worsened across the board.”
“We once viewed the US as the symbol of democratic governance, but after Trump took power, that guide appears dimmer”.
Chinese liberals, typically, behind closed doors, critical of China’s political system, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than America’s, he stated. “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 tech investment,” Zhang said, while “Western nations, as represented by America, seems to be in decline.”
The government's purchase of shares in US companies has also drawn comparisons with the East, where the line between state and private industry is often blurred.
On Monday, authorities stated it would become an investor in a new company focused on rare earth processing, after taking similar stakes in additional firms deemed essential for the country's safety. The deals have made certain stakeholders nervous that America is embarking on a fresh phase of government meddling in private industry.
There are still significant distinctions between Trump’s America and China. In October, multiple media outlets including the Guardian declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that required reporting solely on government-authorised information. American judiciary have blocked or reversed numerous presidential measures, an action that would be impossible in China’s party-dominated legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “America could descend into its gravest challenge of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it will still be more free, open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang notes that although many intellectuals in the country were surprised to see American colleges capitulate to government demands regarding DEI policies and open discourse on university grounds, in China, the top universities are publicly controlled by default. Administrators, which are selected by the state, “have no liberty of saying no. They dare not defy orders.”
Nevertheless, Americans are starting to adopt measures previously associated with more authoritarian countries. One professor at a US university once vocal on bilateral matters refused to be interviewed for this article. He said: “The truth is, I am scared of suppression here: I genuinely feel more comfortable to criticise Xi these days than say anything bad
