When Vickie Wang, an emerging comedic talent, takes the stage in the Big Apple, she's not only considering which jokes to tell. Additionally, she weighs which topics to avoid. “I don't engage in directly attacking the administration,” she explained. And when she ventures there, she ensures it's not recorded for online platforms. “I would never publish openly content in which I directly criticize authorities … I believe it's a learned behavior acquired back home.”
Wang, thirty-nine, lived in Shanghai for almost a decade, departing in that year. In 2025, she relocated to America. Upon arrival, she embarked on an intense period of “overindulging on freedom,” going to talks, demonstrations, and delving into the city's library system.
But over the past year since Donald Trump was elected again, there has been a “palpable change” in the environment, she notes. “Back home, I understood where the line was, whereas in the US I find myself on unstable ground.”
Her fears reflect a new political reality in the US which many Chinese, or those who have lived in China, perceive as disturbingly similar. Enemies face exclusion. The leader demands absolute loyalty. Journalists face scrutiny. Institutions are attacked.
Trump has not been shy regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, China’s strongman leader. He has described him as a “great guy”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in economic tensions on Thursday, the bonhomie between both figures of nations with vastly different governance models became clear. And after decades of optimism in the US that closer ties with China may help the rising power to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it appears as if the US is being pulled in China's path, rather than the other way around.
“America is experiencing an era of cultural revolution,” said a constitutional law expert, a professor at a top Chinese university. “The top leader, Donald Trump, is attempting to mobilise the masses to marginalize or undermine established figures … similar to what happened in the country decades past.”
Ever since the administration initiated the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy early on of his term, many in China have viewed American governance through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the rallying of the youth to carry out the leader’s will, or cleansing organizations of those deemed opposition, Trump from a Chinese viewpoint has brought disorder reminiscent of Mao to the US, albeit absent the same levels of force.
However after the upheaval of the initial period under Trump subsided, an unfamiliar, distinct type of political atmosphere has settled in the US, which in different ways also feels familiar to numerous Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Is Dimmer’
The most profound parallel between Trump’s America and China is the suppression on free speech.
Deng Haiyan, now a Chinese Communist party dissenter, found himself in a controversy this year, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in his homeland. Deng has lived in America for several years, having fled the country due to pressure from officials.
Last fall, after the death of a public figure, Deng tweeted that the individual was “despicable”. Like people across the US – who lost their jobs for expressing criticism about Kirk – he encountered a huge backlash. Relatives had personal info leaked and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy seeking to create division.
“That event was a real shock. I never imagined such a thing could happen in America – what should only happen in an authoritarian country,” he commented.
His backlash originated from fellow social media users, instead of the state, but such of social surveillance bears similarities with the East.
“In terms of going after dissenters and monitoring public speech about issues that are sensitive … That’s starting to emerge in the US,” noted an academic, an associate professor at a US university. “That’s something observed in the East now as too,” she said, stating that concerns are rising in the US of pupils informing against educators, a form of surveillance promoted by the CCP.
The professor, the legal expert, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him used to look to America for ideals, since public debate on domestic politics in China is risky. But now, “America isn't some kind of ideal for progressive Chinese. America’s image has worsened generally.”
“We used to see America as the beacon of democratic governance, but since the new administration, that guide seems to have become less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, typically, behind closed doors, critical of the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than the US's, he stated. “It's somewhat difficult to acknowledge this … but after the pandemic, the government appears to be pursuing the right thing in improving the environment and promoting EVs and tech investment,” he noted, while “the West, exemplified by the United States, appear declining.”
The government's acquisition of stakes in American firms has prompted comparisons with the East, where the distinction between state and business is frequently unclear.
Recently, the US government announced it will take a shareholder in a new company focused on rare earth processing, following comparable shares in other companies it considers vital to national security. The deals have left some investors nervous that the US is entering a fresh phase of state intervention in the private sector.
Yet, there remain major differences between Trump’s America and the East. Last month, several news organisations among others refused to sign to a defense department rule that demanded reporting solely on approved information. US courts have halted or reversed numerous presidential measures, an action that would be unthinkable in China’s party-dominated judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “The United States might face the worst crisis of its history, far more severe than currently, and it would remain more free, open, and more liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang notes that while many intellectuals in China were surprised to see US universities capitulate to official requests regarding diversity and inclusion practices and free speech on university grounds, in China, the top universities are all state-owned by default. University leaders, who are appointed by the state, “cannot of saying no. They can’t afford defy orders.”
Nevertheless, Americans are starting to adopt measures that were once associated with repressive regimes. One professor at a US university once outspoken on bilateral matters refused to be interviewed for this article. He stated: “Honestly, I am scared of the censorship in the US: I actually feel less afraid criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad
