As Vickie Wang, an emerging performer, takes the stage in the Big Apple, she is not just thinking about what humor to tell. Additionally, she weighs which topics to avoid. “I don't engage in directly attacking the government,” she explained. Or if she ventures there, she ensures it's not captured for online platforms. “I would never publish openly material in which I directly criticize the government … I believe it's a learned behavior from China.”
Wang, 39, lived in the Chinese metropolis for almost ten years, departing in 2022. By 2025, she moved to America. When she got there, she embarked on an intense period of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” going to talks, demonstrations, and delving into the city's public library.
But in the year after the president was elected again, there has been a “palpable change” in the environment, she says. “In China, I understood where the line was, while here I'm standing on shifting sands.”
Wang’s fears reflect an emerging climate in the US which numerous individuals from China, or those with experience in the country, find disturbingly similar. Enemies face exclusion. The leader expects absolute loyalty. Reporters are targeted. Institutions are attacked.
Trump has not been shy regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, China’s strongman leader. He has described Xi as a “great guy”. As they agreed a temporary truce in the trade war on Thursday, the camaraderie between the two leaders of nations with diametrically opposed political systems was evident. And after decades of hope in the US that closer ties with China may help the rising power become more open, under Trump 2.0, it seems as if America is shifting in China's path, rather than vice versa.
“The United States is experiencing a period of cultural revolution,” stated a constitutional law expert, a professor at Peking University. “The top leader, Trump, is trying to mobilise the masses in order to sideline or weaken established figures … reminiscent of what happened in the country half a century ago.”
Ever since Trump unleashed the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy early on of his term, many in China see American governance through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the mobilisation of young people to carry out presidential directives, or cleansing institutions of perceived enemies, Trump as viewed from China has delivered Mao-style chaos to the US, though absent the same levels of violence.
However since the upheaval of the initial period of the new administration subsided, a new, different kind of political atmosphere has emerged in the country, which variously seems familiar to numerous Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Has Become Less Bright’
The most profound similarity between Trump’s America and China is the crackdown on open expression.
Deng Haiyan, turned CCP dissenter, found himself in a controversy this year, similar to what he once faced in his homeland. He resided in America for several years, after escaping China because of pressure from officials.
Last fall, after the death of a public figure, he posted that Kirk was “despicable”. Similar to others across the US – many of whom lost their jobs for expressing criticism about Kirk – he encountered a huge backlash. Relatives was doxed and he faced allegations of being a Chinese spy attempting to create division.
“That event was a real shock. I hadn't thought such a thing would occur in the United States – something that should only happen in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.
Deng’s pile on originated from online peers, instead of the government, but such of public monitoring bears similarities with the East.
“In terms of going after those who disagree and starting to surveil open discourse about issues deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge here,” said Maria Repnikova, an associate professor at Georgia State University. “That’s something observed in China today as too,” she said, adding that there were now fears in the US of students reporting on educators, a type of surveillance that has been encouraged by Chinese authorities.
Zhang, the Peking University law professor, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself once turned to America for political inspiration, since openly discussing domestic politics in China is dangerous. However, “The US isn't a god for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has declined generally.”
“We used to see the US 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, 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 post-COVID, the government seems to be doing the right thing in improving the environment and developing electric cars and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “the West, exemplified by America, seems to be declining.”
The government's acquisition of stakes in American firms has prompted comparisons with China, where the line between government and private industry is often blurred.
On Monday, authorities announced it will take a shareholder in a startup focused on mineral refinement, after taking comparable shares in additional firms deemed essential for national security. These moves have made certain stakeholders concerned that America is entering a new era of government meddling in private industry.
Yet, there remain major differences between the US under Trump and the East. In October, several news organisations including the Guardian declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that required they only report on approved news. American judiciary have blocked or reversed numerous presidential measures, something that would be unthinkable in the nation's party-dominated legal system.
An analyst, who established of Strategy Risks, specializing in China, commented: “America could descend into the worst crisis of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it will still be more free, open, and more liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang notes that while many intellectuals in China were shocked to see American colleges yield to government demands concerning DEI policies and open discourse on campus, in China, the top universities are publicly controlled inherently. University leaders, who are appointed by the government, “have no liberty refuse. They dare not to be disobedient.”
Still, Americans are starting to adopt measures previously associated with repressive regimes. An academic at a US university who was previously outspoken on US-China issues refused to be interviewed for this article. He said: “The truth is, I fear of the censorship in the US: I genuinely feel less afraid to criticise Xi these days than say anything bad
