As Vickie Wang, an emerging comedic talent, takes the stage in the Big Apple, she's not only considering which jokes to deliver. Additionally, she weighs which topics to avoid. “I refrain from directly attacking the administration,” she explained. And when she does, she makes certain it isn't recorded for online platforms. “I would never publicly share content in which I directly criticize authorities … I believe it's a habit acquired back home.”
Wang, thirty-nine, lived in Shanghai for almost a decade, leaving in 2022. In 2025, she moved to America. Upon arrival, she dove into an intense period of “revenge bingeing on democracy,” attending talks, protests, and exploring the city's library system.
But in the year after the president returned to office again, there's been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she says. “In China, I knew where the line was, whereas in the US I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Her fears mirror a new climate in America which numerous individuals from China, or those who have lived in the country, find eerily similar. Enemies are ostracised. The leader expects total allegiance. Reporters face scrutiny. Institutions come under fire.
The president has not been shy regarding his respect for China's leader, the nation's authoritarian figure. He has described him as “fantastic”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in economic tensions on Thursday, the bonhomie between both figures of countries with vastly different political systems became clear. Following years of hope in America that improved relations with the East could assist the growing nation to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it seems as if America is being pulled in the Chinese direction, instead of vice versa.
“The United States is undergoing a period of cultural revolution,” stated a constitutional law expert, a professor at a top Chinese university. “The president, Donald Trump, is trying to rally the masses in order to sideline or undermine established figures … similar to events in China half a century ago.”
Ever since Trump unleashed the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on federal institutions early on in office, many in China see American governance via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the rallying of the youth to carry out the leader’s will, or cleansing organizations of those deemed opposition, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has brought Mao-style chaos to the US, albeit without the same levels of force.
However since the upheaval of the early months of the new administration has calmed, a new, different kind of political atmosphere has emerged in the country, which variously seems familiar to numerous Chinese individuals.
‘The Lighthouse Has Become Less Bright’
The most profound similarity between Trump’s America and the East is the suppression on open expression.
Deng Haiyan, turned Chinese Communist party dissenter, ended up in a controversy recently, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in China. He has lived in the US for several years, after escaping China due to harassment from officials.
In September, after the death of a public figure, Deng tweeted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Like people across the US – who lost their jobs for expressing criticism about Kirk – he encountered significant backlash. Relatives had personal info leaked and he was accused of espionage seeking to divide the US.
“That event was a real shock. I never imagined such a thing would occur in America – something that typically happens in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.
Deng’s backlash came from online peers, instead of the government, but such of social surveillance bears parallels with China.
“In terms of going after those who disagree and starting to surveil public speech about issues that are sensitive … It's appearing in the US,” said an academic, a scholar at Georgia State University. “This is that you see in the East now as well,” she added, stating that there were now fears in America of pupils informing against educators, a form of monitoring promoted by Chinese authorities.
Zhang, the Peking University law professor, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself used to look to America for political inspiration, in part because public debate on internal affairs in the country is dangerous. But now, “America is no longer a ideal for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has worsened generally.”
“We once viewed America as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but after Trump took power, this lighthouse seems to have become less luminous”.
Progressive Chinese, who are often, at least in private, critical of the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than America’s, Zhang said. “It's somewhat painful to accept this … but after the pandemic, authorities seems to be doing the right thing in environmental protection and developing electric cars and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “the West, as represented by the United States, seems to be declining.”
The government's acquisition of shares in American firms has prompted comparisons with the East, where the line between state and business is often blurred.
On Monday, the US government announced it would become an investor in a new company focused on mineral refinement, after taking similar stakes in other companies deemed essential for the country's safety. The deals have made certain stakeholders nervous that America is entering a new era of state intervention in the private sector.
Yet, there remain major differences between the US under Trump and China. In October, several news organisations including the Guardian refused to sign to a Pentagon policy that demanded they only report on government-authorised information. US courts have blocked or reversed numerous presidential measures, an action that would be unthinkable in China’s CCP-controlled judiciary.
An analyst, the founder of Strategy Risks, specializing in China, said: “America could descend into its gravest challenge of its history, far more severe than it is now, and it would remain freer, more open, and liberal than the East under its leader.”
The professor notes that while numerous scholars in the country were surprised to see US universities capitulate to government demands regarding DEI policies and open discourse on campus, in China, leading institutions are publicly controlled by default. University leaders, who are appointed by the government, “have no liberty of saying no. They dare not defy orders.”
Nevertheless, people in the US are beginning to take precautions that were once confined to more authoritarian countries. One professor at a US university who was previously outspoken on bilateral matters declined to be interviewed for this article. He stated: “Honestly, I am scared of suppression here: I genuinely feel less afraid criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad
