When Vickie Wang, a rising performer, steps onto the stage in the Big Apple, she's not only considering which jokes to deliver. Additionally, she weighs which topics to avoid. “I don't engage in directly criticizing the government,” she explained. And when she ventures there, she ensures it's not recorded for online platforms. “I'd never publicly share material where I openly disparage the government … I believe it's a learned behavior acquired back home.”
The comedian, thirty-nine, resided in Shanghai for nearly ten years, departing in that year. By 2025, she moved to America. When she got there, she embarked on an intense period of “overindulging on freedom,” going to talks, demonstrations, and exploring New York’s public library.
But in the year after the president returned to office for the second time, there has been a “palpable change” in the environment, she says. “In China, I knew where the line was, whereas in the US I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Wang’s concerns reflect a new climate in the US which numerous individuals from China, or those who have lived in China, perceive as disturbingly similar. Opponents face exclusion. The president expects total allegiance. Reporters are targeted. Institutions come under fire.
The president has openly expressed about his admiration for Xi Jinping, the nation's authoritarian figure. He has described Xi as a “great guy”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in economic tensions on Thursday, the bonhomie between the two leaders of nations with vastly different political systems became clear. Following years of hope in America that closer ties with China could assist the rising power become more open, under Trump 2.0, it seems as if the US is shifting in the Chinese direction, rather than the other way around.
“The United States is experiencing an era of cultural revolution,” said Zhang Qianfan, an academic at Peking University. “The top leader, Donald Trump, is attempting to rally the grassroots to marginalize or weaken established figures … similar to events in China half a century ago.”
Ever since the administration initiated what's termed a government streamlining body, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start in office, numerous Chinese observers have viewed American governance through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the mobilisation of the youth to execute the leader’s will, or cleansing organizations of those deemed opposition, Trump from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered Mao-style chaos to the US, though without equivalent degrees of violence.
But since the upheaval of the initial period under Trump subsided, an unfamiliar, different kind of political atmosphere has emerged in the US, which variously seems familiar to many Chinese people.
‘The Beacon Has Become Dimmer’
The most profound similarity between Trump’s America and China is the suppression on open expression.
Deng Haiyan, turned Chinese Communist party critic, ended up in the eye of a storm recently, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in China. He resided in the US since 2019, having fled China because of harassment from officials.
In September, after the death of Charlie Kirk, Deng tweeted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Similar to others across the US – many of whom were fired as a result of expressing criticism about Kirk – he encountered a huge backlash. His family had personal info leaked and he was accused of espionage seeking to create division.
“That event surprised me deeply. I hadn't thought that something like this would occur in America – something that should only happen in a repressive state,” he commented.
His backlash came from online peers, instead of the state, but such of social surveillance bears similarities with China.
“In terms of targeting those who disagree and monitoring public speech about issues that are sensitive … It's appearing in the US,” said Maria Repnikova, a scholar at a US university. “This is that you see in China now as well,” she added, adding that concerns are rising in the US of pupils informing against teachers, a type of monitoring promoted by Chinese authorities.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself once turned to America for ideals, in part because openly discussing internal affairs in the country is dangerous. But now, “The US isn't some kind of ideal 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, that guide seems to have become dimmer”.
Chinese liberals, typically, at least in private, skeptical about the nation's governance, now perceive it less objectionable than the US's, he stated. “It’s sort of difficult to acknowledge this … but after the pandemic, authorities appears to be pursuing the right thing in environmental protection and promoting EVs and tech investment,” Zhang said, while “Western nations, as represented by America, appear declining.”
The Trump administration’s acquisition of stakes in US companies has also drawn comparisons with the East, where the line between government and business is frequently unclear.
On Monday, authorities announced it would become an investor in a startup focused on mineral refinement, after taking comparable shares in other companies deemed vital to national security. The deals have left some investors concerned that America is embarking on a fresh phase of state intervention in private industry.
There are still significant distinctions between Trump’s America and China. In October, several news organisations among others refused to sign to a Pentagon policy that demanded reporting solely on government-authorised information. US courts have halted or overturned numerous presidential measures, something that is unthinkable in the nation's party-dominated legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of a consulting firm, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “America might face the worst crisis of its history, far more severe than it is now, and it will still be more free, open, and more liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang notes that while numerous scholars in the country were shocked to see American colleges yield to government demands concerning diversity and inclusion practices and open discourse on university grounds, in China, the top universities are publicly controlled by default. Administrators, who are selected by the state, “have no liberty of saying no. They can’t afford to be disobedient.”
Still, Americans are beginning to adopt measures that were once associated with repressive regimes. One professor at a US university once outspoken on US-China issues declined to be interviewed for this piece. He said: “Honestly, I fear of suppression in the US: I actually feel less afraid to criticise Xi now than say anything bad
