As Vickie Wang, an emerging comedic talent, steps onto the stage in the Big Apple, she's not only thinking about what humor to deliver. She also carefully considers which topics to avoid. “I don't engage in directly criticizing the government,” she explained. And when she ventures there, she ensures it's not captured for online platforms. “I'd never publicly share material in which I openly disparage authorities … I believe it's a learned behavior acquired back home.”
Wang, thirty-nine, lived in the Chinese metropolis for nearly a decade, departing in 2022. In 2025, she relocated to the US. Upon arrival, she embarked on an intense period of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” attending talks, protests, and delving into New York’s public library.
However in the year after the president returned to office again, there has been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she says. “In China, I knew where the line was, while in the US I'm standing on shifting sands.”
Wang’s fears reflect a new climate in the US which many Chinese, or those with experience in China, perceive as eerily similar. Enemies face exclusion. The president demands absolute loyalty. Reporters are targeted. Institutions come under fire.
The president has openly expressed about his admiration for China's leader, China’s strongman leader. He has described him as a “great guy”. When they reached a temporary truce in economic tensions recently, the bonhomie between both figures of nations with diametrically opposed political systems was evident. Following years of hope in the US that improved relations with the East may help the rising power become more open, under Trump 2.0, it seems as if America is being pulled in the Chinese direction, rather than vice versa.
“America is undergoing an era of cultural revolution,” stated a constitutional law expert, a professor at a top Chinese university. “The president, Trump, is attempting to rally the masses in order to sideline or weaken established figures … reminiscent of what happened in the country half a century ago.”
Since the administration initiated the so-called a government streamlining body, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy early on of his term, numerous Chinese observers have viewed US politics through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the mobilisation of the youth to execute the leader’s will, or cleansing institutions of those deemed opposition, Trump as viewed from China has brought Mao-style chaos to America, albeit without the same levels of force.
However since the turmoil of the early months of the new administration has calmed, a new, distinct type of climate has emerged in the US, which variously seems familiar to many Chinese individuals.
‘The Lighthouse Is Dimmer’
The deepest similarity between the US today and China is the crackdown on free speech.
Deng Haiyan, turned CCP critic, ended up in a controversy this year, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in his homeland. Deng has lived in the US for several years, after escaping the country because of pressure from officials.
In September, after the death of Charlie Kirk, Deng tweeted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Like people nationwide – who lost their jobs for expressing criticism regarding him – he encountered a huge backlash. Relatives was doxed and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy seeking to divide the US.
“That event was a real shock. I hadn't thought that something like this would occur in the United States – something that typically happens in an authoritarian country,” he commented.
His backlash came from online peers, instead of the government, but such of social surveillance also has parallels with China.
“Regarding targeting dissenters and starting to surveil open discourse on topics deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge in the US,” noted Maria Repnikova, a scholar at a US university. “This is that you see in China today as too,” she said, stating that there were now fears in the US of students reporting on educators, a type of monitoring that has been encouraged by the CCP.
Zhang, the legal expert, explained that progressive thinkers such as him once turned to the US for ideals, in part because public debate on domestic politics in China is risky. However, “The US is no longer some kind of god for Chinese liberals. America’s image has declined across the board.”
“We used to see America as the symbol of democratic governance, but after Trump took power, that guide appears less luminous”.
Progressive Chinese, who are often, behind closed doors, skeptical about the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than America’s, he stated. “It’s sort of painful to accept this … but post-COVID, the government seems to be doing correct policies in improving the environment and developing electric cars and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “Western nations, exemplified by the United States, appear declining.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of shares in American firms has also drawn comparisons with the East, where the distinction between state and business is frequently unclear.
Recently, authorities stated it will take a shareholder in a startup specialising in mineral refinement, after taking similar stakes in other companies it considers essential for the country's safety. These moves have left certain stakeholders nervous that the US is entering a new era of government meddling in private industry.
There are still significant distinctions between the US under Trump and China. In October, several news organisations among others declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that demanded they only report on approved news. US courts have halted or reversed many of presidential measures, something that is impossible in China’s CCP-controlled judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of a consulting firm, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “The United States could descend into its gravest challenge of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it will still be more free, open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang observes that although many intellectuals in the country were surprised to see American colleges capitulate to government demands concerning diversity and inclusion practices and open discourse on university grounds, in the East, leading institutions are publicly controlled by default. University leaders, who are selected by the state, “have no liberty refuse. They can’t afford defy orders.”
Nevertheless, Americans are starting to take precautions previously confined to repressive regimes. An academic at an American college once vocal on US-China issues refused to be interviewed for this piece. He stated: “Honestly, I am scared of suppression in the US: I actually feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad
