As Vickie Wang, a rising performer, takes the stage in the Big Apple, she is not only thinking about which jokes to tell. She also weighs which topics to avoid. “I don't engage in openly criticizing the government,” she explained. And when she ventures there, she ensures it's not captured for social media. “I'd never publish openly content where I openly disparage authorities … I think this is a habit from China.”
Wang, 39, resided in the Chinese metropolis for nearly a decade, leaving in that year. In 2025, she relocated to the US. Upon arrival, she dove into a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on democracy,” attending talks, protests, and exploring New York’s library system.
But in the year after Donald Trump returned to office for the second time, there has been a “palpable change” in the environment, she says. “In China, I understood where the line was, whereas in the US I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Her concerns mirror an emerging political reality in America which numerous individuals from China, or people with experience in China, perceive as eerily familiar. Opponents are ostracised. The leader expects absolute loyalty. Journalists face scrutiny. Institutions come under fire.
The president has openly expressed regarding his respect for China's leader, China’s authoritarian figure. He has described him as a “great guy”. As they agreed a temporary truce in the trade war recently, the camaraderie between the two leaders of countries with vastly different governance models became clear. 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 shifting in the Chinese direction, rather than vice versa.
“The United States is experiencing a period of cultural revolution,” stated a constitutional law expert, a professor at Peking University. “The top leader, Donald Trump, is trying to mobilise the grassroots to marginalize or undermine the elite … reminiscent of 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 early on in office, many in China have viewed American governance via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the mobilisation of the youth to carry out the leader’s will, or purging institutions of those deemed opposition, Trump as viewed from China has delivered disorder reminiscent of Mao to America, though absent equivalent degrees of violence.
But since the upheaval of the early months of the new administration subsided, an unfamiliar, different kind of climate has settled in the US, which in different ways seems recognizable to many Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Is Less Bright’
The deepest similarity between Trump’s America and the East is the crackdown on open expression.
Deng Haiyan, turned Chinese Communist party critic, found himself in the eye of a storm recently, the likes of which he once faced in China. Deng has lived in the US since 2019, after escaping China because of harassment from the authorities.
Last fall, after the death of a public figure, Deng tweeted that the individual was “despicable”. Similar to others nationwide – many of whom lost their jobs for making negative comments about Kirk – he encountered significant backlash. His family was doxed and he was accused of espionage attempting to create division.
“That event surprised me deeply. I never imagined such a thing could happen in America – what should only happen in an authoritarian country,” he commented.
His backlash originated from online peers, rather than the government, but such of public monitoring bears similarities with the East.
“In terms of going after dissenters and monitoring open discourse about issues deemed controversial … It's appearing in the US,” noted Maria Repnikova, an associate professor at a US university. “That’s something observed in China now as too,” she added, stating that concerns are rising in the US of pupils informing against educators, a form of monitoring promoted by Chinese authorities.
Zhang, the Peking University law professor, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself once turned to America for ideals, since public debate on internal affairs in China is dangerous. However, “The US is no longer some kind of ideal for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has worsened generally.”
“We once viewed America as the symbol of democratic governance, but since the new administration, this lighthouse seems to have become less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, typically, behind closed doors, skeptical about China’s political system, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than the US's, he stated. “It’s sort of difficult to acknowledge this reality … but post-COVID, authorities seems to be doing correct policies in environmental protection and developing electric cars and investing in hi-tech,” he noted, while “Western nations, as represented by the United States, appear in decline.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of stakes in American firms has also drawn comparisons with China, where the distinction between state and private industry is frequently unclear.
Recently, authorities announced it will take a shareholder in a startup specialising in rare earth processing, following comparable shares in other companies deemed essential for the country's safety. The deals have made some investors concerned that America is entering a new era of government meddling in the private sector.
There are still significant distinctions between the US under Trump and the East. In October, several news organisations among others refused to sign to a defense department rule that required they only report on approved information. US courts have halted or overturned many of Trump’s actions, an action that is impossible in the nation's CCP-controlled legal system.
An analyst, who established of Strategy Risks, specializing in China, said: “America might face the worst crisis of all time, far more severe than currently, and it would remain freer, more open, and liberal than the East under its leader.”
The professor observes that although many intellectuals in the country were shocked to see American colleges yield to official requests regarding diversity and inclusion practices and open discourse on university grounds, in the East, leading institutions are all state-owned by default. Administrators, which are selected by the state, “cannot refuse. They can’t afford to be disobedient.”
Still, Americans are starting to take precautions previously confined to more authoritarian countries. One professor at a US university once vocal on bilateral matters refused to speak for this piece. He said: “The truth is, I am scared of the censorship here: I genuinely feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad
