When Vickie Wang, a rising performer, takes the stage in New York, she is not only thinking about what humor to tell. She also carefully considers what subjects to steer clear of. “I refrain from openly attacking the government,” she explained. Or if she does, she makes certain it's not captured for online platforms. “I'd never publish openly material in which I directly criticize the government … I believe this is a learned behavior from China.”
The comedian, thirty-nine, lived in Shanghai for almost ten years, departing in that year. By 2025, she moved to the US. When she got there, she embarked on an intense period of “overindulging on democracy,” attending lectures, demonstrations, and delving into New York’s public library.
However over the past year since the president was elected again, there's been a noticeable shift in the environment, she notes. “In China, I knew where the line was, while here I'm standing on shifting sands.”
Wang’s concerns mirror an emerging political reality in America which many Chinese, or people who have lived in China, find disturbingly familiar. Enemies are ostracised. The leader demands absolute loyalty. Reporters face scrutiny. Establishments come under fire.
Trump has openly expressed about his admiration for China's leader, China’s strongman leader. He has described him as a “great guy”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in the trade war recently, the camaraderie between both figures of nations with diametrically opposed governance models was evident. Following years of hope in the US that closer ties with China could assist the growing nation to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it appears as if the US is shifting in China's path, instead of the other way around.
“America is undergoing a period of cultural revolution,” stated Zhang Qianfan, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The top leader, Donald Trump, is trying to mobilise the grassroots to marginalize or undermine the elite … similar to what happened in the country decades past.”
Ever since the administration initiated the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or Doge, on federal institutions early on of his term, numerous Chinese observers see American governance via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the mobilisation of young people to execute presidential directives, or cleansing organizations of those deemed opposition, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered Mao-style chaos to America, albeit absent the same levels of force.
But since the turmoil of the initial period under Trump subsided, a new, different kind of political atmosphere has emerged in the US, which variously seems familiar to numerous Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Has Become Dimmer’
The most profound similarity between the US today and China is the suppression on open expression.
Deng Haiyan, now a Chinese Communist party critic, found himself in the eye of a storm recently, similar to what he once faced in his homeland. He has lived in the US since 2019, after escaping China due to pressure from the authorities.
In September, after the death of a public figure, Deng tweeted that Kirk was a “scumbag”. Similar to others across the US – many of whom lost their jobs as a result of expressing criticism about Kirk – Deng faced a huge backlash. Relatives was doxed and he faced allegations of espionage attempting to create division.
“This incident was a real shock. I never imagined such a thing would occur in the United States – something that typically happens in a repressive state,” Deng said.
Deng’s backlash originated from online peers, instead of the government, but such of social surveillance also has similarities with China.
“Regarding targeting those who disagree and monitoring open discourse about issues that are sensitive … It's appearing in the US,” noted an academic, a scholar at Georgia State University. “That’s something observed in the East today as well,” she said, adding that there were now fears in the US of pupils informing against educators, a type of monitoring promoted by the CCP.
Zhang, the legal expert, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him once turned to America for ideals, in part because openly discussing domestic politics in China is risky. However, “America is no longer some kind of god for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has declined across the board.”
“We used to see America as the beacon of constitutional democracy, but after Trump took power, this lighthouse seems to have become dimmer”.
Chinese liberals, typically, at least in private, critical of the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than America’s, he stated. “It's somewhat painful to accept this … but after the pandemic, the government seems to be doing the right thing in improving the environment and promoting EVs and tech investment,” he noted, while “Western nations, exemplified by America, appear declining.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of stakes in American firms has prompted comparisons with China, where the line between state and private industry is frequently unclear.
Recently, the US government announced it would become a shareholder in a startup specialising in mineral refinement, following similar stakes in other companies it considers vital to the country's safety. These moves have made certain stakeholders concerned that the US is entering a fresh phase of government meddling in the private sector.
There are still major differences between Trump’s America and China. In October, multiple media outlets among others refused to sign to a Pentagon policy that required reporting solely on approved information. US courts have halted or overturned many of Trump’s actions, something that would be unthinkable in the nation's party-dominated legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “America might face its gravest challenge of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it will still be freer, more open, and liberal than the East under its leader.”
Zhang notes that although numerous scholars in China were shocked to see American colleges capitulate to government demands concerning DEI policies and free speech on university grounds, in China, leading institutions are all state-owned by default. Administrators, who are appointed by the government, “cannot of saying no. They dare not defy orders.”
Nevertheless, Americans are beginning to adopt measures previously confined to repressive regimes. An academic at a US university once vocal on bilateral matters refused to speak for this article. He stated: “Honestly, I fear of the censorship here: I actually feel less afraid criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad
