When Vickie Wang, a rising performer, steps onto her platform in the Big Apple, she's not only thinking about what humor to tell. She also carefully considers which topics to avoid. “I don't engage in directly criticizing the administration,” she stated. And when she ventures there, she makes certain it's not recorded for online platforms. “I would never publish openly material in which I directly criticize authorities … I believe this is a habit acquired back home.”
Wang, thirty-nine, resided in Shanghai for nearly a decade, departing in 2022. In 2025, she relocated to America. When she got there, she dove into an intense period of “revenge bingeing on democracy,” attending talks, protests, and delving into New York’s library system.
However over the past year since Donald Trump was elected for the second time, there's been a noticeable shift in the environment, she notes. “In China, I knew where the line was, while in the US I find myself on unstable ground.”
Wang’s fears mirror a new political reality in the US which numerous individuals from China, or people who have lived in China, perceive as disturbingly familiar. Enemies are ostracised. The president demands total allegiance. Reporters face scrutiny. Establishments are attacked.
The president has openly expressed about his admiration for Xi Jinping, the nation's authoritarian figure. He has described him as “fantastic”. When they reached a temporary truce in economic tensions on Thursday, the bonhomie between the two leaders of nations with vastly different governance models became clear. Following years of optimism in the US that improved relations with the East may help the rising power to liberalise, in the current administration, it seems as if America is shifting in China's path, instead of the other way around.
“The United States is undergoing an era of cultural revolution,” stated a constitutional law expert, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The president, Donald Trump, is attempting to rally the masses in order to sideline or undermine established figures … similar to events in China decades past.”
Ever since Trump unleashed what's termed a government streamlining body, or the agency, on federal institutions early on of his term, numerous Chinese observers have viewed American governance through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the mobilisation of young people to carry out the leader’s will, or purging organizations of those deemed opposition, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered Mao-style chaos to America, though without the same levels of violence.
But since the upheaval of the early months under Trump subsided, a new, distinct type of climate has settled in the country, which variously also feels recognizable to numerous Chinese people.
‘The Beacon Is Dimmer’
The deepest parallel between the US today and the East is the crackdown on free speech.
A former police officer, now a CCP dissenter, ended up in a controversy this year, the likes of which he once faced in China. Deng has lived in the US since 2019, after escaping China because of pressure from the authorities.
Last fall, following the passing of Charlie Kirk, Deng tweeted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Like people across the US – who lost their jobs for expressing criticism regarding him – he encountered significant backlash. Relatives was doxed and he was accused of espionage attempting to create division.
“That event was a real shock. I hadn't thought that something like this would occur in America – something that typically happens in a repressive state,” Deng said.
Deng’s backlash came from online peers, instead of the state, but that kind of social surveillance bears parallels with the East.
“In terms of targeting dissenters and monitoring open discourse on topics deemed controversial … It's appearing in the US,” said Maria Repnikova, a scholar at a US university. “That’s something that you see in China now as well,” she said, adding that concerns are rising in America of pupils informing against educators, a type of monitoring that has been encouraged by Chinese authorities.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, explained that progressive thinkers such as him once turned to America for ideals, since openly discussing domestic politics in the country is risky. However, “America is no longer a god for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has declined generally.”
“We once viewed the US as the beacon of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, that guide seems to have become dimmer”.
Chinese liberals, typically, at least in private, skeptical about China’s political system, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than America’s, he stated. “It’s sort of difficult to acknowledge this … but after the pandemic, the government seems to be doing the right thing in environmental protection and promoting EVs and tech investment,” Zhang said, while “Western nations, as represented by the United States, appear in decline.”
The government's acquisition of stakes in American firms has prompted parallels with China, where the distinction between state and private industry is frequently unclear.
On Monday, the US government stated it would become a shareholder in a startup specialising in rare earth processing, after taking comparable shares in other companies it considers vital to the country's safety. The deals have made certain stakeholders nervous that the US is embarking on a new era of government meddling in the private sector.
There are still significant distinctions between the US under Trump and China. In October, several news organisations including the Guardian refused to sign to a defense department rule that required reporting solely on approved news. American judiciary have blocked or overturned numerous presidential measures, an action that would be impossible in the nation's CCP-controlled legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of Strategy Risks, specializing in China, said: “America might face its gravest challenge of its history, far more severe than currently, and it will still be freer, open, and more liberal than the East under its leader.”
Zhang observes that although many intellectuals in China were surprised to see American colleges yield to government demands concerning diversity and inclusion practices and free speech on campus, in China, leading institutions are publicly controlled by default. Administrators, who are selected by the government, “have no liberty refuse. They can’t afford defy orders.”
Nevertheless, Americans are starting to take precautions that were once associated with more authoritarian countries. An academic at a US university once outspoken on US-China issues declined to be interviewed for this article. He stated: “The truth is, I fear of the censorship here: I genuinely feel less afraid criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad
