As Vickie Wang, an emerging comedic talent, steps onto the stage in New York, she is not only considering what humor to deliver. She also weighs what subjects to avoid. “I don't engage in directly attacking the administration,” she explained. And when she ventures there, she ensures it isn't captured for social media. “I would never publish openly content where I directly criticize the government … I believe this is a learned behavior from China.”
Wang, 39, lived in Shanghai for almost a decade, leaving in that year. By 2025, she relocated to the US. When she got there, she dove into a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on democracy,” attending lectures, demonstrations, and delving into the city's library system.
But over the past year since the president returned to office again, there has been a “palpable change” in the environment, she says. “In China, I understood the boundaries, while here I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Her concerns reflect a new climate in America which numerous individuals from China, or people with experience in China, perceive as eerily similar. Opponents are ostracised. The president expects absolute loyalty. Journalists face scrutiny. Institutions are attacked.
Trump has not been shy about his admiration for Xi Jinping, the nation's authoritarian figure. He's called Xi as “fantastic”. When they reached a temporary truce in economic tensions recently, the camaraderie between the two leaders of countries with diametrically opposed governance models became clear. Following years of hope in the US that improved relations with the East could assist the growing nation become more open, in the current administration, it appears that America is being pulled in China's path, rather than the other way around.
“America is experiencing a period of cultural revolution,” stated a constitutional law expert, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The president, Donald Trump, is trying to rally the grassroots to marginalize or undermine established figures … similar to events in the country decades past.”
Ever since Trump initiated the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy early on in office, numerous Chinese observers have viewed US politics through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the mobilisation of the youth to carry out the leader’s will, or cleansing institutions of those deemed opposition, Trump as viewed from China has delivered disorder reminiscent of Mao to the US, albeit without the same levels of force.
But after the upheaval of the early months of the new administration has calmed, an unfamiliar, distinct type of climate has emerged in the country, which variously seems recognizable to many Chinese people.
‘The Beacon Is Dimmer’
The deepest similarity between the US today and China is the crackdown on free speech.
A former police officer, now a CCP dissenter, found himself in a controversy recently, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in China. Deng resided in America since 2019, having fled China due to pressure from the authorities.
Last fall, following the passing of a public figure, Deng tweeted that the individual was “despicable”. Like people nationwide – many of whom lost their jobs as a result of expressing criticism regarding him – Deng faced a huge backlash. Relatives had personal info leaked and he was accused of espionage seeking to divide the US.
“That event surprised me deeply. I hadn't thought that something like this could happen in America – what typically happens in a repressive state,” he commented.
Deng’s pile on came from online peers, instead of the state, but that kind of social surveillance also has similarities with China.
“Regarding going after dissenters and monitoring open discourse on topics that are sensitive … That’s starting to emerge in the US,” noted an academic, a scholar at a US university. “That’s something that you see in China today as well,” she said, adding that concerns are rising in America of pupils informing against educators, a form of surveillance promoted by Chinese authorities.
The professor, the Peking University law professor, explained that progressive thinkers like himself used to look to the US for political inspiration, in part because openly discussing internal affairs in China is risky. But now, “America is no longer some kind of ideal for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has worsened across the board.”
“We once viewed America as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, that guide appears dimmer”.
Chinese liberals, typically, at least in private, skeptical about China’s political system, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than America’s, he stated. “It's somewhat painful to accept this reality … but after the pandemic, authorities seems to be doing the right thing in improving the environment and developing electric cars and tech investment,” Zhang said, while “Western nations, exemplified by the United States, appear in decline.”
The government's purchase of stakes in American firms has also drawn parallels with the East, where the line between state and private industry is often blurred.
Recently, the US government announced it would become a shareholder in a new company specialising in rare earth processing, after taking similar stakes in other companies deemed vital to national security. These moves have left some investors concerned that America is embarking on a new era of government meddling in private industry.
There are still major differences between Trump’s America and the East. Last month, multiple media outlets including the Guardian refused to sign to a Pentagon policy that demanded reporting solely on government-authorised information. US courts have halted or overturned numerous Trump’s actions, an action that is unthinkable in China’s party-dominated judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of a consulting firm, specializing in China, commented: “The United States could descend into the worst crisis of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it will still be more free, open, and more liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang observes that although numerous scholars in China were surprised to see American colleges capitulate to government demands regarding diversity and inclusion practices and open discourse on campus, in China, leading institutions are all state-owned inherently. University leaders, who are appointed by the government, “cannot refuse. They can’t afford defy orders.”
Still, Americans are starting to take precautions that were once confined to more authoritarian countries. One professor at a US university who was previously vocal on US-China issues refused to be interviewed for this article. He said: “The truth is, I fear of suppression in the US: I genuinely feel more comfortable to criticise Xi now than say anything bad
