As Vickie Wang, an emerging performer, takes the stage in New York, she is not only considering what humor to tell. Additionally, she weighs which topics to steer clear of. “I refrain from openly criticizing the government,” she explained. And when she does, she makes certain it's not captured for social media. “I would never publicly share material in which I openly disparage the government … I think it's a habit acquired back home.”
Wang, thirty-nine, resided in Shanghai for nearly ten years, departing in that year. In 2025, she relocated to America. Upon arrival, she embarked on a frenzy of “overindulging on freedom,” going to talks, demonstrations, and exploring the city's library system.
But over the past year after the president was elected again, there's been a noticeable shift in the environment, she says. “Back home, I knew where the line was, while in the US I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Wang’s fears reflect an emerging climate in America which many Chinese, or people who have lived in the country, find eerily familiar. Enemies are ostracised. The president expects total allegiance. Journalists face scrutiny. Institutions come under fire.
Trump has not been shy about his admiration for China's leader, the nation's strongman leader. He has described him as “fantastic”. When they reached a temporary truce in the trade war recently, the camaraderie between both figures of nations with diametrically opposed governance models was evident. Following years of optimism in America that closer ties with the East could assist the growing nation to liberalise, in the current administration, it seems that America is being pulled in China's path, rather than the other way around.
“America is experiencing a period of cultural revolution,” said a constitutional law expert, an academic at Peking University. “The president, Donald Trump, is trying to mobilise the masses to sideline or weaken the elite … reminiscent of events in the country half a century ago.”
Since the administration unleashed the so-called a government streamlining body, or Doge, on federal institutions at the start of his term, many in China see US politics through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the rallying of the youth to execute presidential directives, or purging institutions of those deemed opposition, the president as viewed from China has brought Mao-style chaos to America, albeit absent equivalent degrees of violence.
But after the upheaval of the initial period of the new administration has calmed, a new, different kind of climate has settled in the US, which in different ways also feels recognizable to many Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Is Dimmer’
The deepest similarity between Trump’s America and the East is the suppression on free speech.
Deng Haiyan, now a Chinese Communist party dissenter, ended up in the eye of a storm recently, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in his homeland. He has lived in the US for several years, having fled China due to pressure from the authorities.
Last fall, after the death of Charlie Kirk, he posted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Similar to others across the US – who lost their jobs as a result of making negative comments regarding him – Deng faced a huge backlash. Relatives was doxed and he faced allegations of espionage attempting to divide the US.
“That event was a real shock. I never imagined such a thing would occur in America – what typically happens in a repressive state,” he commented.
Deng’s backlash came from online peers, instead of the government, but such of social surveillance also has similarities with the East.
“In terms of targeting those who disagree and starting to surveil public speech about issues that are sensitive … It's appearing here,” noted an academic, a scholar at a US university. “That’s something observed in the East now as too,” she said, adding that concerns are rising in the US of students reporting on educators, a type of surveillance promoted by Chinese authorities.
The professor, the legal expert, explained that progressive thinkers such as him once turned to America for ideals, since public debate on domestic politics in China is risky. But now, “America is no longer a ideal for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has worsened across the board.”
“We once viewed America as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but after Trump took power, that guide seems to have become dimmer”.
Chinese liberals, typically, behind closed doors, critical of the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than America’s, Zhang said. “It’s sort of difficult to acknowledge this … but after the pandemic, the government appears to be pursuing correct policies in improving the environment and developing electric cars and investing in hi-tech,” he noted, while “Western nations, as represented by America, appear declining.”
The government's acquisition of shares in US companies has prompted comparisons with China, where the line between government and private industry is often blurred.
On Monday, authorities stated it would become an investor in a startup focused on mineral refinement, after taking similar stakes in other companies it considers vital to the country's safety. These moves have made certain stakeholders nervous that America is entering a fresh phase of government meddling in private industry.
Yet, there remain major differences between the US under Trump and China. In October, several news organisations among others refused to sign to a Pentagon policy that required they only report on government-authorised information. US courts have halted or reversed numerous presidential measures, an action that is impossible in the nation's party-dominated legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of Strategy Risks, specializing in China, commented: “America could descend into the worst crisis of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it will still be freer, open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
The professor notes that although many intellectuals in China were surprised to see American colleges capitulate to government demands concerning DEI policies and free speech on university grounds, in the East, the top universities are all state-owned by default. Administrators, which are appointed by the government, “have no liberty refuse. They dare not defy orders.”
Still, people in the US are beginning to take precautions that were once 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 stated: “Honestly, I fear of suppression here: I genuinely feel less afraid criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad
