When Vickie Wang, a rising performer, takes the stage in New York, she is not just considering what humor to deliver. Additionally, she carefully considers which topics to avoid. “I refrain from directly attacking the administration,” she stated. Or if she does, she ensures it's not recorded for social media. “I'd never publish openly material in which I directly criticize the government … I think this is a learned behavior from China.”
Wang, thirty-nine, resided in Shanghai for almost ten years, leaving in 2022. By 2025, she relocated to America. Upon arrival, she dove into an intense period of “revenge bingeing on democracy,” going to lectures, demonstrations, and exploring the city's public library.
But in the year since Donald Trump was elected again, there has been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she says. “Back home, I knew where the line was, while in the US I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Wang’s concerns reflect an emerging climate in the US which numerous individuals from China, or people with experience in China, find eerily familiar. Enemies are ostracised. The president expects total allegiance. Journalists are targeted. Establishments come under fire.
Trump has openly expressed about his admiration for China's leader, the nation's strongman leader. He has described him as “fantastic”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in economic tensions recently, the camaraderie between both figures of countries with vastly different political systems became clear. Following years of optimism in the US that closer ties with China may help the rising power become more open, under Trump 2.0, it appears as if America is shifting in the Chinese direction, rather than vice versa.
“America is experiencing a period of cultural revolution,” stated Zhang Qianfan, a professor at Peking University. “The president, Donald Trump, is trying to mobilise the masses to sideline or undermine the elite … similar to events in the country half a century ago.”
Ever since the administration unleashed what's termed a government streamlining body, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy early on in office, numerous Chinese observers see US politics via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the mobilisation of young people to execute the leader’s will, or cleansing institutions of those deemed opposition, Trump from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered Mao-style chaos to the US, albeit absent equivalent degrees of force.
However since the upheaval of the initial period of the new administration has calmed, an unfamiliar, different kind of climate has emerged in the US, which in different ways also feels recognizable to many Chinese individuals.
‘The Lighthouse Has Become Less Bright’
The deepest parallel between Trump’s America and China is the suppression on open expression.
A former police officer, now a CCP dissenter, ended up in the eye of a storm this year, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in his homeland. He has lived in America for several years, having fled the country due to harassment from officials.
Last fall, following the passing of Charlie Kirk, Deng tweeted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Like people nationwide – many of whom lost their jobs as a result of expressing criticism regarding him – Deng faced a huge backlash. Relatives was doxed and he faced allegations of espionage seeking to divide the US.
“This incident surprised me deeply. I hadn't thought such a thing could happen in the United States – something that should only happen in a repressive state,” Deng said.
Deng’s pile on came from fellow social media users, instead of the government, but that kind of public monitoring bears parallels with China.
“In terms of going after those who disagree and monitoring open discourse on topics deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge in the US,” noted Maria Repnikova, an associate professor at a US university. “This is that you see in the East now as well,” she said, adding that concerns are rising in the US of students reporting on teachers, a form of monitoring promoted by Chinese authorities.
The professor, the legal expert, said that progressive thinkers like himself once turned to the US for ideals, since openly discussing internal affairs in the country is dangerous. But now, “The US is no longer a god for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has declined generally.”
“We once viewed America as the beacon of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, that guide appears less luminous”.
Progressive Chinese, typically, at least in private, critical of the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than the US's, he stated. “It's somewhat difficult to acknowledge this reality … but after the pandemic, authorities seems to be doing correct policies in environmental protection and promoting EVs and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “Western nations, exemplified by the United States, appear in decline.”
The Trump administration’s acquisition of shares in American firms has also drawn parallels with China, where the distinction between state and business is often blurred.
On Monday, authorities announced it would become a shareholder in a startup specialising in rare earth processing, following comparable shares in additional firms deemed vital to national security. The deals have made certain stakeholders concerned that the US is entering a new era of government meddling in private industry.
There are still major differences between Trump’s America and the East. In October, multiple media outlets including the Guardian refused to sign to a defense department rule that required reporting solely on approved information. US courts have halted or overturned many of presidential measures, something that would be impossible in China’s party-dominated judiciary.
An analyst, who established of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “The United States might face the worst crisis of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it would remain freer, open, and liberal than the East under its leader.”
The professor notes that although numerous scholars in the country were surprised to see American colleges capitulate to government demands regarding diversity and inclusion practices and open discourse on university grounds, in the East, leading institutions are all state-owned by default. University leaders, which are appointed by the government, “have no liberty of saying no. They can’t afford defy orders.”
Nevertheless, people in the US are beginning to adopt measures that were once confined to more authoritarian countries. An academic at a US university who was previously vocal on US-China issues declined to be interviewed for this article. He said: “Honestly, I fear of suppression in the US: I genuinely feel less afraid criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad
