When Vickie Wang, a rising performer, takes her platform in the Big Apple, she is not just considering which jokes to deliver. She also carefully considers which topics to avoid. “I refrain from openly criticizing the administration,” she stated. And when she ventures there, she makes certain it's not captured for social media. “I would never publicly share material in which I openly disparage the government … I think it's a learned behavior acquired back home.”
Wang, 39, lived in the Chinese metropolis for almost a decade, leaving in that year. By 2025, she moved to America. Upon arrival, she embarked on a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” attending talks, demonstrations, and exploring the city's public library.
But over the past year after the president returned to office for the second time, there has been a “palpable change” in the environment, she notes. “Back home, I knew the boundaries, while in the US I'm standing on shifting sands.”
Her concerns mirror a new climate in America which many Chinese, or people who have lived in China, perceive as disturbingly similar. Opponents are ostracised. The president demands absolute loyalty. Journalists are targeted. Establishments are attacked.
Trump has not been shy about his admiration for China's leader, China’s strongman leader. He's called him as a “great guy”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in the trade war on Thursday, the camaraderie between the two leaders of nations with vastly different governance models was evident. And after decades of optimism in America that closer ties with the East could assist the growing nation become more open, under Trump 2.0, it seems that America is being pulled in the Chinese direction, instead of vice versa.
“America is undergoing an era of cultural revolution,” said a constitutional law expert, an academic at Peking University. “The top leader, Donald Trump, is trying to mobilise the grassroots to sideline or weaken the elite … reminiscent of events in the country half a century ago.”
Since the administration initiated the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start in office, many in China see American governance through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the mobilisation of the youth to execute presidential directives, or purging organizations of perceived enemies, the president as viewed from China has delivered disorder reminiscent of Mao to the US, albeit absent equivalent degrees of force.
However after the upheaval of the early months of the new administration subsided, an unfamiliar, different kind of political atmosphere has emerged in the US, which in different ways seems recognizable to many Chinese people.
‘The Lighthouse Has Become Dimmer’
The most profound parallel between the US today and the East 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 once faced in his homeland. Deng resided in America since 2019, having fled China because of harassment from officials.
In September, after the death of Charlie Kirk, he posted that Kirk was “despicable”. Like people across the US – many of whom were fired as a result of expressing criticism about Kirk – Deng faced significant backlash. His family was doxed and he was accused of espionage seeking to divide the US.
“That event was a real shock. I hadn't thought such a thing could happen in the United States – what should only happen in an authoritarian country,” he commented.
His pile on came from fellow social media users, instead of the government, but such of social surveillance bears parallels with China.
“In terms of targeting those who disagree and starting to surveil open discourse on topics deemed controversial … It's appearing here,” noted Maria Repnikova, a scholar at a US university. “That’s something that you see in the East today as too,” she added, stating that concerns are rising in America of pupils informing against teachers, a form of surveillance that has been encouraged by Chinese authorities.
Zhang, the Peking University law professor, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals such as him used to look to the US for ideals, in part because openly discussing internal affairs in the country is dangerous. However, “America isn't a god for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has worsened generally.”
“We once viewed the US as the beacon of constitutional democracy, but after Trump took power, this lighthouse seems to have become less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, who are often, at least in private, critical of the nation's governance, now perceive it more acceptable than the US's, he stated. “It’s sort of difficult to acknowledge this reality … but after the pandemic, authorities appears to be pursuing correct policies in environmental protection and developing electric cars and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “Western nations, exemplified by the United States, seems to be declining.”
The Trump administration’s acquisition of shares in American firms has also drawn parallels with China, where the distinction between government and business is frequently unclear.
Recently, authorities announced it would become a shareholder in a new company focused on rare earth processing, after taking comparable shares in additional firms deemed vital to the country's safety. The deals have left certain stakeholders nervous that America is embarking on a fresh phase of government meddling in the private sector.
There are still major differences between the US under Trump and China. In October, several news organisations among others declined to agree to a defense department rule that required reporting solely on approved news. US courts have blocked or overturned many of presidential measures, something that is impossible in China’s CCP-controlled judiciary.
An analyst, the founder of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “America might face its gravest challenge of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it will still be more free, more open, and liberal than the East under its leader.”
The professor observes that while numerous scholars in the country were shocked to see American colleges capitulate to official requests concerning diversity and inclusion practices and open discourse on campus, in China, leading institutions are all state-owned inherently. Administrators, who are appointed by the state, “cannot of saying no. They can’t afford defy orders.”
Nevertheless, people in the US are starting to take precautions previously confined to repressive regimes. An academic at an American college who was previously outspoken on US-China issues refused to be interviewed for this article. He said: “Honestly, I fear of the censorship here: I genuinely feel less afraid criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad
