When Vickie Wang, a rising performer, takes her platform in the Big Apple, she is not only considering which jokes to deliver. She also weighs what subjects to avoid. “I refrain from openly attacking the government,” she stated. Or if she ventures there, she ensures it's not captured for online platforms. “I'd never publicly share material in which I openly disparage the government … I believe it's a habit acquired back home.”
Wang, thirty-nine, resided in Shanghai for almost a decade, leaving in 2022. By 2025, she moved to America. When she got there, she embarked on an intense period of “overindulging on freedom,” attending lectures, demonstrations, and exploring New York’s public library.
However over the past year since Donald Trump returned to office for the second time, there has been a noticeable shift in the atmosphere, she says. “In China, I understood the boundaries, while in the US I find myself on unstable ground.”
Wang’s fears mirror an emerging climate in the US which many Chinese, or people who have lived in the country, find disturbingly similar. Opponents are ostracised. The leader demands absolute loyalty. Reporters are targeted. Establishments come under fire.
Trump has openly expressed about his admiration for Xi Jinping, the nation's strongman leader. He has described him as “fantastic”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in economic tensions on Thursday, the bonhomie between the two leaders of countries with diametrically opposed political systems was evident. Following years of hope in the US that improved relations with China could assist the growing nation to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it seems as if the US is being pulled in the Chinese direction, instead of the other way around.
“The United States is undergoing a period of cultural revolution,” said Zhang Qianfan, an academic at Peking University. “The president, Donald Trump, is attempting to mobilise the grassroots in order to sideline or weaken established figures … similar to events in the country decades past.”
Ever since the administration unleashed the so-called a government streamlining body, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy early on in office, numerous Chinese observers see US politics through the lens of China's historical period. Be it the rallying of the youth to execute presidential directives, or cleansing institutions of perceived enemies, Trump as viewed from China has brought Mao-style chaos to America, albeit without equivalent degrees of force.
However since the turmoil of the initial period of the new administration subsided, an unfamiliar, distinct type of climate has emerged in the US, which variously also feels familiar to many Chinese people.
‘The Lighthouse Is Dimmer’
The deepest parallel between Trump’s America and China is the suppression on free speech.
Deng Haiyan, turned Chinese Communist party dissenter, found himself in a controversy this year, the likes of which he once faced in China. He has lived in the US for several years, after escaping the country because of pressure from the authorities.
Last fall, after the death of a public figure, he posted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Like people nationwide – who lost their jobs for making negative comments about Kirk – Deng faced significant backlash. His family had personal info leaked and he was accused of espionage attempting to create division.
“That event surprised me deeply. I hadn't thought such a thing could happen in America – something that typically happens in a repressive state,” he commented.
His pile on originated from online peers, instead of the government, but that kind of social surveillance bears similarities with China.
“In terms of going after dissenters and starting to surveil public speech about issues deemed controversial … It's appearing here,” said Maria Repnikova, a scholar at a US university. “That’s something that you see in the East now as well,” she said, adding that concerns are rising in the US of pupils informing against teachers, a form of monitoring promoted by Chinese authorities.
The professor, the legal expert, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself once turned to the US for political inspiration, in part because openly discussing domestic politics in China is dangerous. However, “The US isn't some kind of god for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has worsened generally.”
“We used to see the US as the beacon of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, this lighthouse seems to have become less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, typically, behind closed doors, critical of China’s political system, are increasingly finding it less objectionable than the US's, he stated. “It’s sort of painful to accept this … but after the pandemic, authorities appears to be pursuing correct policies in improving the environment and developing electric cars and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “the West, exemplified by the United States, seems to be declining.”
The government's purchase of stakes in American firms has prompted comparisons with China, where the distinction between government and business is frequently unclear.
Recently, authorities stated it will take a shareholder in a new company specialising in mineral refinement, after taking comparable shares in additional firms it considers essential for the country's safety. The deals have made certain stakeholders concerned that the US is embarking on a new era of government meddling in private industry.
There are still significant distinctions between Trump’s America and China. Last month, several news organisations including the Guardian declined to agree to a defense department rule that demanded reporting solely on government-authorised news. American judiciary have blocked or reversed many of Trump’s actions, something that would be impossible in China’s CCP-controlled legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, who established of Strategy Risks, specializing in China, commented: “America might face the worst crisis of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it would remain more free, open, and liberal than the East under its leader.”
Zhang notes that although numerous scholars in the country were surprised to see American colleges capitulate to official requests regarding diversity and inclusion practices and free speech on university grounds, in the East, leading institutions are all state-owned by default. Administrators, who are selected by the state, “cannot refuse. They dare not to be disobedient.”
Still, people in the US are beginning to take precautions that were once confined to repressive regimes. An academic at an American college once vocal on bilateral matters declined to be interviewed for this article. He stated: “Honestly, I fear of the censorship in the US: I actually feel less afraid to criticise Xi now than say anything bad
